Strange Anime Meme – High Jumping

Next in my series of posts on weird anime memes, I discuss high jumping. I’ve noticed this sport way too many times in anime to just write it off as a fluke. Sure, we all know Japanese love their baseball, and tennis is pretty cool too, but high jumping? Since when? Here’s a list of the recent anime that have featured high jumpers:

I’ll start off with everyone’s favorite, Suzuka. Pressured into "raising the bar" (literally!), Suzuka is a workaholic when it comes to high jumping. She stays after practice and even passes out in saunas so she can perfect her slow-motion high jump. She also enjoys being indecisive and bipolar.

Next up is Tatsumi from Okusama wa Mahou Shoujo. He’s actually sort of a washed-up track star. Always depending on his kohai to do stuff for him, he’s now on his own. He also looks like a girl. Seriously, he looks a lot like Kagura from Azumanga Daioh! I seriously thought he was a girl at first. Don’t you see the resemblance!? 

Last, but not least, we have Saya from Blood+. When she’s not killing giant bat monsters, she likes to pretend she’s a normal high school girl. With really weird looking lips. Sorry, I just can’t get past the weird shading on her lips. None of the other characters have weird lips! WTF?

Gaining honorable mention is a manga that involves high jumping. In this story, a girl joins an all-boy’s school in drag so she can be with her high jumping idol. Now, I won’t discuss this further, since I think that dressing in drag to be with your idol is a completely different meme altogether…

So there you have it. The current stars of anime high jumping. Will this trend continue? Or will the Japanese move to other sports like curling? Only time will tell. And please let me know if I’ve missed any.