Despite not being the biggest sports fan out there, I find myself drawn to sports anime. Something about watching the characters and how their stories progress gets me every time. The friendships, the rivalries, the drama , the reminder that you’re allowed to have fun, everything about sports anime puts a smile on my face. So you can imagine how quickly my eyes lit up when I saw that there’s a board game about it. Let’s talk about Tournament Arc and meet the creators behind the game! RELATED: Kiana Mai Wants Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want to Be a Magical Girl to Inspire Joy and Creativity Created by Skyler Badalament-Tirrell and Nile Matsuda, this husband and wife team has taken all the charm of sports anime and made a game where players get to create their own stories. Skyler (referred to as “Sky” in our interview) has a love for sports anime. He came up with the idea for Tournament Arc after binge-watching sports anime with his dad and little brother back in 2016. Not only did he come up with the game, but he also did all of the artwork for it, from the vibrant characters to all of the beloved anime tropes that players get to use throughout the game. Nile, who you may have heard online under her username “Harpsona,” has a Bioengineering PhD and has done various anime and video game covers. She’s also a harpist for Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want to be a Magical Girl and has done work on video game soundtracks for the likes of Ark Knights , Stray Gods and Kind Words 2 . In our interview, you can learn more about Tournament Arc , the couple’s love for sports anime, and why their character, Mr. Bear, belongs in Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma (it’ll make sense, trust me). Your game Tournament Arc is very much inspired by anime. What is it that got you into anime? Sky: I mean, it’s gotta be Pokémon for me. I was four years old when the Pokémon anime hit the West and was hooked long before I knew what anime was! This continued with shows like Digimon Adventure and the old Monster Rancher anime from back in the day. Can you tell I’m a big monster raising game fan? I think the first show that I watched with the understanding that anime was something uniquely different from like, the sorts of cartoons I’d watch on Nickelodeon, was Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo , which I’d stay up late to watch on Toonami on weekends (much to the confusion of my parents). Nile: Growing up in Japan in my early childhood, it was all around me! I think Anpanman was the first anime I consciously remember watching as a toddler, but once I moved to the U.S., I would watch whatever was available on TV here. I didn’t really know much about the anime scene until I started actively seeking new shows to watch in high school! D.Gray-man and Bleach were probably the biggest shows I was into at the time. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing a wide variety of anime with Baccano! , Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood , and Natsume’s Book of Friends probably being at the top of my list! RELATED: 20 Essential Sports Anime on Crunchyroll What got you into board games? What is it about them that made you want to create your own? Sky: The game that made me realize that board games could be so much more than, say, Monopoly , was Betrayal at the House on the Hill . I remember watching a group of YouTubers play it when it first came out, and I got so hooked by the game’s depth and narrative opportunities that I went out and got it as soon as I could to play with my friends! As far as what made me want to make board games myself, it started as a way for me to prototype video game ideas I had. It was much quicker to write some ideas down on a posterboard or index cards than to start coding, and ultimately, I ended up really loving the opportunities that having physical components presented! Of course, I still want to make video games too, but Tournament Arc feels very much at home on a tabletop where you’re looking at the folks you’re playing with. Nile: I used to go to board game nights with friends back in grad school and had a lot of fun seeing the different kinds of games that were out there. Although I greatly appreciate game design, both in the video game and tabletop space, I never really thought of creating my own. However, when I played Sky’s initial prototype for what ultimately became Tournament Arc , I knew it was special and felt strongly motivated to help him get this game out into the world! What is it about anime that you think makes it a good medium for board games? Sky: In the case of Tournament Arc specifically, we wanted to emphasize the experience of telling a story alongside those you’re playing against. Our game has you all building an anime together. Collaborative storytelling is something that can ABSOLUTELY happen over a screen, but being in person really enhances that experience, in my eyes. When you can see the people you’re playing with laughing, you’re more likely to try to keep making them laugh. Anime is a great theme for having stories with all sorts of unexpected or outlandish events! Nile: There’s so much potential! There are so many ways to tell a story and so many elements that vary