After being inspired by the small, but talented volleyball ace Little Giant, Shouyou Hinata trains endlessly despite his middle school not having a boy’s volleyball club.
Managing to scavenge enough athletes at his school to field a team for a middle school volleyball tournament, Hinata is soundly crushed in his first and last game of middle school by King of the Court, Tobio Kageyama.
Swearing to surpass him, Hinata joins the volleyball team in high school only to discover Kageyama is now his teammate.
Who would have thought it would be a volleyball anime that would sit at the pinnacle of the sports anime genre? It just shows what a great group of characters and the right amount of intensity can do. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Haikyuu, head on down below.
Anime Like Haikyuu!!
For Fans of Overcoming Short Stature
All Out
Gutsy young go-getter Kenji Gion joins his school’s rugby team as soon as the entrance ceremony is over.
There, he finds three distinctly different teammates that not only have differences in personalities, but in performance as well. This is their story about how they grow as a team.
Both Haikyuu and All Out follow short, scrappy main characters that don’t have the ideal build for their sport, but have a ton of passion for it. They both play out like real underdog stories where everyone looks at those main characters, writes them off, and then is super impressed by how they overcome their obstacles.
Both series enjoy quirky characters, but Haikyuu does a little better job endearing all of its characters to you.
Hinomaru Sumo
Ushio Hinomaru is a new student, small of stature and body. However, he appears before the sumo club of his school and wishes to join.
Although all the other members are big men, the sumo club is hardly renowned. However, this little sumo wrestler has a goal – the Hinoshita Kaisan, the pinnacle of sumo wrestling.
Just like Hinata has practice-honed skill for volleyball despite his lack of height, Ushio has a ton of practice-honed skill at sumo, but is too short to compete professionally. Both anime series really excel in showing short, scrappy main character fueled by pure fiery passion.
However, unlike Hinata, who is actually rather unskilled because he didn’t have a team to play with, Ushio is extremely skilled, but trying to overcome a physical restriction. This means Haikyuu has a focus in growing the main character’s skill, whereas Hinomaru Sumo invests you in the way the main character is potentially going to overcome his restriction in order to go professional before high school ends.
Ahiru no Sora
Sora Kurumatani has always had a passion for basketball, but he has always lacked the height for it. Despite missing what some may deem necessary to be a successful basketball player, Sora tries his hardest to improve his abilities.
Upon entering high school, he immediately joins the school’s basketball team, but finds that it is a haven for delinquents and most players have lost their passion for the sport. Determined to revive the team, Sora challenges them to a match. After seeing him play, it is his skills and effort that rekindle everyone’s passion for basketball.
Basketball and volleyball – two sports where height is actually probably one of the most important things a player can have. So, naturally, both Haikyuu and Ahiru no Sora are sports anime about those two sports where the main character is very short.
Both series follow short main characters that have been pushed by pure fiery passion for their sports. However, whereas Hinata found a great team in high school, Sora found the basketball team at his high school was just a home to delinquents. As such, Ahiru no Sora is more about his passion inspiring the rest of the team to actually try.
For Fans of Volleyball
2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team
After being forced off the volleyball team at his old school, star setter Kimichika Haijima moves back to his childhood hometown of Fukui.
There, he reconnects with his childhood friend, Yuni Kuroba, who is a member of his school’s volleyball team. Seeing Kuroba’s talents, Haijima tries to make him into an ace, only for a rift to form between them when Kuroba crumbles in a tournament under the pressure.
Now as students at Seiin High School, Haijima and Kuroba are on the same volleyball team again, but this time, Haijima tries to help Kuroba with his performance anxiety.
Both Haikyuu and 2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team are innately similar in that they are both sports anime about volleyball teams, but they differ in key ways. Consider 2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team as an anime where Kageyama is the main character, and he really was a terrible tyrant on the court. This series is about him essentially trying to repent for his bad behavior.
As 2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team follows a heavier story, it is a sports anime that focuses more on the character drama than the hype and intensity of the sport.
Harukana Receive
After moving in with her grandmother in Okinawa, Haruka Oozora stumbles upon some girls playing beach volleyball. Invited to play with them, a friendly game suddenly turns into a competitive match when one of those girls, Narumi Tooi, notices Haruka’s cousin, Kanata Higa, approaching them.
While Haruka plays with her cousin, the two are soundly beaten and she learns that Narumi and Kanata used to be an exceptional beach volleyball duo until Kanata quit due to her short height causing Narumi problems.
However, to overcome her anxiety, Haruka wants Kanata to team up with her for the upcoming Junior Tournament.
Haikyuu may be super popular, but the sport of volleyball, well, still isn’t. As such, you have limited options for sports anime if you actually like the sport of volleyball and not just how Haikyuu made it more exciting.
Both Haikyuu and Harukana Receive are sports anime about volleyball, specifically focusing on duos in the sport and a passionate player with a height issue. However, Harukana Receive did the typical thing anime does to bring in easy fans – lewded it up.
