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Tv

Plot Synopsis

Taking place in Tokyo today, it follows the journey of Ryoma Echizen, who is a a tennis prodigy. He enrolled to a school called Seishun Academy Middle School (Seishun Gakuen), or in short Seigaku, a school famous for its strong tennis club and talented players. Because of his cool and apathetic attitude, upperclassmen challenge him to play tennis. However, Ryoma had won the American junior tennis championship tournaments four times in a row, and easily defeated the upperclassmen.

Making new friends and learning new tennis tactics, Ryoma and the Seigaku tennis club strive to win the All-Japan junior high tennis team championship tournament.

Credits: niomea

Story & Characters

Echizen Ryoma, twelve years old, is not your average Japanese student. He is in fact a four-time national junior high tennis champion in the United States, and now he comes to Japan to follow his father's foot step in becoming the greatest tennis player. His goals are high, because his father, Nanjirou Echizen, is a undefeated tennis player with the fierce nickname "samurai" on the court, who quit tennis after being shy of one win in becoming the number one tennis player in the nation. Upon his arrival to Japan, he joins Seishun Gakuen, otherwise known as Seigaku, known for its prestigious and renowned tennis club in the Kanto prefecture.

After securing the varsity position, Echizen, along with his eight varsity teammates, will face the best of players in Kanto! Their goal? To not only conquer the Kanto prefecture tournament and secure a spot in the nationals, but to conquer the players of the nationals tournament!

Rating

6 (average)

Art

The art in Prince of Tennis is pretty detailed, with lots of emphasis on character's facial expression, body movement, and muscles that is frequently used when playing tennis. All the characters have unique features, such as distinguishably different hair style, accessories such as glasses and band-aids, which makes it easy for everyone to know exactly who is who in the anime. It is a quite a feat, especially when Prince of Tennis has almost over 20 characters that come up on the show repeatedly.

Despite all that, there are lots of recycled scenes, such as Echizen doing his twist serve, and Fuji's triple counter. Sometimes, this makes the match quite boring, but the movements that is used in Prince of Tennis is quite fluid and is therefore worth a note.

Rating

7 (above average)

Sound

Because Prinec of Tennis is such a long running show, there are various and numerous opening and ending for the series. While they're not particularly the greatest music for the ears, it does what it needs to do. The anime also has a soundtrack singles for almost every character in the series, which makes it a quite a collection, if you decide to collect the three OST that exists, with more bound to be made. The soundtracks however, are over-played. Although some of the theme songs are nice, it gets to a point where one has had enough.

The voice acting is perhaps the best in this series. Complementary to the unique character designs, the voices of each characters also help to distinguish each characters and make them more memorable in many cases.

Rating

7 (above average)

Presentation

Prince of Tennis, despite the low rating I gave, is one of the most popular anime in Japan, and it is really no wonder why. The characters cover almost all favorable characteristics that a charcter can have, which makes each characters special and unique. It is so popular to a point that it spawned numerous Playstion and Gameboy Advance games, with its creative and physics defying moves.

The show also has lots of chibi specials, where it does not continue the actual storyline, but provide an absolutely hilarious omake.

Many matches in Prince of Tennis are absolutely jaw-dropping, such as the match between Tezuka and Atobe. With its fast paced action, it helps the viwers understand the basic rules and fundamentals of the seemingly boring sport that we all know as tennis.

To sum it all, Prince of Tennis is an anime definitely worth watching. While it may be a bit daunting to watch a such a huge series, it is definitely guranteed to satisfy all viewers, although the special moves may seem a bit silly to tennis fanatics.

Rating

8 (good)

Final Verdict

7.00 (above average)

Reviewed by sammo, 3y 32wk ago