wildly from show to show, but something I personally love about anime is the characters! Something Sky and I talk about often is just how much we love well-written and well-designed characters. In the case of Tournament Arc , we really wanted to capture how sports anime have huge casts of lovable and memorable characters. We feel that there is an opportunity to explore this element in the board game world where players can truly get attached to the characters through their own experiences playing! There are a lot of genres you could’ve explored for creating an anime board game, especially one with a tournament theme. What made you decide to use sports anime? Sky: So I first had the idea for Tournament Arc in 2016 when my little brother and dad were going through and binge-watching every sports anime they could find. I watched along with them when I had the time to join in, and as I started to recognize the tropes that made their way from show to show, I got the idea in my head of a sports anime where you are following every team in a tournament equally, with no one team of protagonists. I loved the idea of fans watching this hypothetical show when it came out, all rooting for different teams to make it to the end, with nobody knowing for sure what turns the story was gonna take. This evolved into my board game idea, with each player coaching their team of student athletes! The idea absolutely came from sports anime first, and the board game’s mechanics evolved outward from there. RELATED: How Sports Anime Helps Me Take Care of My Mental Health Nile: Some time after Sky made the initial prototype for Tournament Arc , we did briefly discuss what it would be like to lean into other genres more or even create a spin-off that explicitly plays with genres as a core mechanic. However, there is just something really charming about collectively building a silly story about students playing sports! It helps that there is more than enough to get invested in the story being told, but also the stakes aren’t so high that the light-hearted nature of the game is lost. If we had a high-stakes, life or death type of tournament going on, the vibes of the game would certainly feel different! Sports anime usually focuses on the team itself, but in Tournament Arc , we get to be the coach creating the team. What inspired you to have players be a coach instead of a teammate? Sky: In my previous answer, I mentioned where the initial idea for Tournament Arc came from. Since I wanted the game to feature multiple teams competing in tandem, having each player control one team was the natural fit. There’s definitely potential for a cooperative Tournament Arc game (or set of house rules) later down the line where each player is a single teammate on one team. Maybe as a spinoff someday?? Are there any anime series you had in mind while creating the game? Sky: I tried to actively avoid referencing specific anime as best I could while designing Tournament Arc to stand alone as its own IP, instead trying to hit all the common character tropes and storylines that one might see. A tragic backstory, a spikey-haired redhead go-getter, rival teams pitted against each other. That said, as mentioned before, I had the idea for the game while binge-watching sports anime! Haikyu!! , Kuroko’s Basketball , Run with the Wind , Ping Pong the Animation , Hajime no Ippo , and more had a hand in inspiring this game in the first place. I also would love to shout out Blaseball , which is not an anime by any means, but is what made me realize that this old sports anime-themed board game idea I had back in 2016 might actually be able to find an audience! RELATED: How to Watch Haikyu!! in Order Nile: During the refinement and rebalancing process, we had to rethink some cards and would naturally end up pulling inspiration from shows we’ve watched in the past, whether it be specific scenes, characters, or tropes. We were watching Haikyu!! at the time, so there are definitely some elements that made their way in. It’s not just sports anime that you are paying homage to with your game, but anime itself. Some of the characters reflect the wackiness of anime (there’s a bear you can have on the team!). There’s an English and Japanese anime opening. There’s an isekai card! How did you decide what parts of anime to incorporate into your game? Sky: Much of it comes down to what I personally enjoy about anime, and which tropes felt recognizable enough to work even outside of their established genre. Whenever I wanted to include something from the wider world of anime ideas, I tried to make sure it had a fitting and unique mechanic attached to it. For example, the card “Magical Girl Transformation” allows you to transform one of your students into another, adding their cumulative stats together to make them far stronger than they would’ve been otherwise. I’ve yet to see a sports anime where someone undergoes a magical girl transformation mid-court during a game, but now that I’ve written that out, I would absolutely love to see it. I think the ball should transform, too. Nile: We also wanted to have fun at a meta level by imagining Tournament Arc as a localized anime! Our theme song, “Blinding Star” (yes, we have a custom-made opening theme) by Tournament Arc (amazing