Having watched exactly 0 sports anime, it seems like every time there's a breakout one that everyone recommends, either the animators are going absolutely ham, or the "sport" is hand-painting playing cards or traditional Japanese standup comedy or something that's not a sport at all.
Slam Dunk is a basketball anime/manga and an extremely highly regarded one at that (the manga is in the top 20 of all time on MAL I'm pretty sure), but even if you hate basketball and really-drawn out matches, the show is hilarious enough for it to not matter much.
![Gosplan14's Guide to Anime Seasonals [Shitpost]](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/tRz686bJjb.png){kind=link}
Having watched exactly 0 sports anime, it seems like every time there's a breakout one that everyone recommends, either the animators are going absolutely ham, or the "sport" is hand-painting playing cards or traditional Japanese standup comedy or something that's not a sport at all.
Slam Dunk is a basketball anime/manga and an extremely highly regarded one at that (the manga is in the top 20 of all time on MAL I'm pretty sure), but even if you hate basketball and really-drawn out matches, the show is hilarious enough for it to not matter much.