27 years after it first made its debut in the pages of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, a major creator has confirmed that they are now working on the final chapter of the franchise with the intent of releasing it very soon. It’s been a big couple of years for Shueisha’s various Jump franchises as the magazine has seen many of their longest running franchises come to an end one after another. It’s been a period of transition that’s showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon as another major series is going to end.
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The New Prince of Tennis has been an official sequel series to The Prince of Tennis, and has been running in the pages of Jump Square since 2009, and original series creator Takeshi Konomi has revealed through the year thus far that the franchise is now heading towards its ultimate conclusion. But with a new update from the creator shared with fans on social media, it’s now been confirmed that Konomi is in the works on The New Prince of Tennis’ final chapter.
The Prince of Tennis to Release Final Chapter After 27 Years
Takeshi Konomi’s The Prince of Tennis first made its debut with Shonen Jump back in 1999, and ran for ten years with the magazine before returning with an official sequel series in Jump Square in 2009. It’s been this sequel series that has kept the fires of the franchise alive in the time since, but it’s all coming to an end. Revealing that the series will end with the final chapters comprising Volume 38, fans will see this long running sports epic wrap up this Summer at last. Naturally, there’s no way to gauge how that end is going to go down.
This initial look at the final chapter of The New Prince of Tennis is likely an early sketch of its cover page as it highlights many of the faces fans have met over nearly three decades of the story thus far. With the anime also returning for new episodes over the past few years, it’s going to be tough to say goodbye to this one. But it seems like it really is time to end Ryoma Echizen’s long journey to get to the top of the pro tennis playing world with this grand finale.
The Prince of Tennis Really Should Be Bigger
Although it technically is one of the oldest and longest current Jump franchises still releasing new chapters today, The Prince of Tennis really hasn’t been as marquee of a franchise outside of Japan as you would think. It came out during the peak of sports anime releases back in the early 2000s, but didn’t really have as much of a shot finding an audience in the United States for example. The series didn’t get as big of a Toonami boom as other franchises.
The Prince of Tennis was one of the many anime series that made their initial debut with the failed Toonami Jetstream streaming platform, and that meant it didn’t really get a lot of support. Though it eventually made it to TV, it only ran for about a year before its episodes were shelved and fans never really got to see the end until it released with Funimation and other platforms years later. But with this upcoming ending, maybe fans can look back on it all fondly either way.
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