North American esports organisation Sentinels have announced their first-ever anime collaboration.
Thanks to a partnership with anime streaming service Crunchyroll, Sentinels have released merch based on the volleyball anime Haikyuu!!
Volleyball may seem like a strange focus for a show, but Haikyuu!! may in fact be more popular than the sport itself.
Its first movie, Haikyuu The Dumpster Battle, has grossed over $125m (£92m) in cinemas worldwide.
Sentinels’ red and black colour scheme is a perfect fit for the uniform of Nekoma, the antagonists of that film.
Hence, there are both Nekoma and Karasuno, the school of Haikyuu!!’s main characters, merch available in the new collection.
The sport jerseys from the collection cost £59 each on Sentinels’ website.
But there are also hoodies, shorts, t-shirts, and a water bottle available too.
Speaking about this new collaboration, Rob Moore, CEO of Sentinels, said:
“This partnership with Haikyu!! and Crunchyroll is a celebration of two communities built on passion, teamwork, and competition.”
“Anime and esports share the same cultural energy, and we’re excited to give our fans a collection that unites those worlds in an authentic and meaningful way.”
The new collection launched on August 22nd, the same day Sentinels begin their campaign in the Valorant VCT Americas Playoffs.
Valorant betting sites have them favoured to defeat Cloud9 in the Stage 2 Upper Bracket Semifinals.
It shows that there is plenty of room for esports to collaborate with other fandoms.
A great recent example is that League of Legends superstar Faker appeared in a new Stray Kids K-pop music video.
Anime and esports collaborations
A lot of esports players and supporters are also massive fans of anime.
As a result, there have been plenty of collaborations and crossovers between the two in the past.
Crunchyroll has partnered with various esports institutions, including the Esports World Cup for on-site events.
The streaming service also launched My Hero Academia merch with both FURIA and TSM.
Other examples include Cloud9 releasing a collection of merchandise in collaboration with One Piece.
Team Liquid have also partnered with multiple anime franchises, including Naruto and Death Note.
Various video games have also secured anime partnerships over the years.
Overwatch 2 has multiple anime skin lines based on Gundam, One Punch Man, Cowboy Bebop and My Hero.
PUBG Mobile also launched an update with Attack on Titan content earlier this year.
In my seven years of esports writing, I’ve introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I’m most proud of the latter.