Source: Anime News Network
"You still have a ways to go" - Echizen Ryoma
“Prince of Tennis” is one of my favourite manga about sports. It’s a Japanese manga series that was serialised in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump from July 1999 to March 2008. The “Prince of Tennis” has been one of the most successful franchises published by Weekly Shonen Jump. As of March 2008, the first 40 volumes of this particular manga had sold over 40 million copies in Japan. As of January 2012, the manga “Prince Of Tennis” had more than 51 million copies in circulation.
Introduction
Book’s Name: Prince Of Tennis
Original Name: テニスの王子様 (Tenisu no Oujisama)
Author’s Name: Takeshi Konomi
Genre: Coming-of-age, Sports.
Language: Japanese
Status: Completed
Parts: 2 [The Prince of Tennis, The Prince of Tennis II]
Volumes: 77
Chapters available - 728
Synopsis – Spoiler Alert!
The series is primarily set in Tokyo and revolves around Ryoma Echizen, a tennis prodigy. At the request of his father Nanjiro Echizen, tennis prodigy Ryouma Echizen returned from America and to his home in Japan. As a prodigy, he is ready to take the Japanese tennis teams by storm. Aiming to become the best tennis player in the country, he enrols in Seishun Academy.
Seishun Academy or Seigaku for short is a school which is known for its strong tennis club and talented players who always make it to the nationals. The players here play different styles of tennis.
Shortly after missing the entrance ceremony, Ryoma quickly defeats numerous upperclassmen securing himself a spot as one of the team's regulars and gets a lot of attention as a freshman. After that Ryouma catches the captain's eye with his unique way of tennis, he finds himself playing for a spot on the starting lineup in the intra-school ranking matches despite only being a freshman.
Due to his young age, the rest of the Seishun Boys' Tennis Team are initially reluctant to accept him. They thought it might not be the best choice for the team, but Ryoma’s skill and his determination convinced them to let him in as a regular.
Teamed up with their new "super rookie," Seishun is set out to claim their spot in the National Tournament, hoping to take the coveted title for themselves. To make it to the Nationals, the team must qualify by playing through the Tokyo Prefectural and Kanto Regionals. They meet a variety of new strong players who inspire Ryoma to become stronger and polish his skills.
In pursuit of their ultimate goal of winning the “National Middle School Tennis Championship”, the members of the team make new friends while learning about each other's strengths and weaknesses and increasingly complex techniques to oppose new rivals in their paths. Ryoma also begins to develop his own style of tennis and ends up realising what tennis actually means to him.
About the Author
“A happy media creator, sometimes a manga artist.” - Takeshi Konomi
Takeshi Konomi (許斐 剛) was born on June 26, 1970. He’s a Japanese manga artist, known for creating one of the most spectacular works of all time called “The Prince of Tennis'' which ran from 1999 to 2008.
In December 2016, Takeshi Konomi published a one-shot manga called “Head-butt !! Yokohama Ouka Koukou XXxX Club” in Weekly Shonen Jump which also received a lot of good feedback and also had a pretty good reach to the audience.
One of the fun facts about Takeshi is that he wrote and sang the songs which are in the intro and other bgms found in the manga and anime series by himself. This is something that makes him quite unique from other manga artists.
About the Book
“The Prince of Tennis” developed into a highly spoken and searched media franchise in a short period of time. It includes long-running radio shows, numerous video games, anime, live-action movies, TV series, well over 250 soundtracks and CDs, and other merchandise. Since 2003, more than fifteen stage musicals have been produced. An anime film premiered in January 2005 and a live-action film premiered in May 2006. If that was not enough, it even has a 3DCG film premiering in Japan in September 2021.
Themes Involved
Though the story is mainly evolving around the sports and coming of age genre, there is also no lacking in romance, friendship and high school theme. A slacking prodigy who believes that he can win anything gets to play with various players and realises his shortcomings. He goes through emotional and physical maturation through the franchise like every other coming of age genera.
Famous Quotes
“You still have a ways to go”- Ryoma Echizen
“If you're failing, then keep trying until you don’t.” - Kintaro Toyama
“I’m sorry, but I never lose to the same opponent twice.” - Fuji Shuusuke
The Bottom Line
In conclusion, the overall manga is amazing. Upon reading one can find that many life lessons are said in an easy way where anyone can understand and the most important one of all is that it’s not boring. And this manga shows how harsh a life lesson can be and it also gives solutions or examples as to how to tackle them or overcome them.
My rating for the manga is 4.8 on 5
Get your copy from Amazon: The Prince of Tennis, Vol. 1 (Volume 1)
Written By – _CB _Ryuu_
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