Forum - View topicWhy are many *sports* anime vastly over-rated?
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st_owly
 Posts: 5234 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland |
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Oh, baseball is definitely integral to Cross Game, no doubt about it. But yeah, it's definitely used as much more of a setting than it would be in a typical sports anime.
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9844 Location: Virginia |
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In response to the original question. I would say that the idea that people who watch sports anime do so because they are fans of that genre and go in prepared to like it is probably correct.
I would go further and suggest that the same findings would apply to any specific genre you look at. When people are new to anime, every thing is good and initial ratings reflect that. After they become experienced, they become aware of the different genres and will tend to avoid those shows they know they will not like and seek out those similar to those they do. Granted we a few masochistic twits who watch shows for the purpose of ragging on them, but most don't have the energy for that. The result of this is that most shows will have fairly favorable ratings. Further they will be rated on the strength of how well they met the expectations of the people watching. If you are trying to evaluate the shows on some "objective" or universal basis they will appear to be over rated. I feel this is not a bad thing. Someone looking for a sports anime to watch is going to be more concerned as to how it rates compared to other sports anime and not to some abstract perfect show. The same will apply to other genres as well. TLDR: Anime is entertainment. If you are not a reviewer, there is no point in watching shows you don't like. Most people don't and the user ratings reflect that. |
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Spotlesseden
Posts: 3514 Location: earth |
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there is no such a thing as over-rated in art. It's all about opinions. How do you proves that it's over-rated? Too many they are rated correctly because those people really enjoy the anime or other art. When you rank an anime, it will be either over-rated or under-rated to another person.
It's very normal for an American to dislike sports anime. Alot of very highly rated sports anime are very popular outside of US. maybe those people voted in ANN. Why don't you just say, you hate sports anime and call it a day? Why do you need to under value other people's opinions? Am I right with this guess, or Haikyu!! and stunning number of other sport anime with "Excellent" average rating do truly have mastery of intricate storytelling, sophisticated character development and other goodies that could be seen in many "Excellent" anime of other genres? Sports anime has different storytelling style, it has alot of character developments and back stories. What other "Excellent" anime of other genres are you talking about? You should try to give some examples, i can guarantee you that it has different type of story telling style than sports. Last edited by Spotlesseden on Thu Mar 26, 2015 9:56 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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Interesting. I generally like good sports anime like Girls und Panzer and Chihayafuru. Might give this one a shoot. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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Indeed. In the US sports anime is not popular because anime draws a different type of public than in other countries, it's more nerdy and niche in the US (relative to Brazil at least), so it draws people who like stuff like Ghost in the Shell and Ergo Proxy, not Big Windup! |
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MaxSouth
Posts: 1363 |
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I did watch Chihayafuru and Hikaru's Go. Those two are unique in subject and either excellent or outstanding in delivery of the story/whole package of features of those projects.
Those are not your typical sports anime where everything is built on adrenaline hype up over super cool moves (often times absurdly magical) and just competitiveness.
I did want to watch Cross Game due to rating and great reviews. However, as other commentator has mentioned here, baseball is not a thing that he/she could can possibly understand even after watching all of this Cross Game project. In case of Hikaru's Go and Chihayafuru that I watched, I did manage to understand what happens there in terms of pure game/sport aspect, not only the story. With baseball, it is more complicated since you almost have to re-format your mind to understand it. I had baseball explained to me a number of times, I did almost, kind of understand it, but still did not truly grasp what it is -- aside the fact that games last forever with not a lot actually happening comparing to their length, and that number of games per year is incredibly big. Because of this I am still not committed watching Cross Game. However, since commentators say that baseball thing may not be crucial in it, but rather a setting, I might reconsider. (But, ultimately, it would be much easier for everyone if authors just have chosen as setting more universally understood sport.) Last edited by MaxSouth on Sat Mar 28, 2015 9:28 am; edited 2 times in total |
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RestLessone
 Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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Sports anime can be divided into the type that use sports as a setting or vehicle for another, often thematic, journey (Cross Game, Ping Pong) and ones that have characters develop within, through, and because of a sport. Furthermore, these can be further divided into relatively realistic series (Haikyu, Ace of Diamond) or ones that opt for magical, hyperbolic moves (KuroBas, Yowamushi Pedal).
I think it's unfair to ask an author to choose a sport with a "universal setting," particularly when karuta and go aren't popular to begin with. Besides that, baseball is popular in Japan, the US, Canada (?), Australia, Cuba, and some other countries. I don't see what's difficult to understand about it, either--though I did grow up in the US, so it's a common sport and we'd play in gym class. Do you want authors to just write about soccer/football and cricket? |
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Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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Isn't baseball the most popular sport in Japan? In both number of players and number of spectators? What other sport would come closer to being universally understood? |
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MaxSouth
Posts: 1363 |
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@Touma: I meant global market, i.e. "universally" in literal sense.
