The Prince of Tennis (テニスの王子様, Tenisu no Ōjisama) is a shonen sports manga written by Takeshi Konomi. Like most popular manga, an anime series has been released as well. Due to its popularity, the series developed into a media franchise, with musicals, video games, soundtracks, and etc. The orginal run was from July 1999 to March 2008 and from then on, it has turned into an anime, a live action movie, several musicals and an animated movie. To shorten the name fans have called it 'Tenipuri' or POT and the musicals are called Tenimyu. It was featured in Weekly Shōnen Jump and has 379 chapters in 42 volumes. From 2009 Takeshi Konomi released a sequel series: New Prince of Tennis (新テニスの王子様, Shin Tenisu no Ōjisama). New Prince of Tennis is currently serialized in Jump Square and has released 174 chapters so far.
The story itself is about a 12-year old boy named Ryoma Echizen, who is a tennis genius. He has won 4 tournaments in the US and returned to his homeland in Japan to attend Seishun Academy and find out what tennis means to him.
Name in Other Countries[]
- The Prince of Tennis - United Kingdom, Canada, and United States
- 網球王子 - China and Taiwan
- 테니스의 왕자 - Korea
- เจ้าชายลูกสักหลาด - Thailand
Trivia[]
- As of episode 54 or so, the Japanese racquet company Yonex became one of the show's sponsors. As a result, all of the Seigaku player's shirts and equipment which was originally unmarked began to carry the Yonex mark. On another note, Ryoma's racquet began to have the distinctive hexagonal shape of Yonex's racquets, and had Yonex markings on it, despite it being a Bridgestone (another Japanese company) racquet in the manga.