A devastating loss, a toxic team, a debilitating accident – Whatever the cause, it serves as a catalyst for a player quitting the sport they once loved. It it a popular way to start a sports anime. It is a pretty simple way to build a character with some skill at the sport, but missing the necessary motivation and support to thrive there. It also artfully dodges creating yet another “prodigy” character in the sport, sometime so already overdone that it dilutes down the word. If this return to sports theme is your jam in for sports anime plot, we have anime recommendations for that.
Best Sports Anime Where The Main Character Returns to Sports
Tsurune
This series puts all the magic that KyoAni usually brings to the table and focuses it at Kyuudo, or Japanese archery. In it, the main character suffers the loss of his mother which causes him to throw the big tournament in middle school. So he endeavors to give up the sport in high school. As you would expect, the series is much about the people in his life rehabilitating him through this complicated trauma. While Tsurune has a strong focus on the sport, as any good sports anime does, it also brings a nice grounded and human drama that really shines in the show.
Re-Main
This water polo anime focuses on a once-prodigious star who was put into a coma after a car accident. He not only lost significant muscle density, but lost the memory of the past few years. This means that when he awakens he has lost all interest in a sport that he was once so clearly passionate about. In his new school, the water polo team only has the one member and the main character has no interest in joining it. Of course, he ends up doing so anyway due to circumstance.
Big Windup
Where Big Windup truly succeeds is capturing that anxiety and loss of confidence that can come with a sport. In Big Windup, it focuses on the main character who constantly lost due to his poor pitching ability on his old team. He was eventually bullied until graduation and had no intention to play baseball in high school. As one could expect, he is pulled onto a middling team in his new high school where his confidence is built back up by the positive influence of his not toxic team.
Run With the Wind
This series about running follows a once-star sprinter who has stopped running now that he has entered college. One day, and event leads to him accepting an invitation to live in a dorm that turns out to be populated by the track club. The leader of which wants to run in the prestigious Hakone Ekiden long distance relay race, but everyone else is only novice runners. In this series the main character is not so much reluctant to get back into running, but rather disillusioned that rookie runners can make it to and through the race, but goes along with it anyway.
2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team
In the usual fashion, the main character is forced off his volleyball team in Tokyo and moves back to his hometown after an incident. The unique twist is that he notices the untapped talent of his childhood friend and decides to revive the volleyball team in his new school to surround his friend’s clear talent. It is for sure one of those sports shows in which the main character is really helping themselves through service to another.
Burning Kabaddi
I’m sure Burning Kabbadi introduced a lot of people, myself included, to a very real and particularly interesting sport that is kind of like tackle soccer. Regardless, the main character was a nationally recognized soccer player who developed a hatred for that sport. He enters high school doing what all modern high schoolers do (I assume) and becoming a livestreamer. Yet, after an incident, he finds himself pulled onto a Kabbadi team, ultimately charmed by the same intensity that we all were charmed by.
Hungry Heart: Wild Striker
This soccer anime features an only just pretty good soccer player who is overshadowed by his professional soccer player older brother. As such, they were constantly compared to their more talented brother, and it leads to them quitting the sport. As this is a bit of an older sports anime, they of course get dragged back into soccer in high school and, of course, are rehabilitated through the power of friendship.
Try Knights
Now, I was hesitant to put this on here because Try Knights is a bit of a hot mess. However, maybe you like watching bad anime that doesn’t actually know the sport it is trying to showcase. Whatever. I won’t yuck your yum. Regardless, it does technically fit the bill here. An ex-rugby player enters high school with dying passion for the sport and adrift about what to focus his energies on. After a clandestine meeting with a member of the rugby team, the passion is reignited.
Skate-Leading Stars
This series tries to be notably different from Yuri on Ice by being about fictional Skate-Leading. It also has a plot that focuses on spending time with a rival rather than a mentor. Regardless, the entirety of the plot surrounds a figure skater who quits after their rival refuses to acknowledge them. He is then very easily convinced to switch to skate-leading after his rival switches to the sport. It is not the strongest sports anime in terms of grounded drama, but it is a fun watch.
Tamayomi
It is the girl’s turn to shine in this baseball anime. In it, you have two childhood friends that dream to play together. One plays baseball despite moving while the other kind of gives up a bit. She is inspired to join the team in high school, and in doing so, soon fulfills her promise to play baseball together with her childhood friend again! It is wholesome sports anime at its best, but it is not cute girls doing cute sports things like some of the more wholesome ones.
H2
While H2 is aged, it is an adaptation of an Adachi manga, so its quality in terms of story cannot be denied on that alone. In H2, a boy with a passion for baseball injures his elbow and is forced to quit. He ends up playing soccer instead, but after the soccer team starts trying to humiliate the baseball club, he ends up switching.
Do you have more sports anime series where a once-great player comes back to sports? Let fans know in the comments section below.
