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The 20 Best Female Characters From Sports Anime
Sports anime can feel like a total boys' club, but the genre actually has some great female characters who are also worth highlighting.
Who are the best female characters in sports anime? That depends on your preferences, but there are some excellent choices. Some sports anime girls play supportive roles in male-centered stories - often appearing as managers, coaches, family members, or love interests. Gou Matsuoka of Free! and Miki Kanzaki of Yowamushi Pedal are examples of this trope. But others, like Ayano Hanesaki of Hanebado! are the heroes of their own athletic journeys.
Let's celebrate these awesome girls and women from sports anime!
- 1
Hitoka Yachi & Kiyoko Shimizu - Haikyuu!!
Kiyoko manages the Karasuno volleyball team, while Yachi is the manager-in-training. Where Kiyoko is cool and collected, Yachi is an anxious mess - but both girls do a great job at supporting their team.
- 2
Gou Matsuoka - Free!
Gou Matsuoka is the manager of the Iwatobi Swim Club, as well as Rin's little sister. She can usually be found adding protein powder to foods that don't need it or admiring her teammate's muscles.
- 3
Riki Aida - Kuroko No Basket
Though she's only 17, Riki Aida coaches the Seirin basketball team. She has the uncanny ability to learn every detail about a person by "scanning" them.
- 4
Mila Babicheva - Yuri!!! on ICE
Mila Babacheva is a professional figure skater from Russia. She can usually be found teasing her rink mate Yuri Plisetsky.
Chihaya Ayase doesn't play sports in the traditional sense, but Chihayafuru, an anime about a competitive card game based on Japanese poetry, is structured exactly like a sports anime. Chihaya herself is a spirited protagonist you can't help but root for.
- 6
Nozomi Kaminashi - Keijo!!!!!!!!
Nozomi Kaminashi is involved in one of the weirdest sports in anime history - Keijo - which involves knocking your opponent into the water using only your breasts and butt. Nozomi is cheerful and enthusiastic about her chosen sport but is also highly motivated by winning money to support her family.
- 7
Mio Odagiri - Clean Freak! Aoyama-kun
Mio Odagiri isn't the best basketball player, so she seeks helps from her classmate Aoyama - who doesn't have any real advice, but finds himself amazed when it turns out that he can actually touch her without freaking out and needing to wash his hands.
- 8
Ayano Hanesaki - Hanebado
Thanks to a strained relationship with her mother, Ayano Hanesaki doesn't want to play badminton. Her extreme talent, combined with her rivalry with fellow badminton player Nagisa Aragaki, eventually draw her back into the world of the sport.
- 9
Chinatsu Hiyama - Welcome To The Ballroom
Chinatsu Hiyama is a skilled ballroom dancer with an attitude to match her talents. It takes her a while to warm up to her dance partner Tatara Fujita, but when she does the two work magic together.
- 10
Hanako Katsuta - Run With The Wind
Hanako Katsuta is a high school student who is helping Kiyose Haiji on his quest to create a winning team of runners. When she's not doing that, she's helping her family run their vegetable shop.
- 11
Maria Momoe - Big Windup!
Maria Momoe coaches the Nishiura High School baseball team. She's so passionate about the teams' success that she took on a second job, washing windows, in order to help pay the team's expenses.
- 12
Aotsuki Wakana - Ace Of Diamond
Aotsuki Wakana is Eijun Sawamura's childhood friend, but she does more than just cheer from the sidelines. Actually, she was on his middle school baseball team, playing alongside him.
- 13
Miki Kanzaki - Yowamushi Pedal
Miki Kanzaki doesn't just manage the Sohoku High School cycling team - she also works part-time at her family's bike shop, where she's learning to fix and maintain the equipment her team relies on.
- 14
Tazusa Sakurano - Ginban Kaleidoscope
Tazusa Sakurano is a professional figure skater with big dreams of entering the Olympics. Her goals are complicated when she's possessed by a ghost named Pete Pumps - a major challenge for an independent girl like Tazusa to handle.
- 15
An Tachibana - Prince Of Tennis
An Tachibana is Kippei Tachibana's sister. She's intensely protective of her brother and holds grudges against people who do him harm. She doesn't like being underestimated due to her gender and is always ready to stand up for her friends.
- 16
Tamaki Ishigaki - Taisho Baseball Girls
Tamaki Ishigaki is more interested in writing than baseball, so it took her a while to be willing to join the team. She was ultimately persuaded to do so when she realized that she could learn about human nature from participating in a team sport, knowledge that she could then apply to her true passion.
- 17
Yukiko Shirato - Megalo Box
Yukiko Shirato is the head of the wealthy Shirato Group, which organizes and oversees the Megalonia boxing tournament. Her brother Mikio is desperate to prove that he's superior to her and wrest control of the company form her competent grasp, but it won't be so easy.
Emi Akezawa is a complicated woman. She loves her husband so much that she always sides with him when he abuses her son Baki - but she ultimately does decide to protect her son from him, at the cost of her own life. Sports anime doesn't usually get this dark, but when it does, those characters stay with you.
- 19
Yawara Inokuma - Yawara!
Yawara Inokuma appears in an anime adaptation of one of Naoki Urasawa's more light-hearted works, Yawara! She's incredible at judo but would prefer to live the life of a normal teenage girl.
- 20
Obaba Tamura - Ping Pong: The Animation
After an injury stopped her from playing ping pong, Obaba Tamura turned to teaching children how to play the game. She serves as Peco's mentor over the course of the show.
