Prince of Tennis (2001)
Animation Production: NAS
Broadcast by: TV Tokyo
Images' Source: PrinceofTennis.com
Episodes: N/A
By Maya

Introduction

I never thought I'd ever see the day where I'd be interested in a sports anime (let alone it being tennis)... But that just shows that I cannot predict the future. I've watched all of the current episodes of Prince of Tennis (up to 99), the majority fan-subbed and the more recent episodes raw. I don't exactly remember how I got into the series, I do believe it was curiosity; nonetheless I'm glad I'm a fan.

The Story

As you can tell by the title, the series is based on tennis. It isn't professional tennis, or even high school tennis; it's about junior high tennis... In short, the story follows Seishun Gakuen's (Seigaku for short) long and hard journey to Nationals, and how each character develops to face new challenges set upon them by their opponents and even their own teammates. The main focus is also on the main character, a first year student who proves to be one of the best players on the team, Echizen Ryoma. He's only a 1st year student, but takes the junior high tennis world by storm.

Review

The first episode introduces us to the main character, Echizen Ryoma. Due to some small problems, Ryoma ends up playing a tennis match against an annoying high school student. Needless to say, Ryoma handles the older boy with ease, bringing him to his knees crying. We learn by the end of the episode that Ryoma has moved back to Japan from America , where he won a few junior tennis championships. Eventually, all the members of Seigaku learn about this new 1st year's tennis skills, including their tennis captain. Ryoma soon becomes a regular team member, and from there, the story continues with the team climbing up the ladder to Nationals...

The tennis team faces countless rival teams at various tournaments, all of which bring along problems in the characters. Now, usually, I don't really like a series that has a lot of characters. The main school already has 9 or so characters, which is already a bit much, but then you have to add in all the rival schools... However, they spend time on most of the characters, allowing us to see them grow and develop. So, even though this show has countless characters, none of them are total cardboard cut-outs.

Now, as for the animation, it is okay… It isn’t the greatest animation you’ll see, but it is by no means the worst. Sometimes the animation is great, but other times you almost wonder if the animators even knew what they were doing. The animation seems to change towards the later part of the series, but it doesn’t get to the point it is still decent.

The soundtracks for the series are fair, while the opening, ending, and insert themes are superb. One of the major high points to Prince of Tennis is the music that comes along with the series. Almost every character has their own song, it’s a shame that they aren’t used in the series, however. But I believe that the opening and ending themes make up for it.

The first 70 episodes have truly amazing arcs. Some will leave you breathless, some will leave you stunned, some will leave you with a feeling of “^_^”. That’s just how great the anime is. However, after the Hyotei arc (ends somewhere around the 70s), the series takes a bit of a change; the matches don’t seem as suspenseful as they could be or have been. It is not like the new arcs are all that bad, but they don’t leave the same feeling as most of the earlier arcs.

Conclusion

All in all, Prince of Tennis is a really great anime series. It’s rather surprising since it’s based on tennis, however all the tournaments have some sort of drama within them. I’ve gotten to the point where I was grasping tightly onto my chair because a match was so suspenseful. Prince of Tennis is a really great show to check out, even if you aren’t in to tennis.

Maya