Ranked #193

Prince of Tennis

The Prince of Tennis - a sports-driven anime that debuted back in 2001, depicts the story of Echizen Ryoma and his experiences in the world of tennis. Along with Hajime no Ippo, the Prince of Tennis helped start the rave with sports-driven anime craze, and its not really a wonder why a lot of those anime use many of the elements from the Prince of Tennis - its so good that its still being animated (in OVA form) this very day.

Normally, with sports anime, you see the rise of a certain young star from not being a very good player to being the ace of their sport. The Prince of Tennis pulled something out of the ordinary and made Echizen an amazing tennis player right from the start. Now you're probably thinking, "Well, where's the fun in that?" Well, Echizen is always going up against top-notch opponents and throughout the show, you'll witness him going from a cocky, immature kid to one who actually respects his opponents (well, sort of anyway) and development of new, exciting skills. Echizen join the Seigaku high school tennis team and participates in tournaments with them. And of course, the overall theme is to aim for the top of the tennis world.

The art is pretty good. It starts off so-so, but before you know it, it gets to that level where you're impressed by it. As for the animation, you'll see a lot of repeated frames throughout the show (as usual with sports anime), but the way they animate all of the new skills and tennis matches is just so amazing, that after some of the matches, you just stare in awe at its magnificence.

The sound, I would say, is probably the weakest point of the show. Although the music presented in the Prince of Tennis does suit the mood and is pretty upbeat at times, there really isn't a score that will stand out to you, where you'll be saying, "Ah!! I need that on my computer/ipod." Nevertheless, its relatively enjoyable

Since the stories are pretty much the same throughout all sport anime (overall), in order for an anime to be amazing - especially the case with sport ones - characters and unique personalities need to be there. And Prince of Tennis does not disappoint in that category. This show unveils so many different memorable characters, that you'll undoubtedly have trouble picking your all-time favorite one from the lot because they are so unique. And the best part about it is that the creators were able to somehow give each character a unique way of playing tennis. With the amount of characters and opponents they present, you'd think that they would have to repeat somewhere. But that's definitely not the case.

With amazing tennis matches, a plethora of unique and lovable characters, and a cocky main protagonist that will get on your nerves at times but you'll respect out of necessity because of his skills, the Prince of Tennis is an amazing sport anime. The best part of this anime is that you will have a hard time knowing who will win matches. Surprisingly enough, all the main characters experience losses matches at times, which makes it interesting to see how each one responds to the agony of defeat.

If you are looking for a sport-driven anime and are in for the long haul - meaning 170+ episodes, the Prince of Tennis is exactly what you're looking for. read more

The Prince of Tennis, or テニスの王子様, is very highly rated here at MAL. It's rated so highly, in fact, that I hope to bring a bit of a fresh perspective in the midst of reviews that seem to be simply singing its praises.

Story: 5
There's really nothing exceptional to be found here. The show follows youngsters of the Japanese tennis world, specifically those of Seishun Gakuen middle school, the "Prince of Tennis" being Echizen Ryoma, a freshmen. Sure, it was a bold move in 2001 to make an anime about tennis, which is not exactly the biggest thing in Japan, but just that fact alone does not guarantee much of a show. The plot is generic, relatively predictable, and most importantly: too long. A normal one or two season show will use a three episode time-frame to put out many new plot developments and possibly character introductions, while The Prince of Tennis would use 3 episodes for a single match. This show, even though it is supposed to be about a sport, suffers from the "power spiral" complex. They label characters as a certain strength and then have them perform completely different come game time. The other real problem I had with this show is the heavily overused surprise comeback. Sure, if a match is one-sided, there's no suspense; but when an unbelievable comeback is happening almost every match, it just gets annoying and tedious. I might have seen the story in a better light if this series was closer to 30-50 episodes (And it easily could have been). At any rate, the pitfalls of this show are typical of a long shounen anime. It's hard to write an excellent story that lasts and stays engaging for almost 200 episodes.. although Prince of Tennis didn't have the change of scenery that tends to help similar shows stay refreshing. It's just 50+ hours of the tennis court. You could watch over 20 movies in that time.

Art: 7
I don't have any real complaints here. The art is far from spectacular, but there's nothing particularly wrong with it.

Sound: 7
The same could be said for the sound as the art. The voice acting was pretty typical, the music was fine.

Character: 7
The characters in Prince of Tennis were many, all of them with their own backgrounds and styles. I felt that there was almost too much character development here, because with every new character came a story that contributed to making this show too long.

Enjoyment: 3
I really don't understand how people could find much of an enjoyment factor in Prince of Tennis. Every ~10 episodes is basically a copy of the last ~10 episodes, but in a new tournament against a new school. It gets extremely repetitive, and I found myself skimming through the matches later in the series, eventually dropping it at episode 162. There are a lot of special moves that are used to spice up the matches; but they're just ridiculously unrealistic and don't really serve the purpose of making things interesting. The use of injury to create drama gets old, as if they're trying to pass tennis off as a contact sport.

In the end, I can't see myself giving this show anything higher than a 5. I recommend watching the first set of matches, and then dropping the show, because there's not really anything new to see after that point. For a show given such a high rating, it really was a disappointment. read more