Anime/Manga All fighting, no plot! - Tournament arcs

A mainstay of the battle and sports genres they also appear in series about any other number of topics. Cookery, magical girls, music, student councils and card games are just a few. Hell, even Kino's Journey had one and that's about a girl (or was it a boy?) riding around seeing sights on a talking motorcycle. Even without looking at a seasonal anime chart it's probably safe to assume that there are multiple tournament arcs raging on at this very moment, and they're unlikely to stop in the foreseeable future.

Do you enjoy tournament arcs? If so, which series contain your favourites? Are they something that you have enjoyed in the past but have gone stale over time? Are there any series which haven't got them that you wish did?

Tournament arcs are fun.

Negima! still contains my personal favorite as the tournaments are kind of a side plot to the main arc they fall in, so things don't just completely grind to a halt plot-wise.

Also I guess Love Live technically has tournament arcs lol.

I've always has a soft spot for tournament arc, for some reason they're just so enjoyable. Maybe it's because it pits characters against each other that are normally on the same side?

BNHA, Naruto, One Piece, Dragon Ball, Fairy Tale, Pokemon.... name any shounen series and it's a safe bet that the tournament arc(s) are one of my favourite parts if not the most favourite.

gimmepie said:

I've always has a soft spot for tournament arc, for some reason they're just so enjoyable. Maybe it's because it pits characters against each other that are normally on the same side?

BNHA, Naruto, One Piece, Dragon Ball, Fairy Tale, Pokemon.... name any shounen series and it's a safe bet that the tournament arc(s) are one of my favourite parts if not the most favourite.

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One Piece had no tournaments except in Dressrosa, which was pretty lackluster

strangerhypno said:

One Piece had no tournaments except in Dressrosa, which was pretty lackluster

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I mean, I wouldn't call it the pinnacle of all tournament arcs definitely but it was fun enough.

I've liked most of the tournament arcs that I've seen so I'd say it's a winning formula in general. The exceptions would be the TOP arc from Super since it dragged on forever and there was no reason to care about most of the participants. The other would be the last Yu Yu Hakusho arc because the demon civil war premise was a lot more interesting than the third tournament of the series that we ended up getting.

My favorite tournament arcs are the second tournament arc from the original Dragon Ball series and the Chuunin exams from Naruto. The trick is to break up the fighting from time to time with stuff that's just as interesting and fleshes out the characters.

I'm cool with all tournament arcs. As long as it's not the bs that is the Dragon Ball tournament arc, I'll pretty much not complain about any.

Palamon said:

I'm cool with all tournament arcs. As long as it's not the bs that is the Dragon Ball tournament arc, I'll pretty much not complain about any.

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What's bs about any of Dragon Ball's tournament arcs, out of curiosity? All the ones I've watched have been fine so far on my end.

donavannj said:

What's bs about any of Dragon Ball's tournament arcs, out of curiosity? All the ones I've watched have been fine so far on my end.

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This was moreso a jibe @ the tournament of power arc, lmfao.
imo, the tournament arcs are just more dragged out than they need to be.

Palamon said:

This was moreso a jibe @ the tournament of power arc, lmfao.
imo, the tournament arcs are just more dragged out than they need to be.

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Fair. I'm only actually at Dragon Ball's second or third World Martial Arts tourney. The one just after the time skip and before the shift to Dragon Ball Z.

You didn't like the tournament of power? I thought it was awesome ......

22sa said:

You didn't like the tournament of power? I thought it was awesome ......

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The animation was nice and the action sequences were fun but narrative-wise it fell a bit flat.