The Prince of Tennis
The Prince of Tennis ( Japaneseテ ニ ス の 王子 様tenisu no ōjisama ) is a manga series by the Japanese artist Takeshi Konomi , which was also implemented as an anime series and belongs to the genre Shōnen and the sports genre . It is about the rise of the boy Ryoma Echizen in the tennis world.
action
The boy Ryoma Echizen has just moved back to Japan from the USA and has enrolled at Seigaku Junior High School , which is known for its good tennis team. He would like to be accepted into the team and although he is only in his first year, the strict captain of the team, Kunimitsu Tezuka, accepts him into the regular team. Ryoma's big goal is to defeat his father. Nanjiro Echizen was a famous and world-famous tennis player, but after living his dream, his new dream became to turn Ryoma into a professional.
Together with his friends from the team, each of whom has a very special style and character and is not as easy to defeat as Ryoma initially thought, he fights his way up the ranking of the big national youth championship tournament. The team competes against various other schools with whose team members they soon make friends or enemies. Ryoma has to realize that he must first overcome the players on his own team and other strong opponents before he can start defeating his father.
Characters
Seishun Gakuen (Seigaku)
- Ryoma Echizen
(1st class Junior High) - is a new player in the team due to his talent. He often appears disinterested and arrogant, which irritates his opponents (and sometimes his friends too). He playfully tries to break away from his father, who as a kind of invincible opponent is a constant challenge for him. In the course of the series it is shown how Ryoma develops on and with his opponents.
- Kunimitsu Tezuka
(3rd grade of junior high) - is the captain of the team. He takes his position very seriously and works determinedly towards the goals he sets for himself and the other members of the tennis club. He is considered very talented and competed in the national championships the year before the series takes place. His appearance often seems very cold and arrogant, which also led to his left elbow injury by a teammate, which has caused him problems to this day. He sees a great talent in Ryoma and therefore tries to both support and challenge him. His techniques are very sophisticated and are feared by many opponents and cannot be defeated. Although he is left-handed, he often plays with his right hand because his left hand was injured before the series began.
- Syusuke Fuji
(3rd grade junior high) - is considered a genius. Outwardly, the rather feminine looking player is often portrayed as a very calm, attentive and polite boy who is characterized by an almost constant smile. His game is rather cautious - he often only plays as well as is necessary for his respective opponent and is rarely really challenged. There are only a few tennis players he really has to take seriously, for example: Kunimitsu Tezuka, Ryoma Echizen and Kuranosuke Shiraishi from Shitenhouji. His counter techniques, which are often decisive for the game, are considered to be a trademark in tennis.
- Syuichiro Oishi
(3rd grade junior high) - is the vice-captain and as the "mother" of the tennis club often tries to create a good atmosphere. He usually plays doubles with Kikumaru as a golden pair . His playing style is a calm baseline game with a lot of overview, which makes his partner's acrobatic style possible. Together, the two of them master a special double technique that few other doubles can do.
- Eiji Kikumaru
(3rd grade Junior High) - is a lively, very acrobatic boy. Together with Oishi he plays doubles, where his acrobatic and unpredictable net play is a good addition to Oishi's quiet game. He has been friends with him since he was able to defeat him individually when they first met. With Oishi they are known as the "golden pair".
- Takeshi Momoshiro
(2nd grade junior high) - is an athletic, very self-confident player. He was the first to meet Ryoma and has been very good friends with him ever since. In stark contrast to this is his rivalry-based friendship with Kaidou. He plays a very aggressive and visually striking tennis, which he associates with a consciously provocative or deliberate appearance.
- Kaoru Kaidou
(2nd grade Junior High) - is a very taciturn and solitary player. Outwardly, he is often portrayed as terrifying and daunting. His strength is his persistence. He is also called "Viper" because of his style and behavior, which is not least due to the fact that he often exhales with a snake-like hissing sound. His trademark is a hit in which the ball becomes very unpredictable with a curve in the flight line - the snake.
