Now, let's take those tropes and apply them to something where people aren't punching each other or throwing energy beams. Something like...

...sport climbing.

Iwakakeru -Sport Climbing Girls-

Kasahara Konomi was in ballet, which gives her a good sense of her athletic limits. Then she found her favorite thing in video games, particularly puzzle games, and got so into it that she teetered on the edge of NEET territory before grabbing a hold of herself. As she heads into high school, she's looking for something new, and finds it in sport climbing. Going up the wall faster, with as few tries as possible. Physically, she's barely good enough, but mentally...to her, the wall is a puzzle to solve. Cue training montages and rivalry, as she works with her new-found teammates to take the Hanamiya Girls' High School Climbing Club to victory.

Sport climbing too reasonable for you? Fine, let's hit the links!

BIRDIE WING -Golf Girls' Story-

That's right. Golf. Possibly the most boring spectator sport ever, until you make an anime of it.

Eve (short for Evangeline) doesn't remember her parents or her last name. She was found in the Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy™ of Nafrece and taught how to hit a golf ball. When we meet her, she's been using those skills to win bets using the various single-hole courses scattered around the city, and spending the money on a single mother, her adopted children, and the bar they live in. She doesn't just use a normal golf swing, though. No, she's in full CALLING YOUR ATTACK mode. ("Direct attack: Blue Bullet!")

This leads to her meeting Aoi, the daughter of two legendary golf pros, further golf duels in an underground transforming golf course, VR golfing, and eventually heading to Japan to play Aoi again, at which point this series has a brief brush with normality when Eve enrolls in one of Japan's elite golfing schools.

Clearly, whoever pitched this series knew that it would have to be more than a little over the top. And it works.

Peter Eng
--
Also: Evangeline Aleon? They named a character Rose Aleon just for that joke?

And then there’s the semi-battle anime known as Keijo!!!!!!!! (Yes, eight exclamation marks) about what amounts to ‘pool sumo’, trying to knock your opponent off floating platforms into the water using only your boobs, butt, and hips. It’s as ridiculous as it sounds.

But perhaps you’re into something ever so slightly more mainstream, like badminton. That’s where you have Hanebado, which as I understand it is also incredibly and needlessly melodramatic.

And possibly Welcome To The Ballroom, about competitive ballroom dancing?

Haven’t seen a lot/any of these since I’m not that big into """sports""" anime, but they seem to fit to varying degrees :)

Here's the Saki writeup:
Saki Miyanaga, a freshman in high school, does not like mahjong because her family would always force her to play it and punish her regardless of the outcome of the game. Due to this, she learned how to keep her score at zero, neither winning nor losing, a skill said to be more difficult than actually consistently winning. However, her friend from middle school, completely unaware of such circumstances, convinces her to visit the school's small mahjong club upon entering Kiyosumi High School. After the club discovers her ability, they recruit her permanently and convince her to win instead of breaking even. She easily does so with her skill and discovers a new love for mahjong, along with a friendship with her fellow club member, Nodoka Haramura. This leads the team to enter the prefecture's high school mahjong tournament with the goal of reaching the national high school competition.

"Think of the intellect it must take to draw pleasure from this activity: hitting a ball with a crooked stick and then... walking after it! And then... hitting it again! I say pick it up, asshole, you're lucky you found the fucking thing! Put it in your pocket and go the fuck home, you're a winner!"
—George Carlin

>Clearly, whoever pitched this series knew that it would have to be
>more than a little over the top. And it works.

For some reason, what this phrasing instantly called to mind was Jon Bois and Kofie Yeboah's take on video golf from a couple years ago.

--G.
"Cows are dead."
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Shokugeki no Soma, where food is the weapon (and clothing the collateral damage).

Second:

Hikaru no Go, the anime that revived a classic board game.

We open with Karen Aijo, a student as the prestigious Seisho Music Academy, with its 100-year history of turning out elite performers of all sorts. She appears at first to be your typical not-quite-slacker - sleeping late, doing just enough to get by, and generally being overshadowed by her classmates, such as the charismatic Maya Tendo or the ever-cheerful-supportive-and-motherly Daiba Nana. (Yes, she's nicknamed Banana. It's a Thing.)

Into Karen's world comes the Big Upset - the return of her childhood friend, Hikari Kagura, who shared her dream of performing a particular play that they had been star-struck together by when they saw it as young children. Which happens to be the one that their class is going to perform for the public as part of their year-end celebration. Hikari has been off in England, attending the Royal Academy of Theatrical Arts, but has just returned to Japan.

Karen is overjoyed to have her friend back, but there's Something Wrong. Hikari is... dark. Broody. Angsty. She needs cheering up. Karen is just the girl to provide this, no?

Nope.

When Karen follows Hikari one night, she discovers her friend in a desperate battle against one of their fellow students, in a secret stage deep beneath the school. Overseen by, of all things, a talking giraffe. And it's not just a fight, it's a performance as well. "To sing, to dance, to battle... to shine." (to borrow a line).

Witnessing her friend's desperation in the face of impending defeat, Karen hurls herself into the battle to save her. And her world will never be the same again.

Not quite magical girls, more "Utena meets Sakura Wars" with all the mystical weirdness and relationship drama of both series. A LOT of riffs on the Takurazuka troupe and their practices. And a wonderful story.