Harukana Receive is about girls’ beach volleyball. Expect glittering flesh and boob bounce.
For Fans of Hype-Inducing Anime
My Hero Academia
After the sudden appearance of super powers, or “quirks,” now 80 percent of humanity has some kind of power. With some Quirk users turning to crime, it gave rise to super heroes that help the police keep the peace.
Since he was a child, Izuku Midoriya has idolized super heroes, especially the symbol of peace, All Might, but he is devastated to learn that he won’t manifest a Quirk himself. Still, he studies super heroes and is determined to become one.
After a chance encounter with All Might, Midoriya learns that there still may be a chance for him to be a hero after all.
Part of the charm of Haikyuu is watching a scrappy little guy who was told he would never be able to do something work tirelessly and then be able to follow his passion to great success.
While My Hero Academia is innately different in that it is a shounen action anime about super heroes, and not a sports anime, it captures that same rewarding, inspiring sense of hard work that Haikyuu feeds you through Hinata.
Midoriya works hard and finds a path to being a hero despite not physically being able to just like Hinata and his height.
Furthermore, both Haikyuu and My Hero Academia do large casts of characters well. You like most of them and you remember most of them because they are made memorable and unique. This is more of an achievement for Haikyuu, however, since characters in sports anime are often just normal people. Super heroes are a bit easier to remember.
Blue Lock
It was the split decision to pass the ball instead of selfishly take the shot that lost the Nationals-qualifying soccer game for Yoichi Isagi and his team.
When he returns home, the striker receives an invitation from the Japan Football Union that invited three hundred strikers to participate in a controversial project called Blue Lock.
In the Blue Lock compound, the strikers are honed into diamonds via a series of competitions that encourage egoism and selfish play in hopes to train a star striker for the Japanese World Cup team.
Although unsure at first, Isagi becomes compelled to crush the dreams of the other 299 strikers in Blue Lock to be at the top.
While Haikyuu follows a more traditional sports anime route, Blue Lock takes a sport and mixes up the formula, transforming it into more of a survival game than the traditional competitive tale of standard play.
However, while Haikyuu can best be described as the more wholesome of the two, what Blue Lock and Haikyuu have in common is an extreme passion for intensity. In every match, both series injects so much tension that it feels like a life-and-death struggle. It makes it devastating when they fail, but so rewarding when the characters overcome their challenges.
Yowamushi Pedal
Although otaku Sakamichi Onoda hoped to join the anime club to make friends in high school, he sadly finds it disbanded. To cheer himself up, he decides to bicycle to Akihabara – a 90km round trip he has been doing since elementary school on his mommy bike.
When determined, competition-minded cyclist and fellow first year student Shunsuke Imaizumi is practicing peddling up an incline at the school’s rear entrance, Onoda’s effortless skill at climbing on an inferior bike it baffles him enough to challenge him to a race.
It is this race and the fire it ignites that fuels Onoda to put his dreams of reviving the anime club on the back burner in order to join the school’s cycling club.
If I went back to 2013 and told people that an anime about volleyball would not just sweep the sports anime fandom by storm, but would be the “anime fan maker,” that attracted tons of new non-anime watchers to watch anime, no one would believe it. Yet, both Haikyuu and Yowamushi Pedal, an anime about cycling, are proof that you can make more obscure sports into absolutely addicting, inspiring monsters with the right cast.
Both series follow less popular sports, but they are carried by their extremely likable, extremely passionate characters that you want to see succeed. You get addicted to the training, you enjoy the moments outside the sport, and mostly you just enjoy watching the characters follow their passion.
Kuroko’s Basketball
For three years in a row, the Teikou Junior High basketball team took the championship crown thanks to their outstanding players. However, after graduating, the team split up and went to different high schools.
At Seirin High School, two students have been recruited to the team. Taiga, a player just returning form the US, and Kuroko, a student whose lack of presence allows him to move around the court unnoticed.
Kuroko was Teikou’s phantom sixth man who, while receiving little recognition, guided the team to victory with his assists.
What makes a sports anime very popular? If you were to watch Haikyuu and Kuroko’s Basketball, you would quickly learn – Intensity.
While Kuroko’s Basketball is more of what you would call a “super power” sports anime where the characters all have unique abilities that they use in the sport, it does wield those super powers to create an exciting intensity that Haikyuu does instead with cinematography.
Both Haikyuu and Kuroko’s Basketball use tension and intensity to create edge-of-your-seats sports anime while also creating unique characters to be invested in.
Chihayafuru
Growing up in the shadow of her older sister, Chihaya Ayase is strong-willed and a tomboy with no dreams of her own. However, after learning an outcast in her class, Arata Wataya, has incredible skill at karuta and his huge passion inspires her, she is pulled into the world of the poem-based card game along with her other childhood friend, Taichi Mashima.
