Correct me if i am wrong <| sep |> I feel this is somewhat directed at me since I ' ve had this exact discussion with you before , so I ' ll give the best response I can . uBBallHunter put it pretty well , it gives characters more depth if they have lives and values outside of their respective sports . I ' d go a step further with it , though , and say that it humanizes the characters if they have lives outside of their sports . In all my years of playing sports , I can ' t say I ' ve ever met someone who only cares about the sport and nothing else . Even in real life professional sports , where playing is legitimately an athelete ' s livelihood , reporters always like to find out the athlete ' s other interests outside of the sport because it gives people a better understanding of what that person may be like . These outside interests make them feel human , make us think oh they ' re not that different from us after all and if I didn ' t know of these things , they ' d probably just feel like some guy who is really good at a sport to me instead of a person . I understand the argument it ' s a sports anime , the sport should be the focus of the show and agree it should be the focus . The thing is , should it be the only focus ? I personally don ' t think so . Sports anime does tend to have a very set formula that I have yet to see avoided by any sports work and it does get a little stale if it continues with that formula for too long . Sometimes breaking the formula to keep things fresh would be nice .