'The Prince of Tennis' Announces New Film

Takeshi Konomi's The Prince of Tennis has seen a bit of revival over the past year with new OVA [...]

By Nick Valdez

Takeshi Konomi's The Prince of Tennis has seen a bit of revival over the past year with new OVA specials cataloging some of the best matches in the series, but the ride is not over just yet.

The Prince of Tennis announced during Jump Festa 2019 that it will be getting a new film focusing on Ryoma in 2020 that fills in some blanks left in the original series.

Titled Ryoma! Rebirth Movie The Prince of Tennis, the new film will feature an original story that takes place in three month span in between The Prince of Tennis and its sequel, The New Prince of Tennis. The film is currently scheduled to open in Japan in 2020 and will rejoin Ryoma, who fans have not really seen in anime in quite some time. The logo for the film is quite interesting too as it features the colors of many of the schools featured throughout the series' run.

The Prince of Tennis franchise has enjoyed a revival run in Japan with a OVA series reliving some of fans' favorite matches. Titled The Prince of Tennis BEST GAMES!!, the first episode features the match between Seishun Academy's Kunimitsu Tezuka and Hyoutei Academy's Keigo Atobe, and the second episode of the special highlights doubles matches as it recaps both Shuichiro Oishi and Eiji Kikumaru's game against Hiroshi Yagyu and Masaharu Nio, and Ryo Shishido and Chotaro Otori's game against Sahadaru Inui and Kaoru Kaido. This was be followed by a third episode featuring the match between Shūsuke Fuji and Akaya Kirihara during the Kanto tournament.

The Prince of Tennis was originally created by Takeshi Konom for Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1999. The series follows Ryoma Echizen, a tennis prodigy attending a private school famous for its strong tennis players. After making his way onto the school's team by defeating a number of strong upperclassmen, his team decides to enter the National Middle School Tennis Championship as Ryoma slowly learns his own unique style of tennis and really cements what the sport means to him.

It was later adapted into an anime series by Trans Arts, and ran for 178 episodes. The series was licensed by Viz Media and aired as part of Cartoon Network's Toonami block in 2006, but was later moved to Toonami's streaming platform, Toonami Jetstream, for the remainder of its broadcast.

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