You do not have to like sports to love a sports manga. The good ones are not really about the score. They are about a short kid who wants to jump higher than everyone, a delinquent who joins a team for a girl, two friends who play the same game for very different reasons.
Here are four sports manga I think every manga reader should try, from five volumes to forty-five. After each one there is a small tip for reading it on your iPhone with ComicFlow, the manga reader I build. It is $2.99 once, with an optional $6.99 one-time Pro unlock, and nothing in these tips needs Pro.
Disclosure: I make ComicFlow at Applestan. The reader features below were checked against the app's source code, and the series facts against Wikipedia's entries and the publisher listings they cite, on November 12, 2026.
Quick Reference #
| # | Series | By | Sport | Volumes in Japan | Status | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Haikyu!! | Haruichi Furudate | Volleyball | 45 | Completed (2020) | A long, warm team story |
| 2 | Slam Dunk | Takehiko Inoue | Basketball | 31 | Completed (1996) | The classic everyone quotes |
| 3 | Ping Pong | Taiyo Matsumoto | Table tennis | 5 | Completed (1997) | One or two evenings |
| 4 | Blue Lock | Muneyuki Kaneshiro, Yusuke Nomura | Football | 40 | Ongoing | Pure adrenaline |
If you only try one, start with Haikyu!!. It is the easiest one to fall for.
1. Haikyu!! #
By: Haruichi Furudate | Volumes: 45 (completed, 2012 to 2020) | Genre: Sports / comedy / coming of age
Shoyo Hinata is short, but he can jump. He fell for volleyball after seeing Karasuno High School play on TV, led by a small wing spiker the commentators called "the Little Giant". In junior high he barely has a team, and his first real match ends in a crushing loss against Tobio Kageyama, a genius setter known as "the King of the Court". Then Hinata gets into Karasuno, and the first person he meets in the gym is Kageyama.
The two cannot stand each other, but together they invent a quick attack nobody can read. From there it becomes a story about a whole team, and almost every player gets a moment of his own. It ran in Weekly Shonen Jump, won the Shogakukan Manga Award in 2016, and Viz Media publishes it in English. The anime started in 2014, and the second part of the final film is set for 2027.
Why it hooks you: the matches feel fast even on paper, and you end up caring about the bench players as much as the stars.
How to read it: 45 volumes is a lot of files. If yours come as one ZIP or RAR with every volume inside, ComicFlow 3.8 imports a ZIP or RAR with several comics and adds each volume as its own book. After that, the Continue Reading card at the top of the library always shows the book and page you stopped on, so you can pick it up again with one tap on Resume.
The Continue Reading card shows the book and page you stopped on. Tap Resume to jump back in.
2. Slam Dunk #
By: Takehiko Inoue | Volumes: 31 (completed, 1990 to 1996) | Genre: Sports / comedy / coming of age
Hanamichi Sakuragi is a delinquent and a gang leader, and he has been turned down by fifty girls. In his first year at Shohoku High School he meets Haruko, who is not scared of him at all and who thinks he would make a great basketball player. Sakuragi thinks basketball is a game for losers. He joins the team anyway, to impress her, and it turns out he is a natural athlete with no idea what he is doing.
It is very funny at the start and very serious at the end, and the last tournament is one of the most famous runs in manga. It won the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1994, and it is often called one of the greatest sports manga ever. Inoue was even honored by the Japan Basketball Association for making the sport popular in Japan. Viz Media publishes it in English, and the film The First Slam Dunk came out in 2022.
Why it hooks you: Sakuragi starts as a joke and slowly becomes the player you are cheering for the loudest.
How to read it: Slam Dunk is the kind of series you want to feel like a stack of paperbacks. In ComicFlow 3.8, open a volume, tap the gear for Reader Settings, and switch on Page curl in the Display section. Each page or spread then curls like paper, and in right-to-left manga mode the curl follows the manga direction. Manga page curl on iPhone has the details.
3. Ping Pong #
By: Taiyo Matsumoto | Volumes: 5 (completed, 1996 to 1997) | Genre: Sports / psychological drama / coming of age
Peco and Smile have been friends since they were kids, and both play in their high school's table tennis club. Peco is loud, cocky and always eating snacks. Smile is quiet and almost never smiles, which is where the nickname comes from. Smile is very good, maybe better than Peco, but he does not seem to care about winning. Then Peco is beaten badly by a player who was kicked off China's national team, and the coach starts pushing Smile instead.
Matsumoto's art is rough, loose and nothing like a typical sports manga, and the matches feel like fights inside the players' heads. It ran in Big Comic Spirits, a magazine for adult readers, and Viz Media publishes it in English. There is a live-action film from 2002 and a great anime from 2014 directed by Masaaki Yuasa.
Why it hooks you: it is short, and it asks a question most sports stories skip: what if you are talented but you just do not want it?
How to read it: if your copy of Ping Pong is a scan, the pages may have wide white paper borders. ComicFlow 3.8 has Trim Margins in Reader Settings, right below Page curl. Switch it on and ComicFlow crops the border around each page as it shows it, so Matsumoto's art fills more of the screen. Your file is not changed. Remove white borders from manga explains how it decides what to cut.
