The motive fit. But PoT is a crime.
I felt the urgent desire to offer to the anime community a fair and balanced review of this series. Let me cut to the chase. It was awful. Prince of Tennis was like a pussy boil of irritation. I tried ignoring it, but the irritation only spread. Allow me to explain.
First was the woeful characters. Woeful doesn't quite sum up the enormity of the irritation the characters in this series cause.
"Mada mada dane", or "it's not over yet". No, God damn right it's not over. Not till a blow your irritating head off along with that stupid hat you're wearing with a bazooka!
in PoT we follow the main protagonist, a budding tennis prodigy who gets labelled by his prepubescent fan club with the name Prince of Tennis. Echizen Ryoma, a 12 year old who begins at a secondary school known for its tennis prowess, carries himself with a more than adequate degree of annoying arrogance. This arrogant nature that pervades the main character is commented on by other equally arrogant tennis players who all prove themselves inferior in skill. Echizen has no endearing or attractive qualities that can be mentioned except that he is abnormally good at tennis and loves rubbing his opponents noses in the fact that they're inferior to his godlike qualities. Not, that is, that they don't deserve to be brown nosed. If you can handle a snotty nosed little kid, with oddly enough women of all ages drooling over him, then by all means, enjoy this series.
Secondly we have the sound. Where did they find that track that pervades most of the show. It's like they ripped it off from a 70s porn film and stuffed it into a tennis match. Have you ever watched a tennis match with 70s porn music playing in the background? Well I can assure you, it's quite disconcerting. (I joke). Variety of music? No. Music that at least fits the mood? No. Bowawowawow-wow.
Where can I go from here? Okay the animation. Woeful. Dreadful. Just plain crap. The tennis matches are meant to be exciting, this is why people watch, because they are meant to generate tension and interest. We want to be held on the edge of or seat, biting our fingernails, unsure if our favourite character was going to win... or God forbid lose! No. No. This is impossible. Firstly you want Echizen to lose, because you don't like him. Unfortunately you don't really like his opponents either, so... Secondly the way the matches are animated is boring. So man stills, continuous repetition of the same shot over, and over, and over again. Like a broken record. Like someone raking their nails down a chalkboard. All the while 70s porn film music playing in the background.
Then there is the tennis itself. Okay, you have to give these kind of shows some creative licence. They're as much fantasy as they are real. We're prepared to suspend our disbelief for a certain amount of time and to a certain degree. But the moves they produce and the crap they come up with to explain each players unique techniques and skills is utterly ridiculous. Laughable. Just plain stupid at times. As I write this I'm shaking my head in utter bemusement.
Then there is the character designs and the voices. Why do half the tennis team look like females, act like females, have female voices... but are apparently male. What's with that? Maybe female voice actors are paid less and they were trying to cut on unnecessary costs. Don't get it. Please explain. Echizen himself looks like a little midget amongst the other tennis players. Like a weird little rumplestiltskin of tennis. Like an odd little evil pixie taken from another anime and transplanted into this one. He looks out of place with a big hat on his stupid looking oversized head.
So. What's left? Are there any redeeming qualities to this pain-filled anime series? I'd like to say "no", but their are a few. A few hints at something better, something greater, something it could possibly be, something it aspires to be, something you hope it will become... but never actually get there. The father of this annoying kid tennis player is kind of entertaining at points... and...
No, that's all I can think of.
I felt I had to inform people about this ordeal I experienced. I had to let others know. Give a balanced view. Albeit I did not watch the entire series, but the first 25 episodes I did watch left me with little hope was to any positive outcome or enjoyment. I quit. I had to. I'm sorry. Good luck to any of you who want to take the journey.