- Sadaharu Inui
(3rd grade Junior High) - is a rather calm, calculating boy. For a while he held the position of team manager and acts as an assistant coach, which is quite easy for him due to his large collection of facts about all players, because his archive of the characteristics of the others is quite impressive. His great fondness for collecting data is also reflected in his style of play, "data tennis". A special feature are his self-mixed potions, which he calls healthy energy drinks, but which are feared by the rest of the team due to their horrific taste and mostly disgusting appearance.
- Takashi Kawamura
(3rd grade junior high) - a very reserved boy outside of the tennis court who radically changes with a tennis racket in hand. He is then very convinced of himself and is full of zest for action. He is considered one of the strongest hitters in the team, which is also reflected in his style of play, which is technically very straightforward, but very powerful. His goal is to become the strongest player in terms of strength. His favorite battle cry: Burning! However, in the course of the series he decides to emulate his father as a sushi chef.
Publications
Manga
The Prince of Tennis was published in Japan from July 1999 to March 3, 2008 in individual chapters in the manga magazine Shōnen Jump of the Shūeisha publishing house. These individual chapters were also regularly published in a total of 42 anthologies. The manga was one of the most successful Japanese comic series for several years; the first forty anthologies had sold approximately 40.6 million times in Japan by March 2008.
Under the title Shin Tennis no ōjisama (Japanese 新 テ ニ ス の 王子 様 ), the sequel to the monthly Jump SQ has appeared since March 2009 .
The series has been translated into eleven languages; into English, French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Malaysian, Dutch, Indonesian and German. The manga has been published in German by Tokyopop since April 2006 . The 42nd and last volume was published in October 2010.
Anime
Production IG produced a 178-part anime series for the manga, which was broadcast on the Japanese television station TV Tokyo from 2001 to 2005 . In addition, four OVAs and three movies were made.
An OVA series with a total of 13 episodes, which is only about the National Junior High School Tennis Championship , was released in Japan in April 2006. From June 2007 the continuation of the National Junior High School Tennis Championship Semifinal followed before the last act began in April 2008 with the National Junior High School Tennis Championship Final .
The sequel Shin tennis no Ōji-sama has been broadcast on Japanese television since January 4, 2012 .
musical
The first Prince of Tennis musical was premiered in 2003, followed every three to four months by others, including repetitions of shows that had already been performed and live concerts that were limited to the singing scenes. At the beginning, the performances were mostly limited to a duration of just under a week, which was later extended to almost two months. The events were very well attended. The line-up of the musicals changed several times due to various circumstances. They are now in the fourth line-up. So Dream Live became 1st, via Dream Live 2nd and 3rd, and finally Dream Live 4th. In May 2008 Dream Live 5th was performed.
Movie
On May 13, 2006, the first real film was released in Japanese cinemas, showing a match in a regional tournament. With the exception of Ryoma Echizen, the actors of the regular players were the musical actors of the second cast. Ryoma Echizen was played by Kanata Hongo (Silk, Nana2). On the part of the Hyotei players, Koji Date (Chōtarō Ōtori) was the only one who played from the musicals. The script is by Takeshi Konomi and the music by Tarō Iwashiro .
| role | actor |
|---|---|
| Ryōma Echizen | Kanata Hongo |
| Kunimitsu Tezuka | Yū Shirota |
| Shūsuke Fuji | Hiroki Aiba |
| Shūichirō Ōishi | Hiroki Suzuki |
| Kikumaru Eiji | Osamu Adachi |
| Takashi Kawamura | Yoshikazu Kotani |
| Sadaharu Inui | Hirofumi Araki |
| Takeshi Momoshiro | Masaki Kaji |
| Kaoru Kaidō | Kosuke Kujirai |
Web links
- Official homepage of Shueisha for the manga series (Japanese)
- List of all manga volumes (Japanese)
- Official homepage of TV Tokyo for the anime series (Japanese)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Anime News Network on ending the series
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
