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5. Kaleido Star (Acrobatics)
Junichi Sato’s post-Sailor Moon work follows Sora Naegino as she aspires to take her acrobatic gymnastics to the biggest stage she can.
The Kaleido Stage is a fantastical circus, but auditions are cut-throat and Sora has more than her own share of bad luck simply making it on time.
The series puts a strong emphasis on teamwork and friendship as the protagonist works to better her own abilities and prove her worth to Kaleido Stages’ incumbent members.
6. Ace o Nerae! (Tennis)
With art akin to Dear Brother and Rose of Versailles, Ace o Nerae! (Aim for the Ace!) is a tennis manga by Sumika Yamamoto from the 1970s that was adapted into an anime series by Osamu Dezaki.
The classic shojo story follows 15-year-old Hiromi who finds herself enthralled by her senior Reika “Madame Butterfly” Ryūzaki on the tennis court. She decides to dedicate herself to becoming the team’s ace under Coach Munakata.
The story reinforces a lot of the dangerous work ethic that permeates sports series, like battling through a serious injury or abandoning emotional “dalliances” like romance.
Still, the manga is one of the best-seller sin its genre of all time and the anime garnered fan followings from both men and women.
7. Ginban Kaleidoscope (Figure Skating)
Like the majority of the entries this week, Ginban Kaleidoscope is a “lost” anime that’s received no legal release stateside.
The story follows aloof figure-skater Tazusa Sakurano, who is far from the media darling. Tazusa has Olympic aspirations though, but that all gets more complicated when, in a pseudo-Freaky Friday moment, she becomes possessed by a dead Canadian boy named Pete Pumps.
While most Americans have probably visited an ice rink, and figure-skating isn’t unheard of, Japan’s love of the sport is on another level.
Skaters start young and the pressure for perfection is a common theme, just like other more “traditional” sports stories. Professionals achieve a celebrity status akin to movie stars. Tazusa’s struggle to please the media is a result of those expectations.
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