@RestLessone: as I explained, the issue with baseball is not that it is not universal per se, but the fact that this sport is not very well understandable even if you get it explained or watch whole Cross Game anime about it, as a commentator above did -- unlike go and kurata, which are even less known worldwide, but somehow more understandable. (By the way, American football, even though it is not really a "football" as it is not mostly played by feet, and the shape of the apparatus is not ball at all -- a melon maybe -- is more intuitive thing to understand. Though I would oppose use of this sport as setting because of different issue: it severely destroys players' health. In current form it should be banned. Reforms of rules have to be made to improve safety. Previous reforms were done about hundred years ago, and people stopped dying right on the playing field regularly, but this is obviously not enough.) |
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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I've watched Hikaru no Go twice, and I can't say I learned much more than a very rudimentary understanding of Go. I found Hikaru enjoyable for the character development and drama, but it failed as a vehicle for learning about Go, even with the lessons at the end of each episode. Karuta is orders of magnitude less complex than Go so the game play and strategies were a lot easier to present in Chihayafuru.
Japanese studios make anime for Japanese viewers. Foreign sales rarely play a big role in their decision-making. Adachi's manga like Cross Game and Touch have wide readership in Japan and were thus attractive candidates for adaptations. For another example, how about Moshidora? Peter Drucker's tome Management is widely respected in Japan, more so than here in the West from what I've read. So it wasn't too surprising that a story about adapting Drucker to managing baseball would draw a Japanese audience and win awards. It wasn't as successful here because Drucker and baseball don't have the same resonance that they do in Japan. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11365 |
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@ st_owly and MaxSouth: When you say you don't understand baseball, do you mean you don't understand what people like about it, or you don't understand the gameplay? If it's the latter, I don't understand what you don't understand about it.
The basic rules are pretty simple. You throw a ball as hard and fast as you can toward someone holding a bat who gets 3 chances to hit it. The opposing team tries to retrieve the ball and throw it to the base before the batter runs there. I won't go into all the fine points like the strike zone or fouls or the different kinds of pitches that make the ball move in hard to predict ways because of physics, but most anime try to explain any other details or rules (like the infield fly rule) should they decide to bring them up. As to why people like watching baseball, well, in real life, you never know what's going to happen, but something amazing always does at least once in the game. And a perfectly executed double play is a thing of grace and beauty. As far as anime goes, I think it's mostly about the characters and the suspense of whether they win or lose (although in baseball, as far as I have seen, almost nobody ever makes it to Koshien, let alone wins there).
Max, you asked about why people liked Haikyuu!! It was marvelous not only for the character arcs and terrific animation (despite the unusual character designs), but for creative way shots were framed and especially transitioned, and how simultaneous gameplay was interlaced in ways that highlighted each group's story. Sometimes that series was just breathtaking in its artistry, in service to its storytelling and not just for art's sake. The story itself was not necessarily unique, but every character got their due, it was just plain fun, and the entirety of it was a masterpiece (can't wait for the BD in June!). |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9844 Location: Virginia |
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@Gina Szanboti
I'll have to disagree with you. People watch baseball because at any given time they know that nothing at all will happen. You can chat with your friends, get a beer, take a leak or read the paper and be sure that nothing important happened while you were not paying attention. Professional baseball players are superb athletes who spend most of their time on the field chewing tobacco, scratching their ass and looking bored. Every so often there is a brief burst of action and then they go back to standing there. There is more actual action in televised golf and that is as much fun as watching grass grow. Baseball fans get deeply into statistics as nothing else is going on. Baseball anime and movies have to have deep human drama for the same reason. |
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RestLessone
Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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I'm also a bit confused about the difficulty in understanding baseball. I never felt the need to 'reformat my mind' or anything. The previous poster seemed to be saying that they don't understand baseball because, being British, they weren't very exposed to it. That's understandable and, I mean, it's fine if you do find it hard to understand, but I've never heard people with similar complaints. You might find it easier to understand the sport if you watched something like Ace of Diamond or Big Windup, but based on your comments I don't think you'd like them. Haven't seen Touch or Major, so can't comment there.
I wasn't talking about American football, which already has a zany manga/anime in the form of Eyeshield 21. I was using it as a synonym of soccer. Last edited by RestLessone on Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:16 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11365 |
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@ Alan45: There is truth in what you say, but they also watch awaiting those amazing plays and just really odd things (like hitting a passing bird with a pitch.
 ) that baseball somehow lends itself to. For me, unless I personally know the players (and for any sport, that makes all the difference to me), I'd just rather watch the highlight reels for the amazing stuff. Anime baseball also lets you into the heads of the players while nothing is apparently going on from an outside pov, so there's that. Also anime baseball players are much easier on the eyes. I've never understood how professional baseball players can be so flabby, and chewing tobacco and spitting should be banned.
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9844 Location: Virginia |
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I suspect the apparent flabbiness of baseball players is deceptive. Baseball requires bursts of speed after standing still for extended periods. It requires superb reflexes and coordination. Good players, especially pitchers, have to be aware of what is going on everywhere on the field. The game itself is boring to the casual watcher.
I'm not claiming that other sports are better. I've never been able to understand the charm of watching other people engage in exercise. |
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