Don't get me wrong. I absolutely loved the series and am still reading the manga. But I am not here to rate and talk about the whole series. I am here to talk about this particular season, I am going to review the 13 episodes I watched.
The story starts off where the last one ended. Seigaku became national champion and almost all of its regular members have left. But where are we now? Now we suddenly are at a U-17 training camp for tennis. And this U-17 camp is for the representatives of Japan.
I was really disappointed by this set-up. It would have been interesting to see Tezuka, Fuji and the rest fade to the background while Arai and others become regulars and face a hard time trying to defend their title. Instead we get this. A clusterfuck of characters where each of them get 5 minutes of actually playing tennis and not creating a single good match. I am here to watch a lengthy exciting tennis match, damn it!
Like I said, the characters getting about 5 minutes of screen time each is disappointing. Another thing which was quite Prince of Tennis like was a training camp. Oh wait, again? Yes, again. And to be honest it isn't even exciting, there is not some kind of big challenge ahead. And the only thing we see them doing is run around saying "I can't accept this training" and then "I finally understand the meaning of this."
What I am saying with this is; a good build up is wasted without a (proper) story. In the case of New Prince of Tennis it might be different, this time around they only got 13 episodes to air and for such a slow paced anime which likes to take its time to create amazing matches. It has been far too little.
Art. There is not a lot to say about it. It is as good as it was in its prequel. Which may sound disappointing, but certainly is not. The faces of the characters seem alive and lots variances in their faces.
Animation is also superb like it was. The actual tennis has lots of moving around and nothing sloppy for me to criticise.
Sound is a part of the review which never is heavy for my final score. Because frankly there is not too much to talk about, the opening was not to my tastes. It doesn't fit a usually action packed anime like Prince of Tennis. The voice actors didn't change from the previous series as far as I noticed.
The one problem Prince of Tennis always had is: Characters. It had way too many of them. And it also unnecessarily revives supporting characters over and over again too give the already big bunch of main characters even less screen time. Not saying any of them really sucks, but they are unneeded. I think if it cut back on the characters used for this 13 episode anime. There would have been a lot more actual action and tennis matches.
Though I will say this. Even though it always had way too much characters. All of them were entertaining too watch when put them up against each other and the "evil" team was actually seemingly a bit malicious.
Overall I didn't enjoy this. The plot wasn't what I would have liked it to be. And the characters were in to many numbers and little of them contributed to the plot.
Strong points:
- The variety of characters were not similar and all of them had their own little thing.
- The goal for the protagonist was set high and was not overcome with "resolve".
- The comedy was quite good.
Weak points:
- You need not look further than the characters page, it has way too many and created for little plot.
- Cut-off matches. Only small portions of a tennis match were shown and far too less happened.
- The opening song did not fit for its theme: Tennis.
So if you loved the prequel for its characters and was not a too big fan of the action, you will probably dislike this one.
Life lesson learnt: Quality over quantity.
