The Mike Toole Show

The Anime-lympics

Man, I love the Olympics. Despite the fact that enjoying the spectacle has become a complicated exercise that involves figuring out which channels and websites are broadcasting which events, trying to ignore heaps of irritating corporate ads, and brushing aside the occasional doping scandal, there's really nothing like it. Something about the international pageantry just appeals to me; the Olympics, and to a similar extent, the World Cup, represent the closest thing we have in the real world to G-Gundam. Sure, we might not have towering mobile suits, but we've got the over-the-top melodrama, all right - I still the 2010 Winter Games, and watching Shaun White, already a favorite to win gold, turn the sport of snowboarding on its head with a transcendent performance. The human drama of the games simply never gets old.

Okay, so how am I gonna tie this up to anime? Well, that's easy: there are some 30 events in this iteration of the Summer Olympic Games. I wonder how many of these games have a corresponding anime or manga-- one that's about the same sport? Let's find out!

I'll make it easy for myself by starting with soccer. I covered soccer anime extensively in one of my first columns for Anime News Network, so I can easily go ahead and tip Yōichi Takahashi's sprawling footy epic only covers the men's game, and women's soccer has risen to prominence in the past fifteen years. Don't worry - Takahashi's got us covered with Soccer Girl Kaede, a 2011 one-shot manga all about the life of a girl aspiring to greatness with Japan's women's soccer squad. The book is actually modeled after the real career of the talismanic Homare Sawa, who toiled for years as the country's top player before finally earning her place in history by scoring the goal that forced the final match to penalties, and victory for Japan. The US are favorites heading into the Olympics, but don't count Japan out - they knocked our ladies out of the Algarve Cup and held us to a 1-1 draw in Sendai earlier this year!

As for other team sports, there's basketball and New Attacker You!; the spirit of volleyball anime and manga is still alive.

Then there's good old field hockey. If you're reading this in North America, you know field hockey as a version of regular hockey, only played on grass, with participation slanted heavily towards ladies in high school and college. But outside of North America, it's just called hockey, (the hockey that's popular here is called “ice hockey”), and participation is much more balanced. My Heavenly Hockey Club takes the field hockey experience to Japan, where female Hana is dragged into the all-boys’ hockey club; the coterie of dudes vie for her attentions, because despite her slight physical form, she's got some sass-- plus, she gains phenomenal athletic ability when she gets shuteye-- and brother, Hana sleeps a lot! Hockey Club isn't top-shelf shoujo, but it's a zippy and fun affair.


That just about covers the competitive head-to-head team sports. The Olympics also features cycling. Kitarō Kōsaka, hits on aspects of the sport that aren't evident to casual fans. See, in most cases, cycling is still a team sport - your typical team will have a lead rider, who's trying to win, and several riders, who fight for space on the route, allow the leader to draft, and generally help out. Nasu's protagonist Pepe is a rider in the Vuelta de Espana with a complicated life - his old flame is marrying his brother, and he's hearing ominous talk about his sponsor dropping him. I'm really happy Mad House continues to take risks and make movies like Nasu - it's not the best of the 2000s, but it's an unusual and very worthy little anime film.

Oh god, I can't spend an entire paragraph on 30 sports! Okay, let's knock some over quick. Boxing has several contenders, but my favorite boxing anime has to be Tomorrow's Joe, in that story boxing is something the rough-edged hero, Joe Yabuki, struggles against. By contrast, Ippo’s Ippo Makinouchi uses the sport to make his own life better. Table tennis has the aptly-named Ping-Pong Club, a high school gross-out comedy that only uses the idea of a weird ping-pong team as a framing device. And while I couldn't find a suitable anime about dressage (I am 100% certain that there's good shoujo manga about the subject!), the undisputed #1 equestrian anime is Midori no Makibaoh, a shonen tournament saga in the form of horse racing that features a tiny, ugly, and utterly indomitable thoroughbred who uses speed and guts to win races.

Martial arts also get some time at the Olympics, so let's have a good look at judo next! You're all jumping up and down and screaming “Yawara!” but first, I gotta talk about the beautiful beast of a show known as Sunrise would animate just about anything, and it's all about one kid's dream to get all the way to the Olympics and compete for the gold. But along with pure gymnastics, there's also rhythm gymnastics, its artistic cousin. If you've seen Ranma ½, you've seen Kodachi, one of the title characters would-be paramours, using the props and moves of the sport as a means of fighting. Rhythm gymanstics is portrayed a bit more accurately in Legend of Hikari, a 1986 Tatsunoko TV series about a young girl who dreams of growing up to be the next rhythm gymanstics world champ, like her idol, real life world champion Diliana Georgieva-- but finds herself caught up in something of a love trapezoid.

Tennis has twin titans in Battle Athletes Victory, is great stuff, a fun and uplifting story about friendship, challenges, and one hell of a twist ending.

Time to hit the water. There are a few anime and manga titles that touch on the various disciplines of swimming. Interestingly, none of them are all that visible here in the west. The most prominent is probably Rough, because it's yet another engaging, artful, and fun sports manga from the great Ah My Buddha, has just launched a manga about water polo, Water Drop Rindo! It just came out in June, so I haven't seen it yet. As for synchronized swimming? Obviously, this is the best example!

Okay, maybe it isn't anime. You watched it anyway, right? And it was awesome, right? ‘Nuff said.

We're actually starting to run out of events. Archery is depicted fairly accurately in Satoshi Kon. Guess which one got dubbed and released in the US? Hint: NOT THE GOOD ONE. Rounding off this group is bton. Yep, bton, a sport that's actually hugely popular in countries such as Indonesia. The only bton manga I was able to find good information on is a title called Yamato's Shuttle, a 4-volume series that takes the standard shonen tournament formula and applies it to the sport of racquets and shuttlecocks.

We've got a grab bag to round things off. Let's see: sailing? Well, there are sails and masts and stuff in Kinnikuman definitely count! They are accurate depictions of the sport, I tell you!

What does that leave us with? Canoeing, pentathalon, and handball. I doubt there's a competitive canoeing anime. Pentathalon is several other events together. As for handball, I'd be willing to bet there's something out there that covers it. The sport looks odd to my American eyes, but it's played all over the world. Anyone got a good handball manga?

So after all that, what's left? These are all anime and manga about sports that feature at the summer Olympics-- but hey now, could there be an anime ABOUT the Olympics? In fact, there is!

Feast your eyes on International Olympic Committee, so there's never been a home video release for Sam. I hope someday we get to see it all!

With the London Olympics rushing up, I noticed something that amused me. As I walked into Target, I could only think one thought: Oh look! They're selling anime shirts again.