Tennis no Oujisama
The Prince of Tennis

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

Prince of Tennis is a manga that accomplish what the mangaka wants, this is your typical battle shonen, not sports but action, everyone has super powers and not figuratively(at some point one guy gets blown out of the stadium), they broke arms, all kinds of bones, people go blind and loose senses all the time. They even turn super sayajin. But has i said if this is the kind of thing you like go for it, i prefer other kind of sports manga (Eyeshield 21, Hajime no Ippo or Slam Dunk). The main characters get good development arcs while the same can´t be said about ... most of their rivals with the exception of Hyotei Gakuen and their captain(by far the most popular character in the manga, by the final popularity poll). The story is very straighforward, nothing that will knock your socks off. The manga most similar to this one is Captain Tsubasa, two manga with the same strenghts and weakness´s.

This manga is good; not great, at least not at the end, but certainly not bad. The first 100 or so chapters are the best, when the plot is relatively small-scale, and the tennis still looks like... well, tennis. As the story escalates, it falls to power creep, and suddenly I'm laughing every match because the suspension of disbelief is just... gone. However, the final match of the series is worth a read; it has some nice theming and character development. I consider Prince of Tennis a great story with a bad ending; here's to hoping the sequel is closer to the former half of ... Prince of Tennis than the latter.

I'm writing this review for a variety of reasons: for a manga as popular as Prince of Tennis (POT) i would expect much more reviews, there are currently three i believe, and all three of these reviews have a strong positive bias which doesn't sit well with me. I do believe that this manga has some merits but i feel that the popularity is completely undeserved. before i move on to the main section of the review i am going to list what i like about the manga, and from the low score i gave it, it should be obvious the list is small. It ... was an epic manga that incorporated emotions very well. For such a cheesy story i was surprised that at times i sympathized, and on the occasion empathized, for the characters. As i progressed through the manga i realized that aside from when the characters are quite realistic. I particularly enjoyed sections with Kawamura, whom i found to be the most realistic and mysterious. For having such a large cast i feel that Konomi manages to give the right amount of detail to all of the main cast. What pissed me off the most was of how small character Sakuno became as the manga went on; by the end of the manga i had nearly forgotten about her. It is almost unheard of to me for a shounen manga to have such a pathetic female lead, almost to the point where it is either her grandmother, the team's coach, or the fact that in the manga there just is no female lead, which is also a feat in shounen manga i find quite undesirable. That rant wasn't supposed to happen as i was hoping to list what i 'liked' about the manga. i'll end this section on a poistive note and say that the art in POT is wonderful, one of the best i've ever seen. Attention is spent to detail. All of the characters look distinct and i found that it seemed that the characters faces greatly reflected their type of personality.

Story: 3
I loved the story at the beginning. I found it realistic, plot driven, and refreshing in comparison to the similar story of many action shounen. It should be obvious, however, that POT is very, very long. What was an enjoyable plot became more and more typical. When i finished the manga i remembering comparing its story line to Rurouni Kenshin and Shaman King. In all these manga the main characters encounter a strong opponent, defeat the opponent and then face a stronger oppponent. this reoccurs in all of the nearly 400 chapters of the manga. the fact that some opponents are reused does little to sway my opinion that the story line boring and not enjoyable. It is long, unrealistic -- extremely unrealistic, has to much filler, and forced comedic scenes that aside from being humorless, they are weird, bizarre, and embarrassing to read. To be blunt; comic relief in POT is anything but relieving. Also these junior high kids, 13 14 and 15 year olds, performing superhuman tricks that i've never seen Roger Federer or Raphael Nadal come close to doing, is... bad. Are these kids playing tennis or do they belong in Dragon Ball Z?

Art: 9
I stated earlier that i loved the art in this manga, but i'll state why its so good, perhaps again. the characters all look unique and the detail to everything is great. the looks are very cool and many of the expressions the characters use sum up their personalities better than their quotations and actions.

Character: 6
the main cast, those on the Seishun Academy tennis team are unique, cool, and well developed. I liked them a lot. the way they acted as friends was very real. However many of the opposing teams were both needlesly aggressive and stupid. I often times found that Konomi spent to much time on the main cast and to little on the opposition, those that served as antagonists. As their were many its difficult to remember just one and ever more difficult to distinguish between the large amount of them. This made them seem very cheesy at times. Often to the point where it baflfled me. I am going to say that while real people act like those from the Seishun Academy, when it comes to the underdeveloped side characters i have yet to see any one person in real life that is like them.

Enjoyment: 3
If i were a kid perhaps i would have liked the manga more. It is after all, a shounen manga, and an extremely popular one. But, after reading POT i feel like i wasted my time reading, especially when i should have been reading something else. I liked the main cast but i found all of the other characters to be despicable. A manga with such poor antagonists would be dreadful. While i did hate them, which is often times the point to an antogonists existense, i feel like i hated them because, honestly, as characters they sucked and it was boring to read about them.

Overall: 3
I would never reccomend this to anyone. Those who wish to read a good shounen should read DBZ or Shaman King, or pretty much any other title. The plot dragged on and on. In my personal opinon POT is stupid. The mindless aggression of many of the antagonists, the gore in a sport where there is rarely ever any blood, seriously this is one gory manga, the forced and stupid humor, all coupled together with the result that this manga should not be viewed, that is just my opinion. i end by stating that it baffles me that not only is this one of the most popular mangas currently, it is one of the most marketable. There are musicals for this in Japan. If they reach American shores i will lose faith in the American Manga/Anime industry.