New Sports Anime 2025

While not as common as isekai or romance, sports are a fixture of every anime season, even if it is just two or three shows. As 2024 slowly ends and its successor begins to come into focus, the lineup of 2025 sports anime is starting to take shape, and the upcoming year seems set to highlight a few fairly unusual activities. Sure, soccer and baseball stories will likely make an appearance sooner or later, but the world could use another golf or figure skating series. Heck, the world could use a single bowling anime.

As the weeks and months roll by, more and more upcoming sports anime will be revealed. While the roster is far from complete, a few shows have already penciled in their names for 2025, and they will all compete to see which of them deserves to be described as the year’s best offering in the genre. Let’s go through all of them.

Updated on December 11, 2024 by Mark Sammut: The 2025 sports anime lineup is starting to take shape, particularly for Winter 2025. The following series have been added to the article: The Catcher in the Ballpark!, SK∞ OVA: Extra Part, and Kinnikuman: Perfect Origin Arc Season 2.

Winter 2025 Sports Anime

Medalist

Based on an ongoing seinen manga that has produced more than 10 volumes, Medalist follows Inori and Tsukasa’s journey toward the ultimate prize in ice skating: an Olympic gold medal.

Although not extremely well known, the manga has a fairly positive reputation, largely thanks to its two likable leads and relatively grounded tone. Inori’s dream is near impossible, but she is a capable figure skater with the drive to achieve everything. Tsukasa serves as Inori’s mentor and coach, and their dynamic should act as the anime’s heart and soul.

ENGI is a peculiar pick for this series, especially since the studio does not have a history of adapting sports stories. Still, ENGI’s resume has a couple of decent shows (Trapped in a Dating Sim being the best), so hopefully, Medalist ends up receiving an above-average translation.

Sorairo Utility

Technically, Sorairo Utility debuted back in 2021 via a short film, one that is set to be expanded upon in Winter 2025. While nothing amazing, the film is harmless fun and should foreshadow what the full series is likely to be: A lighthearted Cute Girls Doing Cute Things anime about golf.

Surprisingly, golf has featured fairly consistently in recent years, with Birdie Wing, Tonbo!, and Rising Impact revolving around the sport. Even more surprising, they are all good series in their own right, all the while telling very different stories. Sorairo Utility seems set to follow in these shows’ footprints, telling a relaxing and comedic story about three friends who are just having fun on the range.

Kinnikuman: Perfect Origin Arc Season 2

A continuation of the Summer 2024 season, Kinnikuman: Perfect Origin Arc is more battle shonen than traditional sports, but it can satisfy people craving either type of series. The franchise has been around for decades and is quite well-respected, even if it is not extremely well-known outside of Japan. There are not all that many wrestling anime out there, and that goes triple for over-the-top action-fests with galactic-level scope. The 2025 season will probably not attract too many new viewers since Muscleman has been around for so long by this point, but there is nothing to suggest it will fail to maintain the series’ standard of quality.

SK8 the Infinity has already confirmed that a full sequel is in the works, although a release year has yet to be confirmed. In the meantime, fans of the skating anime can look forward to a one-episode OVA, which already has a confirmed release date. This release contains four short episodes that seem to highlight different characters, including the main duo (Reki and Langa) and Miya. While hard to say how substantial or compulsory it will be, this OVA should be a fun return to this universe, which has mostly been dormant since 2021.

Upcoming 2025 Sports Anime With No Release Season

100m (Movie)

The only sports anime movie announced for 2025 so far, Hyakuemu is based on a complete manga that lasted for less than a year before coming to an end in 2019. While that might appear short, that means the anime has a full story to adapt, and a feature production makes the most sense for a manga with only 40 chapters.

Focusing on short-distance running, Hyakuemu revolves around a rivalry between Akane Taketsugu and Yuuki Katayama, both of whom are prodigies to an extent. The former helped the latter fine-tune his skills, and they are now competing against each other.

The Catcher in the Ballpark!

Now, here is something a touch different. Sports stories pretty much exclusively focus on the athletes chasing their dreams, focusing on their everyday efforts to become the best of the best. However, very few shows emphasize spectators, people who are not directly involved with the action but also see sports as a big part of their lives.

The Catcher in the Ballpark! shines a light on Koutarou Murata, a guy who turns to baseball as an escape from the daily grind. More importantly, he meets Ruriko, a vendor girl who takes a strange interest in him. The seinen manga has been around since 2020 and offers a fun slice-of-life comedy twist on the sports genre.

Turkey!

Yes, this is it: The bowling anime. An original series, Turkey! follows a group of girls who love nothing more than to bowl, and they are (seemingly) part of a team. At the moment, little information about the show has been revealed, although the trailer did highlight the voice actors who will be handling the main characters.

Although too early to say, Turkey! might be another Cute Girls Doing Cute Things sports anime, at least going by the promotional material. That said, they are shown wearing a uniform, so they will likely be competing against other teams. While a fairly young studio, Bakken Record was behind 2023’s “Ippon” again!, a pretty decent judo anime.

Uma Musume: Cinderella Gray

Who could have predicted that a franchise about racing horse girls would have such staying power? Uma Musume Pretty Derby has produced games, manga, and anime, and it is showing no signs of slowing down. The anime has three seasons, a spin-off, and a movie under its belt, and they range from “pretty good” to “great.” If everything goes well, Uma Musume: Cinderella Gray could represent a high point for the franchise.

Based on a well-regarded manga, Cinderella Gray pushes Oguri Cap to the forefront, chronicling her training, drive, and trials as she aims to be the best of the best. The story should be quite mature and even heavy at times, all the while still offering intense races that have become synonymous with Uma Musume.

Wandance

Going by a few different titles, Wandance is all about freestyle dancing and the freedom it can provide. Self-conscious due to a stutter, Kaboku tends to prefer to hide in the background; however, he becomes inspired to join his high school’s dance club after he sees a girl named Hikari in action. Although he proves to have a talent for moving with the beat, Kaboku has a long way to go before he feels confident in himself.

Wandance could be great, at least the source material is already on that level. Coffee’s manga has a striking visual style and two very strong protagonists, with Kaboku and Hikari being great as individuals and as a unit.