10 best anime featuring tournaments that you should try

Anime featuring tournaments are exciting to watch, with characters showcasing their skills and abilities against each other. The competition is intense, and the stakes are always high. Tournament arcs reveal the character development and enable thrilling battles.

They bring out amazing fights, unique superpowers, and admirable sportsmanship. Training montages, surprise team-ups, unlikely friends turned fierce rivals—tournament arcs pack all the excitement shounen fans crave, into a single, exhilarating competition.

If you love the thrill and excitement of tournaments, these 10 anime featuring tournaments are a must-watch. They feature some of the best tournament arcs in the anime world that will undoubtedly hook you and leave you on the edge of your seat.

10 must-watch anime featuring tournaments for action fans

1) Hunter x Hunter

Hunter x Hunter follows the journey of a young boy named Gon Freecss who strives to become a Hunter like his father. Hunters are licensed elite members of humanity, who are capable of tracking down secret treasures, rare beasts, and even other individuals.

The Hunter Exam arc features one of the most iconic anime tournament arcs. It sees Gon and other applicants undergo deadly challenges across harsh terrains to qualify as professional Hunters.

With eccentric examiners designing bizarre stages testing the limits of human physical and mental capabilities, applicants drop out one after another. It culminates in exciting one-on-one duels between Hisoka, Hanzo, and Gon— displaying immense skill and hair-raising action.

2) Yu Yu Hakusho

The primary storyline of this anime featuring tournaments revolves around intense battles, including tournaments held in the Demon World. Protagonist Yusuke Urameshi competes in these martial arts competitions, alongside teammates and rivals with special techniques.

The contest battles are fun to watch, owing to the variety of abilities displayed. What is impressive about Yu Yu Hakusho is how the tournaments progress from preliminaries to finals seamlessly, while showcasing character growth. Yusuke's team undergoes intensive training sessions to develop their skills.

The grind leading up to the intense face-offs makes the fights even more rewarding.

3) Dragon Ball

The iconic Dragon Ball series follows Goku, as he quests to acquire the dragon balls capable of granting any wish.

The World Martial Arts Tournament is a frequently recurring competitive event— pitting skillful fighters in matches and spectacles of superhuman strength and speed. Goku has competed in multiple tournaments since his childhood, experiencing both victories and defeats.

Fan-favorites like Tien Shinhan, Piccolo, and Vegeta are integrated as rival contestants. The tournaments have humor and camaraderie between fighters, yet deliver bone-crunching, jaw-dropping fights— like Goku’s first bout with Piccolo.

4) My Hero Academia

In an alternate world brimming with superheroes and villains, My Hero Academia charts protagonist Izuku Midoriya’s rise from a Quirkless boy into one of the world’s greatest heroes.

U.A. High School organizes an annual Sports Festival that pits future heroes-in-training in challenging contests, beyond saving civilians. The event features an obstacle course showcasing quirk mastery, a cavalry battle, and a one-on-one tournament— revealing rivalries, friendships, and inner struggles.

Facing his explosive childhood friend Bakugo, Midoriya unleashes unexpected power and resolve in this anime featuring tournaments.

5) Food Wars!

For Food Wars!, eccentric exiled chef Soma Yukihira, and Totsuki Culinary Academy’s cutthroat cooking school regime culminates in the high-stakes Autumn Elections Tournament— one of the academy’s intense competitions.

Soma braves elimination rounds featuring peculiar cooking themes, against Totsuki’s elite students, to be crowned the best. The vivid reactions of judges to the students’ appetizing dishes are entertaining.

It also provides satisfying character depth— from the touching backstory of meat expert Ikumi Mito to Erina Nakiri recognizing Soma’s cooking prowess begrudgingly over time, though she does not compete in the Autumn Elections.

6) Naruto

Ostracized as a monster yet determined to gain his village's respect, Naruto Uzumaki aspires to become the Hokage leader of the Hidden Leaf Village in Naruto. The iconic Chunin Exams feature shinobi prodigies competing to qualify for the next ninja rank.

After a treacherous forest stage and preliminary elimination matches where Hinata boldly faces stronger cousin Neji, the remaining contestants, like fan-favorites Naruto, Sasuke, and Shikamaru, advance to the tournament finals to showcase their abilities.

Naruto uses his Shadow Clone technique and resourcefulness to defeat Kiba in the preliminaries, earning his spot in the finals. However, the tournament's championship match is interrupted by Orochimaru's invasion.

7) Haikyu!!

Small-statured Shoyo Hinata’s love for volleyball inspires him to train relentlessly to defeat rival Tobio Kageyama in Haikyu!!. They bitterly compete in middle school, only to grudgingly become teammates participating in tournaments against formidable foes.

Pivotal games against powerhouse schools like Aoba Johsai and Shiratorizawa showcase thrillingly animated volleyball plays, as Hinata, Kageyama, and teammates utilize innovative techniques and teamwork honed from harsh practices to reach the top.

Matches highlighting individual growth to overcome weaknesses, like Hinata’s initial poor receives, make the team’s victories more glorious.

8) The God of High School

The God of High School (Image via MAPPA)

When a fighting tournament offers the winner any wish in The God of High School, Jin Mo-ri competes, while searching for his missing grandfather.

What begins as a stage for some fun hand-to-hand skirmishes steadily unveils a secret world of ancient powers behind the scenes. The bold animation and hard-hitting martial arts against a diverse range of regional fighting styles make matches pop, even amidst increasing supernatural stakes.

Backstories exploring the past traumas motivating fighters’ wishing desires add deeper engagement.

9) Baki

The protagonist, Baki Hanma, trains rigorously in deadly martial arts to surpass and battle his father, Yujiro—the ogre regarded worldwide as the world’s strongest creature alive.

Centering on the Underground Arena Tournament, organized beneath the Tokyo Dome, this anime featuring tournaments delivers bone-crunching and bloody brutality, depicting the human body’s shocking resilience.

Fighters sustain gruesome injuries, and the grotesque depiction of muscles and blood splatter is a signature of the series. While deaths in the tournament are rare, battles outside it— against deadly convicts and other martial artists— can be fatal. Viewers who can handle the intense violence will find exhilarating action.

10) Kengan Ashura

Kengan Ashura (Image via Larx Entertainment)

Corporations settling business disputes by proxy battles with hired gladiator fighters provide a fresh take for sports fans wanting more realistic consequences.

Kengan Ashura’s protagonist, Tokita Ohma, shockingly resurfaces in this underground arena, and competes in the Kengan Annihilation Tournament, attracting eccentric personalities and styles like the psychotic Akoya Seishu.

The character histories, from Tokita’s mysterious past to Yamashita trying to save his company, raise the stakes, while the hard-hitting fights feature clever tactics— using feints or targets on vital body points against superior strength.

Conclusion

Tournament arcs force characters to push past their limits, while bringing out surprising aspects of themselves and others.

With rising stakes and thrilling matchups, they make any anime much more gripping. The above recommendations feature some of the best tournament depictions in the anime world, ranging across martial arts, fantasy, sports, and cooking genres.

Their competitions integrate charismatic characters, captivating abilities, philosophical depth, and thematic purpose to entertain and inspire. Give these anime featuring tournaments a watch if you enjoy a good thrilling underdog story.