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Overtime Is Bringing Sports and Young Anime Fans Together

While more obscure subcultures obviously still exist, there's no divide between nerd stuff and “normal” hobbies for anyone middle-aged and under anymore.

When asked if Overtime Elite was conceived as a way to get fans of manga and webcomics into sports media or vice versa, Chen said, “Working with Overtime, the goal was really both. On one hand, some anime fans don't necessarily care about the sports they watch. Sometimes, an anime will convince a viewer to pick up a sport. A good example for me is Haikyuu!!, where I knew nothing about volleyball, but only took an interest after watching the anime. For Overtime, because they have an existing audience, the goal was to create a concept that would resonate with their fans. But, in addition, I know that anime/manga fans can enjoy sports series without actually being a fan of the sport. So, there was certainly a balanced consideration when crafting the narrative.”

This idea of fans of a specific media coming together thanks to digital spaces will, of course, sound familiar to anime fans of a certain age. The Western anime fandom benefited tremendously from internet access becoming more common in the late 90s and early 2000s, with many today still viewing it as a mostly online hobby with conventions acting as opportunities for in-person meet-ups. As digital spaces become increasingly present in our everyday lives, it would seem that the anime fandom is not only bleeding into those other spaces but that those other communities are beginning to more closely resemble the structure of the global anime fan community.