Sports anime has been a major genre in the anime community, with titles like Kuroko no Basket, Haikyuu, and Free being some of the most popular sports titles in anime, even well-known with non-anime watchers. They give us an equal amount of excitement as watching sports in real life, as they show off the techniques and skills needed for the purpose of playing the game. In sports anime, they are usually mixed with other genres to make the show more interesting, but they are mostly combined with one of two genres: Comedy or Drama. The comedy aspect makes the whole show funny, but at thesame time interesting, while the drama gives us a deeper insight on the people playing the sport in the anime.
While I do watch some sports anime from time to time, there’s an important aspect of sports that hasn’t really been explored: para-athletic sports. Para-athletic sports, or also called paralympic sports, are sports that are mainly for people who have physical disabilities. These types of sports are really important as they give disabled people a chance to show their physical abilities to the world, since they don’t have the means to do so in regular sports. Unfortunately, all of the sports anime that have been shown until now involve healthy, enabled people… until now.
Breakers is the first anime (that I have the knowledge of) to actually be about para-athletic sports with actual disbled people. Not only that, it’s probably the first one I've watched to mainly focus about the sports themselves. There’s a bit of comedy and drama involved, but the sports ultimately outweigh all the rest. There are 16 episodes all in all, but each only lasts around 9 minutes, minus 30 seconds if you skip the ending song. In the anime, there are 4 para-athletic sports involved, with each arc lasting for 4 episodes. It may seem weird that there are only 4 episodes for each sport with each lasting only 9 minutes, but trust me, it works.
The story of the show mainly focuses on a scientist named Narita and his ball invention named Tama. Narita is more like a sports scientist, and his specialization is in para-athletic sports. He looks for people who have the potential and capability to compete in these sports, and he trains them and teaches them to bring out their full potential in order for them to compete in the national level of these kinds of sports. With each person, he gives them the techniques they need to learn in order to play, or sometimes advice on certain things in order to help them to grow by themselves. The characters involved with each of them are disabled in some way, and what I liked about this anime is that they properly show these disabilities while at the same time, showing how they can actually play the sports properly.
As said in the description, there are 4 sports involved: wheelchair basketball, track and high jump, goallball, and paralympic swimming. Each one gives us insight on how para-athletics play different sports. Almost all of them are rather self-explanatory, as they are similar to their regular sport counterparts, except for one: Goalball, which is my favorite arc. This sport is my favorite because I actually never heard of it before, and it’s a fun sport. Even able-bodied people can play it, as it is for blind people, those who play it blind themselves with a mask in order to play. Because of this, everyone can play the same game no matter if you can see or can’t. It’s pretty interesting to see, so I won’t explain that much so you can watch it in the anime.
In terms of animation and sound, it’s pretty average, nothing out of the ordinary. But they really do animate the movements properly when it comes to them playing and practicing the sports. Honestly, I didn’t focus on these two aspects that much, as I was more invested in the para-athletic sports and the characters who play them. But I think the art gets better as the arcs go on, as I noticed that Narita somehow gets sexier in the final arc.
Another thing I liked about this anime is that on the last episode on every arc, they show the real person who inspired the diabled character in the story as interviews. I was legitimately surprised to see that these characters were inspired by real people, but it makes sense. This anime wouldn’t have been made without the consultation of actual para-athletes. It’s really inspiring to see disabled people talk about the paralympic sport they play, and the challenges they went through while playing them. (EDITED; Thank you arvon2 for correcting me about the interviews, and also for being involved with making the English subs!)
I’d like to emphasize this point: this is NOT your typical sports anime. If you want an anime like Free, Kuroko no Basket, etc., look elsewhere. This anime purely represents and shows several types of para-athletic sports and people involved in playing them. This anime showcases a different aspect of sports, one that is important in the world, but is rather unknown. It gives us awareness of how different para-athletes are, and at the same time, how special they can be. If you want to learn more about these topics, then this anime is a great suggestion for you.
I hope that one day, more people will learn about para-athletics so that we can give more awareness to this world. Maybe one day, an actual full-season anime about para-athletics will be made, and if that time comes, I’ll definitely watch it.
Mixed Feelings
The topic on which the anime revolves sounded pretty interesting, although it had its pros and cons. As regards pros, it was good: the plot seemed intriguing and really prompted me to follow it to its deapest, as me trying every time to figure out what was going to happen next. Despite the shortness of the episodes, I have to admit I kind of enjoyed the way the story was outlined. Also, the characters looked nice, as they were introduced by episode (I think, 3-4 episodes per character). I also learned some things about paralympic sports that I had no idea about. Then, it wasfun.
Nevertheless, speaking of cons, I have to say I was maybe expecting a little too much from this show. I was obviously into it, but at the same time, while watching it, it felt like something was missing. I think that, with much more effort put into it, it would have turned out as an even greater show. The level of comedy was good, but this is not the only thing that makes a series look nice.
Eventually, it was fine, but slightly deepened. That's too bad, 'cause I honestly digged into it and I hope to do so in the future (if the series will ever be broadened).
