We’re just a few months away from the 2024 Summer Olympics, so there’s no better time to talk about sports – a prominent theme in manga, with the first Japanese comic books featuring characters playing baseball dating back to the 1920s. Some have greatly influenced the development of the sport they depict, while others have literally sparked a national fervor. Because they often deal with themes such as growing up, surpassing oneself and fighting spirit or friendship, they are loved by people of all generations.
Nowadays, more and more famous athletes even cite manga characters as their main source of inspiration. There are manga about almost every single sport that exists, even minor ones. If you’d like to try your hand at a genre not usually represented in Western comics, but don’t know where to start, here are 10 celebrated titles worth checking out. A couple have not yet been translated for the Western market, but have been translated into anime.
10. Yowamushi Pedal
By Wataru Watanabe / Published by Yen Press
Sakamichi Onoda is a high school freshman with no friends, whose only interests are anime and the otaku culture of Akihabara. He’s teased by other students for using an old city bike as a means of transportation, until a fellow freshman who belongs to a bicycle racing club notices Onoda riding up a very steep cliff at high speed with no effort. The bicycle club decide to recruit him for his extraordinary riding skills…
With its diverse cast of colorful characters, Yowamushi Pedal will satisfy both the connoisseur of the sport – thanks to its numerous references to the world of cycling – and the uninitiated.
More details can be found over at YEN PRESS.
9. Eyeshield 21.
By Riichiro Inagaki & Yusuke Murata / Published by Viz Media
Years of being forced to run errands by other high school students has given timid Sena Kobayashi phenomenal running speed. This doesn’t go unnoticed by Yoichi Hiruma, captain and quarterback of the school’s American football team, who cajoles him into becoming the team’s star running back to rally the rest of the team.
Illustrated by Yusuke Murata, the manga artist best known for One Punch Man, and written by Riichiro Inagaki, who has collaborated with several artists on various projects, most notably Dr. Stone, this series is an exciting dive into the world of American football, a relatively minor sport in Japan.
More details can be found over at VIZ MEDIA
8. Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl!
By Naoki Urasawa / Published by Shogakukan (Japan only)
Yawara Inokura is a typical teenage girl, or so it seems. Her grandfather, a living legend in the world of judo, has secretly been training her since childhood to win a gold medal at the Olympics. But despite his enthusiasm, all she aspires to is an ordinary life.
One of the early works of Naoki Urasawa – best known for manga like Monster, 20th Century Boys and Pluto, which was recently adapted into an anime on Netflix – this humorous sports series was such a hit that it sparked a huge judo boom in Japan that when judoka Ryoko Tani won the silver medal at the Barcelona Olympics, she earned the nickname Yawara-chan. While the manga has yet to be translated into English, the anime Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl! was released in North America in the late 2000s.
7. Haikyu!!
By Haruichi Furudate / Published by Viz Media
Hoping to follow in the footsteps of “The Little Giant”, a nationally famous player with a short stature, diminutive junior high school student Shoyo Hinata trains by himself for two years before gathering enough members to form a volleyball team. Unfortunately, in their first official match, they are crushed by the team of Tobio Kageyama, a prodigious setter. Hinata resumes his training, determined to get his revenge one day. Upon entering high school, the two boys meet again, but this time they must be teammates on the Karasuno High volleyball team, an old powerhouse that has lost its reputation.
Although only released a few years ago, Haikyuu!! has already established itself as a classic of the genre thanks to its detailed depiction of athletic challenges as well as personal and mental struggles in sports. The anime adaptation has also received much praise, winning praise from real-life volleyball players. Despite ending several years ago, this is still a hugely popular manga in Japan.
More details can be found over at VIZ MEDIA
6. Ping Pong
By Taiyo Matsumoto / Published by Viz Media
Childhood friends with completely different personalities, Peco and Smile are both skilled members of the same high school table tennis club. Peco is a cocky and carefree kid who thinks he is one of the best players out there… until he gets crushed by a Chinese exchange student and loses all confidence in his skills. Smile, on the other hand, is a shy and quiet teenager who, ironically, almost never smiles. Though extremely talented, he lacks the motivation and mental toughness needed to win. How will the two boys progress through high school, and will they be able to overcome the psychological obstacles that prevent them from being their best?
While best known for its 2002 overseas film adaptation, Ping Pong is a manga that has had an incredible influence on all sports manga following its original publication. The character-driven story may seem very common now, but it was incredibly innovative when it was first released. It’s been a classic in Japan for decades, critically acclaimed even by those who don’t usually read manga.
More details can be found over at VIZ MEDIA
5. Prince of Tennis
By Takeshi Konomi / Published by Viz Media
Young tennis prodigy Ryoma Echizen wins four consecutive tournaments in the US, before returning to Japan to join Seishun Gakuen Junior High. He quickly rises through the ranks of the school’s prestigious tennis club, despite still being a freshman. The Seishun Gakuen team take on several rival schools in hopes of becoming the number one tennis club in Japan.
