This post is a very long awaited response to Momomanamu's post at Anime Hanabi regarding their dislike of tournament arcs. If you read through it, it's a decently articulated post about why they have a dislike for shonen tournament arcs. There are some complaints about battle shonen in general back in the day where a studio had to put out an episode of a show a week which could lead to not much happening besides characters staring at each other and powering up for whole episodes. I don't have much to say against that because it is slow and not the modern standard anymore where shows get a year or more before the next slate even if I really am burnt out by shonen battle series right now. No arguments there.
But Tournament arcs. Yeah, I really like them. Not just in shonen battle series, but in other demographics and genres. Starting with just the shonen battle series, I love how unique they are compared to so many other shonen battle arcs. The saving of an entire country or cast declaring war against the world like in One Piece is great. Same with the suicide mission sort of arcs out of the Rurouni Kenshin and the Twelve Temples in Saint Seiya. Those are my favorites. But I love life and death combat in those arcs simply change to being the best and characters facing against others that also want to be the best.
Besides when outside forces are involved like in Yu Yu Hakusho and some arcs of dragon ball, the life and death situations aren't as strong and just characters relating and creating bonds through the love of fighting. Tournaments create all sorts of different contexts and those relationships can feel genuine because of that. Especially when those built bounds over the tournament are why the heroes can take on the almost invincible villains. All tournaments are character relationship builders where people can be friends and enjoy each other's company outside the match, but are foes the second they step on different sides of the ring and it's great.
Outside of shonen battle tournaments, I love how much the tournament idea of being the best can create so much nuance between a giant cast of characters. Chihayafuru is one of my favorite anime series of all time and it can be simply described as a large Karuta tournament arc just like most sports anime are tournament arcs. The difference involves the show being very self aware about how the larger cast is obsessed with playing this card game that doesn't matter in the long run with how they love it and how the obsession has changed their lives. It's one of many shows that can display the ultimate power of tournament arcs when they are allowed to flourish to full strength.
My favorite sports anime from last year was Ippon Again and it's a girl Judo sports anime that is a large tournament arc in one cour and it's incredible. I hope by the time this comes out, I'm caught up with Captain Tsubasa: Junior Youth Arc. That one is simply a soccer tournament arc and another adaptation of an older manga's story about a skilled soccer player named Tsubasa and his team facing against soccer teams from all over the world. Gundam Build Fighters is a show that I've rewatched with Dad recently and it's amazing how much you can get out of one Gunpla team facing down another in combat.
The Tournament Arc and the quest of becoming the best at something is a simple structure that so many things could be built from it. That is why I love tournament arcs. It is a framework that anything can be built from. It is up to the creator to make something out of it and that endless possibilities are why they are so interesting. I understand why people don't like them, but there are so many strong elements that draw me to them and I've just ran into so many tournament arcs that I like because I haven't even named all of them in this short post. Please ask me more about this and don't think that tournament arcs are just limited to one genre and demographics.
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