The 30 Day Anime Challenge Day 10 – My Favorite “Fighter” Anime

Already a Third of the Way Through?!?

I can’t believe that this post is already a third of the way through the 30 day challenge. Time sure goes by quickly with these daily posts. Any way, here’s a quick reminder of the posting schedule so you can see what’s been done and what’s yet to come still. For today I’m supposed to talk about “my favorite fighter anime” which I interpret as anything with a TOURNAMENT ARC (™) or something similar. This was a tough one so let’s see what I ultimately decided on.

Back when I was a kid I would have said DBZ but I really don’t remember that much about the show and haven’t watched it in years. My more immediate thought today would actually be the 2011 adaptation of Hunter x Hunter but seeing that I haven’t finished that yet… So then I got to thinking about what constitutes a “fighter” anime.

Obviously, a show where people fight. That’s a lot of shows, so it still needs some narrowing down. A show primarily about fighting. That’s better I think. This definition brought me to Ben-To which I do not by any means consider a favorite. In fact, I had a lot of problems with that one.

Still, I was feeling like things got a lot closer with that definition. Then I remembered that shows like this almost always have a TOURNAMENT ARC (™) in them. I then proceeded to throw everything I had thought up thus far out the window and just decided that if a show included one of those, it was good enough. So what did I settle on?

C-Control.

While this may not even be among my favorite anime normally. I simply couldn’t decide on what made an anime a predominant “fighter” anime. C-Control is largely about one-on-one battles though so it is basically one giant tournament. On top of that, the idea of basing a bunch of fighting moves around economic principles since the show is about finances was really interesting.

The anime does Gainax itself in the end though. This was a real letdown because the ending is really solid… until you realize it still has 10 minutes left. Then the show goes and messes everything it had going for it in the end. Discounting that, it’s a solid action show with some tragic moments in it. It’s not a masterpiece or anything but neither was this prompt so I figure it was a fitting choice.

What about you? What constitutes a “fighter” anime in your book and what one would you have chosen to discuss? Let me know in the comments below along with your thoughts on my pick for today. If you would like to help me out a bit please consider supporting me on Ko-fi, especially if you like the work I’m doing here. Join me once again tomorrow for day 11 where I’ll be talking about my favorite mech anime. As always, thanks for reading!