While Chihaya grew a passion for karuta with her two childhood friends, they grew distant when they were separated in middle school. Now a high schooler, Chihaya still aims to be the queen of karuta and wants to compete with Arata again to grow her skill.
You can’t say that volleyball or karuta are particularly interesting, and yet both Haikyuu and Chihayafuru made two of the top sports anime about these subjects. How do you reach this pinnacle with sports that don’t have a large natural fandom? Tension.
Both Haikyuu and Chihayafuru wield tension masterfully in their portrayal of the sports. You have likable characters in both that draw you in initially, but when they actually start to play, it makes the sport seem as exciting and tense as a high-speed car chase down a crowded highway.
Aside from the sport, there is a difference in tone between these two series. Haikyuu is an exciting and youthful shounen sports anime. Chihayafuru, however, is Josei. This means it gives more time to its character drama and relationships.
For Fans of Supportive Teams
Big Windup!
Ren Mihashi was an ace of his middle school baseball team, but only because his grandfather owned the academy. Due the obvious and unwanted nepotism, Ren was crippled by anxiety over how his pitching led to the team’s constant losses, even with the endless practice he put in.
The bullying of his team and low self-esteem got so bad that Mihashi decided to go to high school in another prefecture, intent on giving up on baseball despite his love for it.
However, when he is unwillingly dragged onto the school’s reviving baseball team, he finds that his new teammates might just be his perfect match.
What if… Hinata wasn’t a burning meteor of passion, but was instead a quivering mass of anxiety due to previous team abuse? Because that is Big Windup.
Both Haikyuu and Big Windup follow (admittedly similar looking) main characters who gave their very all to practicing a position in a sport that they love. However, they lacked something crucial that they needed. Hinata needed a team and a skilled setter in particular whereas Ren needed proper coaching and a catcher that could rehabilitate his dismal self confidence.
Both series are about the main characters getting what they need and growing. However, Big Windup takes little longer to get going since overcoming mental issues in a sport is a lot tougher and Ren was quite broken by his previous team.
While Haikyuu does a better job at creating interesting characters, both Big Windup and Haikyuu focus on team sports as team sports where the main character is helped by his more experienced peers.
Stop This Sound!
After the senior members graduated, Takezou is now the sole member of his Japanese string instrument club. Facing termination, he now begins his search for new members when suddenly a wily one bursts right into his club room.
Chika has a strong reputation as a violent thug, but due to his grandfather being a renowned koto artisan before his death, he has a passion for the koto that will help Takezou revive his dying club.
Stop This Sound may be a music anime, but it sure does play out just like a sports anime. Typically, music anime isn’t portrayed like a “team” sport, even though you could say that it is if you are in a band. Stop This Sound follows not just a single koto player, but koto playing in a group. Like in team sports, every member has a role to play.
Both Haikyuu and Stop This Sound follow scrappy newcomers with a big passion for the activity of the anime. People say they can’t do it, but it is their hard work that powers them through and endears them to the naysayers.
Ace of Diamond
After a bad last pitch, Eijun Sawamura is frustrated when his last middle school ball game ends in a loss. Determined, Eijun and his team vow to make it to Nationals in high school.
However, everything is thrown for a loop when his unique pitching style earns Eijun an invitation to Japan’s top high school for baseball. Accepting, he struggles to find his place on a team of such talent.
Both Haikyuu and Ace of Diamond are sports anime about team sports that really put an emphasis on the team as a whole. You follow a fiery main character that has some noticeable flaws at the sport that they need to overcome, despite having talents for very specific aspects of that sport.
For a good chunk of both Haikyuu and Ace of Diamond you follow a main character who forms a bit of a rivalry with their more experienced, more talented peer. It is this rivalry that propels them and grows them. They find themselves inspired by each other to get even better.
Run With The Wind
Once an elite runner, Kakeru is now only running to escape those accusing him of stealing food.
While fleeing, he meets another runner, Haiji, who persuades him to live in his old apartment complex.
There, Kakeru finds it is full of fellow residents who all have one goal – to enter the Hakone Ekiden Marathon. Unfortunately, aside from he and Haiji, they are all pretty novice.
Both Haikyuu and Run With The Wind take sports that aren’t exactly naturally popular and make phenomenal anime about them. What makes them great isn’t the sport – it is the characters.
Both Haikyuu and Run With The Wind take team sports and it makes sure to invest you in the whole team and not just the main character. You are introduced to a larger cast, and given a reason to remember and enjoy each one of them. Both series really enjoy exploring the individual issues plaguing each person despite still clearly having a main character.
There are a few key differences between these series, though. Run With the Wind follows college students, which leads to a different, more mature dynamic – mostly that many of these characters are getting ready to be proper adults soon. As such, some of the character drama focuses on that and the escape from it that the sport provides. Run With The Wind does focus a little more on serious drama and isn’t so much into intense action, but it still rewards you with the characters’ successes in the sport.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Haikyuu? Let fans know in the comments section below.