The 42-volume series and its ongoing 40+ volume sequel make for a very successful franchise that has spawned a number of anime, musicals, live-action movies, video games, and more. Popular for its tennis matches (which are nothing short of superpowered battles) and for its extensive lineup of good-looking characters, it is said to have led to the growth of tennis as a competitive sport in Japan in the early 2000s.
More details can be found over at VIZ MEDIA
4. Hajime no Ippo
By George Morikawa / Published by Kodansha
Ippo Makunouchi is a shy 16-year-old with no friends, spending all his time helping his single mother run the family fishing boat business. He’s regularly humiliated by jocks from his local high school on a daily basis until a professional boxer teaches him some basics in hopes of boosting his morale. Ippo develops a passion for the sport and decides to become a professional boxer himself.
Hajime no Ippo is one of the longest running manga in Japan, with 140 volumes already and far from being over. Not only does it focus in detail on Ippo’s career with all its ups and downs, but it also follows a colorful cast of supporting characters and opponents with their own career paths. A well-balanced mix of action, humor, and drama, it still manages to bring new elements with each fight, even after being published for more than 40 years.
More details can be found over at KODANSHA
3. Captain Tsubasa
By Yoichi Takahashi / Published by Shueisha (Bilingual version)
The story of Tsubasa Ozora, a young boy in love with soccer whose only dream is to one day win the World Cup for Japan. From children’s soccer games to the national middle school tournament and, later, to international competitions, Tsubasa encounters many rivals who push him to always improve himself in the hope of becoming the number one player in Japan.
Whether you call it soccer or football, you can’t ignore the fact that Captain Tsubasa is the one who made the sport so popular in the Land of the Rising Sun, at a time when there was no professional league in Japan. His influence didn’t stop there, though, as the anime’s adaptation popularity spread across borders to feed the dreams of young kids around the world in the late 80s & early 90s, particularly in Europe and South America. A number of today’s top professional players even openly acknowledge that Captain Tsubasa is what got them into soccer. While the original series has many sequels – always taking it a step further into the world of professional soccer – the author unfortunately announced his retirement earlier this year. Still, I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of it.
More details can be found over at SHOP E-READERS
2. Touch
By Mitsuru Adachi / Published by Shogakukan (Japan only)
Kazuya and Tatsuya are twin brothers whose resemblance is only physical. They’re both both secretly in love with their neighbor and childhood friend, Minami. Kazuya is the star pitcher of his high school baseball team, hardworking and perfectionist, loved by all his classmates. Tatsuya, on the other hand, although a naturally gifted athlete, is lazy with a somewhat defiant attitude towards any kind of effort. Which of the brothers will fulfill Minami’s dream of leading the high school baseball team to the famous Koshien National Baseball Tournament?
Touch is known by literally everyone in Japan! It’s a favorite of people who love baseball manga – a very popular genre in Japan – as well as those who enjoy teen romance stories. But what really made it a success was the 1985-1987 anime adaptation, which was an even bigger hit than the manga and whose opening theme has since become a classic of Japanese pop. With the manga having sold more than 100 million copies and spawned an anime, a live-action movie, a TV show, and a sequel, it’s amazing that it still hasn’t been translated into English. So far, only another work by Mitsuru Adachi, Cross Game, which covers similar themes, seems to have been released in the English-speaking market. Hopefully there will be more to come.
1. Slam Dunk
By Takehiko Inoue / Published by Viz Media
Hanamichi Sakuragi, an immature and unpopular young delinquent, is determined to finally find a girlfriend when he enters Shohoku High School. There he falls in love with Haruko Akagi, the younger sister of the captain of the basketball team. Hoping to seduce her, he reluctantly joins the team, where his natural athleticism proves an invaluable asset despite his fiery temper. As he bumps heads with his teammates and faces off against various rival teams, rookie Sakuragi begins to change, realizing that he may not be in this game just for a girl.
Not only is Slam Dunk usually at the top of almost every sports manga list out there, it’s often at the top of the list for manga enthusiasts of all genres. Its creator, Takehiko Inoue, is considered one of the best manga artists in Japan, and while his subsequent series Vagabond and Reak (which are still unfinished) have also been successful, Slam Dunk is undoubtedly his biggest hit. It’s influenced countless artists and athletes around the world, and there’s even a scholarship program in Japan called the Slam Dunk Scholarship, designed to help young Japanese basketball players attend prep school in the US. You don’t have to be interested in basketball or sports to enjoy Slam Dunk. If you appreciate good storytelling and great art, this is a title you need to add to your reading list.
More details can be found over at VIZ MEDIA
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