The Prince of Tennis

Late last year and early this year, The Price of Tennis became one of my favorite sport anime. I first saw The Prince of Tennis at a local public channel by accident. Being a fan of other sport animes like Wild Striker, Slam Dunk and Knockout, The Prince of Tennis immediately caught my interest thus watching it became a daily schedule.

Unfortunately, the local public channel wasn’t able to continue the series but, luckily, it was picked up by a local anime cable channel and I didn’t mind starting the series from the beginning. Actually, I pretty much welcomed it.

The Prince of Tennis is a story of a young tennis prodigy named Ryoma Echizen whose father is the legendary pro tennis player, Samurai Nanjiro, thus Ryoma got the nickname Samurai Junior. He easily became America’s top junior tennis player by winning the tournament four years in a row but his career made a quick turn when his family decided to move back to Japan.

In Japan, he joined Seikagu’s tennis club and met the other characters that will eventually become part of his life as The Prince of Tennis.

Honestly, I know nothing about tennis. I don’t even like tennis but the kind of tennis being played in the Prince of Tennis is not your everyday kind. Just like with other animes where ordinary moves are greatly enhanced, the tennis moves in the Prince of Tennis are much flashier making it more exciting and fun to watch.

Our local anime cable channel ended their series at the US-Japan Junior Tennis Invitational Tournament where Ryoma faced Kevin Smith whose father was badly defeated by Ryoma’s father before both of them were even born. It was a hard fought match which Ryoma eventually won. In the end, Ryoma and Kevin became good friends.

There are more episodes after that but thanks to the internet I was able to watch the succeeding episodes which were generally just fillers through video sharing websites like YouTube and VEOH. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still continue to watch it once new episodes starts airing. I find that watching it dubbed in my local language is much easier to understand.

One thing I noticed about Ryoma is that he has never lost a game in an official match. Yes, he lost many times but all of those loses were from unofficial matches.

The Prince of Tennis is one cool anime. I like it, my kids like it and my wife kinda like it too. Just don’t take all those super cool looking special tennis moves seriously. Remember, it’s a sport anime and not real life sports. LOL!