Why Anime Sports Festival Episodes Are Such A Common Trope

The sports festival seems to be a staple of anime. Whether it's a grounded slice-of-life comedy like Silver Spoon, a fantastical battle shonen like My Hero Academia, or something in between like Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, there will always be some hot-blooded youths looking to show off their athleticism. These festivals can last anywhere from a single episode to an entire arc. As for why they're so common, it has to do with their significance to Japanese culture.

Sports Day is a national holiday held in Japan on the second Monday in October. It's meant to commemorate the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics, held in the Autumn for its convenient and optimal weather conditions. The objective is to promote exercise and an active lifestyle. Schools will celebrate by giving students a day off from classes so that they can compete in various events.

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Sports festivals technically have a long history in anime. The oldest recorded anime featuring a sports festival is Doubutsu Mura no Sports Day (Sports Day at the Animal Village) from 1932; it's an eight-minute short featuring several anthropomorphic animals competing in various sports. The second-oldest anime to feature a sports festival after that is Azuki-chan from 1995. Since these series have come out, sports festivals have become a frequent addition to anime featuring school kids.

Like the Olympics, sports festivals host a wide variety of events. There are basic events like relay races, tug-of-war, and long jumps. They also have games that wouldn't be at the Olympics, like three-legged races and ball-tossing games. As for Japan-original events, there are things like kibasen (cavalry battles) and Bo-taoshi (pole-toppling). Other popular events include scavenger hunts and no-hands bread-eating races. All these events and more have appeared throughout anime sports festivals in some way, shape, or form.

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Of course, when an anime features a sports festival, it usually adds a fun twist. The twist will depend on what kind of anime is being presented. Comedy anime like Azumanga Daioh and Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto will focus on the potential hijinx on and around the field. If the comedy also has a romance element to it, like Komi Can't Communicate or Maid Sama!, then contestants could be shown achieving ridiculous feats for the ones they love; this is just in series without any fantasy or sci-fi elements. Since sports festivals are real-life activities, most Japanese audiences can often find something about anime episodes depicting them relatable.

Things get turned up to 11 when fantasy is introduced to the sports festival story arc, especially when it's a battle shonen. Series like My Hero Academia, Naruto, and A Certain Magical Index count on the characters having superhuman abilities to achieve incredible feats and participate in extravagant competitions. This is to say nothing of battle shonen that will use sports festivals as another excuse to pit characters against each other in straight fights. Since sports stories invoke the same high-energy, never-give-up feelings present in shonen series, having shonen characters compete in sports is like a match made in heaven.

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Besides this, sports festivals are a sort of break in the regular action of a series, as contradictory as that sounds. Even if there's a competitive or battle element to them, they're supposed to be low-stakes moments in the series where the only thing anyone has to lose is their pride. At the end of the day, sports festivals are all in good fun.

When it comes to anime, sports festivals should be looked forward to just as much as the school trip or the culture festival. Not only are they an integral part of Japanese culture, but the fact that they are in an anime should suggest something interesting and exciting will happen. They're a fun distraction from the regular events of the story, but they also have a unique spin to them that makes them all the more entertaining.