4. Blue Lock #
By: Muneyuki Kaneshiro (story), Yusuke Nomura (art) | Volumes: 40 in Japan (ongoing, since 2018) | Genre: Sports / thriller
After Japan finishes 16th at the 2018 World Cup, the Japan Football Association hires a strange coach, Jinpachi Ego, with one plan: lock 300 young strikers in a training facility called Blue Lock and keep only the most selfish goal scorer. Whoever fails can never play for Japan again. Yoichi Isagi is an unknown high school forward who is not sure if he is a team player or a striker, and he joins.
Blue Lock is the opposite of a gentle team story. It plays like a survival game, with rankings, eliminations and rivals who are also forced to be teammates. It won the Kodansha Manga Award in 2021, and Kodansha USA publishes it in English. The anime started in 2022, and a live-action film came out in Japan in August 2026.
Why it hooks you: every chapter ends on a goal or a twist, which makes it very hard to stop.
How to read it: set Right to Left (Manga) once, and if your files carry the series name, ComicFlow remembers that direction for every volume in the series. For the goals you want to see again, tap the page to show the controls and tap Bookmark. Once a volume has a bookmark, a small badge at the top of the reader opens the Bookmarks list, so you can jump straight back to that page.
The reader in right-to-left mode. Bookmark sits in the bar at the bottom, and the gear for Reader Settings is at the top.
Getting these series as files you can read #
ComicFlow reads files you own: CBZ, CBR, ZIP, RAR and PDF. It does not open EPUB, and books bought inside store apps such as Kindle or BookWalker stay in those apps. Two routes work:
- Buy DRM-free where you can. Where to buy DRM-free manga lists the stores I could confirm and what format they sell.
- Scan volumes you already own. How to scan manga you own covers it.
To get the files onto your phone, Wi-Fi Upload lets you drag them onto a page in any browser on your computer. Once a book is in ComicFlow's library it opens with no connection at all, so a long bus ride to practice is fine.
What is included without Pro #
Everything above is in the $2.99 app: offline reading, importing a ZIP or RAR with several volumes, Wi-Fi Upload, right-to-left reading saved per book and per series, page curl, Trim Margins, the Continue Reading card and bookmarks. There are no ads or ad tracking.
ComicFlow Pro is an optional $6.99 one-time unlock, not a subscription. It adds Komga, Kavita and OPDS server libraries, saved reader presets, Face ID-locked collections and EPUB export for Kobo, Boox, reMarkable and PocketBook e-readers.
How this was checked #
ComicFlow claims in this post were checked against the app's source code:
- Trim Margins (off by default):
ComicFlow/Reader/ReaderSettings.swift - Page curl toggle in the Display section, paged mode only:
ComicFlow/Reader/Views/ReaderControlsOverlay.swift - Reading direction remembered per series:
ComicFlow/Reader/ReaderContinuity.swift - What Pro covers:
ComicFlow/Services/Pro/ProGate.swift
Series facts were checked on November 12, 2026 against the Wikipedia entries for Haikyu!!, Slam Dunk, Ping Pong and Blue Lock, and the publisher listings they cite.
Related reading #
- 4 manga to binge in a weekend: for when one chapter turns into ten
- Best manga for beginners: more places to start
- Manga page curl on iPhone: turn pages like paper, new in ComicFlow 3.8
- Import a manga series from one ZIP or RAR: also new in 3.8
- Bookmark manga pages on iPhone: keep the pages you love
ComicFlow sends anonymous usage analytics to help improve the app, and you can switch that off in Settings, then Privacy, then Share Usage Data. Your manga files stay on your device. The privacy policy has the full list.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best sports manga to start with?
Four good places to start are Haikyu!! by Haruichi Furudate (volleyball, 45 volumes, finished), Slam Dunk by Takehiko Inoue (basketball, 31 volumes, finished), Ping Pong by Taiyo Matsumoto (table tennis, 5 volumes, finished) and Blue Lock by Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Yusuke Nomura (football, 40 volumes and ongoing).
Do I need to like sports to enjoy sports manga?
No. The best sports manga are really about people: rivals who become teammates, friends who grow apart, and someone who has to decide how much they want something. Slam Dunk even starts with a hero who thinks basketball is for losers.
What is the shortest sports manga on this list?
Ping Pong by Taiyo Matsumoto. It is five volumes long and was finished in 1997, so you can read the whole story in an evening or two.
How do I import a long manga series like Haikyu!! into ComicFlow?
If your volumes come as one ZIP or RAR with several comics inside, ComicFlow 3.8 imports it and adds each volume as its own book. The Continue Reading card at the top of the library then always shows the book and page you stopped on.
Do I need a subscription to read manga on iPhone with ComicFlow?
No. ComicFlow costs $2.99 once, with no subscription and no ads. Offline reading, right-to-left mode, page curl, Trim Margins, importing a ZIP or RAR with several comics, the Continue Reading card and bookmarks are all included. An optional $6.99 one-time Pro unlock adds comic server libraries, reader presets, Face ID-locked collections and EPUB export for e-readers.
