Burning Kabaddi

Burning Kabaddi (灼熱カバディ) is a Japanese kabaddi manga series by Hajime Musashino. It has been serialized in Shogakukan's Ura Sunday website and MangaONE app since July 2015 and has been collected in twenty-seven tankōbon volumes. An anime television series adaptation by TMS Entertainment aired from April 3 to June 19, 2021.

Nōkin High School

 * Tatsuya Yoigoshi (宵越 竜哉)


 * Masato Ojo (王城 正人)


 * Sōma Azemichi (畦道 相馬)


 * Kei Iura (井浦 慶)


 * Kyōhei Misumi (水澄 京平)


 * Shinji Date (伊達 真司)


 * Nobutaka Ban (伴 伸賢)


 * Ryuta Seki (関 隆太)


 * Yūki Hitomi (人見 祐希)

Souwa High School

 * Ayumu Rokugen (六弦 歩)


 * Ren Takaya (高谷 煉)


 * Shintarō Kizaki (木崎 新太郎)


 * Yū Eikura (栄倉 祐)


 * Daisuke Muroya (室屋 大助)

Saitama Kōyō High School

 * Manabu Sakura (佐倉 学)


 * Hiromoto Utou (右藤 大元)

Manga
Burning Kabaddi is a manga series written and illustrated by Hajime Musashino. The series began serialization in Shogakukan's Ura Sunday website and MangaONE app in July 2015. Shogakukan has collected its chapters into individual tankōbon volumes. As of April 11, 2024, twenty-seven volumes have been published. In May 2024, it was announced that the series had reached its climax.

Anime
An anime television series adaptation was announced on July 6, 2020. Produced by TMS Entertainment, the series is directed by Kazuya Ichikawa and written by Yūko Kakihara. Mari Takada is designing the characters, and Ken Ito is composing the series' music. DOMERICA is credited with animation cooperation. The opening theme, "Fire Bird", is performed by Shunya Ōhira, while the ending theme, "Comin' Back" is performed by Yuma Uchida. The series aired from April 3 to June 19, 2021, on TV Tokyo, TV Osaka, TV Aichi, and AT-X. Crunchyroll licensed the series outside of Asia. Medialink has licensed the series in Southeast Asia, and is streaming it on their partnered platforms.

Reception
Burning Kabaddi was nominated for the 66th Shogakukan Manga Award in the shōnen category in 2020.

Anime News Network had six editors review the first episode of the anime: Caitlin Moore critiqued that it contained "moderately typical sports anime beats" but felt its cast displayed "little in terms of depth or complexity" and the animation degraded as it went into the kabaddi scenes; Nicholas Dupree commended the episode for explaining the central sport's fundamentals but criticized the stiff animation and shoddy direction of the kabaddi matches, and the unlikable cast ranging from "mildly unpleasant to loudly unpleasant"; Richard Eisenbeis also praised the explanation of the sport but was unimpressed with the overall cast and humor, saying: "Frankly, despite the rather fluid animation and interesting subject matter, this is not a series I would likely choose to pick up."; James Beckett criticized the production for having weak direction in its character interactions and not displaying "fast, fluid, and impactful animation" in its kabaddi scenes; Rebecca Silverman wrote: "In all honesty, Burning Kabaddi looks like it's going to be like any other sports anime [...] It'll probably be fine, and the lure of a somewhat unusual sport may be enough of a draw for those on the fence." The sixth reviewer, Lynzee Loveridge, wrote: "I want to recommend Burning Kabaddi for its efforts to highlight a unique sport and for its particularly dumb teen protagonist, but I found nothing impressive about this premiere and much of its sports action falls flat."