Some genres evolve beyond recognition over the decades. Others have such powerful foundational works that you can still see their DNA in shows made half a century later. Sports anime are very much the latter. The tropes that form the backbone of the genre today can be traced back to shows like Aim for the Ace! Far from feeling like sports anime have left it behind, this 1973 Osamu Dezaki classic is as riveting now as it must have been when first broadcast. Indeed, the king of melodrama raises the tension to breathtaking heights. Though it follows the straightforward story of a girl learning the hardwork and guts it takes to master tennis, the visuals ratchet up the intensity masterfully to mirror the emotions of the characters. At one point Hiromi has hard lessons beaten into her in a tennis court enclosed by barbed wire, giving it the air of a prison camp. Umpires are faceless shadows casting judgement over the girls' fates. Barrages of tennis balls strike people like a hail of machinegun fire. Blood flies. Questions of who will win or lose mingle with fears over whether they will wind up crippled for life from overexerting themselves.

It's all interwoven with a solid shojo romance arc and, despite clearly not being a complete adaptation of the manga, reaches a satisfying conclusion with an appropriate final confrontation.