Prince of Tennis is a fantasy-styled shounen sports manga. Actually, it started out rather mild and tamed, and the tennis was just simply tennis. But it evolved into Dragonball-like tennis moves that are impossible to achieve in real life (at one point, one of the characters hones in a stray tennis ball just by using his aura?) and that’s really the downfall of the manga. It can’t decide whether it wants to be modern-day slice-of-life style, or alternate universe in which people can leap twenty feet in the air, make a tennis ball spin around like a tornado, seeing people’s bones with the naked eye, can turn their skin red and power up their tennis, and for some reason, it’s possible for a human to skid forwards on his feet and ... still keep on going.
If Prince of Tennis stuck with realism, we’d have a nice contained manga about an arrogant 12 year old boy followed by a cast of over 50 other pretty boys who play tennis.
To be honest, they should have just ditched the tennis, and made it about 50 pretty boys instead, because that’s why anyone actually likes Prince of Tennis; the boys. The large cast of pretty boys. Oh, there’s like 3 girls in the entire series, and they’re useless and contribute nothing to the story, so not only is it bad at showcasing tennis, but it’s also very misogynist.
But be warned, just because it has so many characters, doesn’t mean they actually get developed. None of them do. Absolutely none. They start out one way, and haven’t changed a bit at the end of the series. Maybe they won or lost a few matches, and got stronger at tennis, but that’s it. There’s no development in their personality, no friendships or relationships are developed either. How you meet them in the beginning, is how they will be at the end.
The best part is that the anime version of Prince of Tennis creates fillers that makes the main cast bond with each other, and it works out! The anime is much more enjoyable because of these filler episodes that focus on the characters only, and not about stupid fantasy tennis. The manga however, is all tennis, tennis, and tennis. And that is really the manga’s downfall, because it sucks at making the tennis look interesting, engaging or even worthwhile.
Oh, the main character also never loses. He’s a 12 year old prodigy who says ‘che’ a lot and acts like he’s the best tennis player in the world. You either really, really hate him, or love him.
I’m not a fan of Prince of Tennis, I don’t like the manga (not a fan of the anime either, but it's definitely more enjoyable), and I really don’t care about the characters. I do however, like two of them, because they’re fun and have an interesting dynamic together – but two characters don’t save an entire series that isn’t even focused on them.
Want to read about tennis? Try Baby Steps instead. Want to read about a cast full of pretty boys? Prince of Tennis is the manga for you.
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