band that we happen to share a name with) has both an English and a Japanese version! Each athlete in the game has both a sub name and a dub name, with a good mix of puns and localization jokes built in! While no understanding of Japanese is needed to enjoy the game, those who do read may enjoy the extra layer of detail. What do you feel makes a good sports anime? What does the story have to have in it, in your opinion? Sky: Would it be too predictable to say that I love a good tournament arc? Beyond that, sports anime run the full gamut from grounded in reality to absolutely bonkers, but I think my personal favorites have a good mix of both. I’m honestly more interested in seeing the players when they’re not competing so I feel more invested when they are. The team dynamics are what keep me coming back to the genre most of all! Nile: Character development! The wins wouldn’t feel as satisfying, and the losses wouldn’t feel nearly as motivating, if the characters were not growing as individuals and as athletes. The buildup over multiple seasons can turn a character I don’t care much for at first into a surprising new favorite. I’m looking at you, Tsukishima ( Haikyu!! ). RELATED: What Did You Pick as Your Favorite Anime Tournament Arc? Tournament arcs are a pretty beloved moment in anime, whether it’s in sports anime or shonen heavy hitters. Do you have a favorite tournament arc? Sky: Hands down the Duelist Kingdom arc in Yu-Gi-Oh! , which I recognize is a bizarre answer, but the more open structure of it (duels could happen anywhere at any time rather than having a set schedule) and the risk-reward system of wagering star chips really had me hooked as a kid. Growing to really know all the competitors as the tournament went on really made it hit harder when folks would get knocked out or sacrifice themselves. To be perfectly honest, I’m fairly certain I haven’t even seen every episode in the arc (I’d just watch whenever I happened to catch it on), but the IDEA of the tournament’s mechanics and stakes inspired and impacted my young mind more than the actual show itself did! Nile: Perhaps an odd answer, but I really enjoyed the Autumn Election arc in Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma . The arc prior was a good way to get the viewer acquainted with the world and cast at a surface level, but the Autumn Election is when we really started to dive a bit deeper into motivations and backstories. I still remember audibly rooting for Tadokoro as she was starting to gain a little more confidence and had the opportunity to showcase how great of a cook she can be! If you could put any of your characters into an anime tournament arc, which character(s) would it be, and which tournament arc? Sky: Put Mr. Bear in Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma . He loves to eat. He’s already naked. What more could you ask for?? On a more serious note, I believe there is a sports anime about girls trying to knock each other into a pool using exclusively their butts. I’ve never seen any of it, so it’s possible this came to me in a fever dream. I just looked it up, it’s called Keijo!!!!!!!! , and it’s real. We have a character in Tournament Arc named Bonk Dents. He’s in a full-body cast complete with two crutches and an IV drip that he wheels around behind him. I can’t think of a funnier situation for him to find himself in than a Keijo!!!!!!!! tournament. Nile: I don’t think I can come up with anything better than what Sky just described. Besides sports anime, all the other tournament arcs I’m thinking of may be a bit too intense for our non-superpowered student athletes here! With that said, I am curious how local goth girl Rose Shadow would fare partnering with Suigintou in Rozen Maiden . Let’s change up the previous question a bit. What anime characters do you think would enjoy playing Tournament Arc and how much chaos would they cause? Sky: OOH okay, for this one I feel like I’d love to see characters who come from far more high-stakes anime get to play some sports and have a nice time in a casual environment. Let’s get the Neon Genesis Evangelion kids in here playing baseball. I think that might be really healthy for them. Nile: The whole cast of Nichijou – My Ordinary Life and Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun for sure! If Nozaki and Mikorin got so attached to Tomoda in the visual novel they stayed up all night playing, imagine what stories they could come up with our characters here! Now that you’ve created an anime board game, what’s next? Are there any other anime genres you’d like to play with? Sky: If Tournament Arc really takes off, we definitely have some ideas for expansions, though I don’t wanna promise anything too early here. Our first game isn’t even out yet! In a general, vague sense, though, I’d love to get more fantastical/supernatural elements into the still solidly sports-anime themed world of Tournament Arc someday. Also, they should be able to play sports in mechs. Nile: I’m a huge fan of all things fantastical, so I’m definitely excited to work on the potential expansion Sky hinted to! It’ll also be a great excuse for me to show him a lot of my favorite yokai-centered anime! Where to Learn More About Tournament Arc Instagram TikTok BlueSky Website
