It's a great sports manga that you can enjoy in the beginning. But it goes bad halfway and grows into a Sports manga that doesn't take itself very seriously with all tennis players getting superpowers. Worse than that, every match feels the same. Some guy (Seigaku or Other team)will start winning 4 games. Its 4-0. THEN THE OTHER GUY WHO HAD HIS HIDDEN TECHNIQUE REVEALS IT AND MAKES THE SCORE BACK TO 4-4. WHAT A COMEBACK. Finally, since the other guty is a little smart and had 4-5 games to study the new technique, he's able to win by a small wargin in the end.

From this point on , Prince of Tennis became a really bad manga to read and not worth buying at all.

Start of manga = 8.5 /10
End of manga = 2 /10

It's nothing like Slam Dunk.

... Last updated on July 3rd, 2008, 6:50am

I am shocked to see even people of my age acting as if Prince of Tennis is stupid and exaggerated, forgetting that this is perfectly representing the age of our generation. It is ok for people to criticize it for shortcomings or bad script or whatever else, but when I see people giving it a bad mark because it does not reflect reality, it makes me wonder what these people are thinking.

Video games of my generation were like this, exaggerated and full of super duper fantasy moves. Even of I know 0 about Tennis. I am sure a lot of moves are taken from real life actual techniques and mixed with super powers. But when I watch this I feel I am actually watching an anime representing perfectly the mindset of people of late 90ies.

Again, I do not get why peiple judge it for what it is not; A realistic representation of tennis. Even one I picked up lately, Baby Steps, even if realistic it has to mix in a bit of impossible to pull moves, because simply it is NOT an emulated story of real life.

I am not one to care for Yaoi and thankfully I see nothing of Yaoi moments or mood. Then again I do not see such moments in even manga that actually show a strong mood for it, but that is probably because I am not interested in such.

All in all I am giving this a 10, because is succeeds to entertain people that it is meant for. For people that was real tennis, better look elsewhere. For people that love old manga/anime and their stupidly exaggerated mood, you are on the right place!

The start was good. The ending was good. The stuff inbetween was awesome. An amazing manga.
It kept me interested and staying up at night right until the end, the plot was well developed, the main characters easily definable by their different appearances (albeit some of the opposing team's members seemed to blur into one slightly). Some people may complain about it being unrealistic, to which I'll only say that it didn't deduct from the manga, and this is a shounen. The only question I have is; how the heck is Tezuka a junior high student

... Last updated on June 29th, 2010, 1:18pm

This is one of the best manga i have ever read. It not just about tennis well most of it is. But it is about friendship and how Ryoma develops. The character are so cool! Personally Rikkaidai is my favourite team because it has many different personalities types. The tennis moves are awesome even if they are unrealistic. I am a big fan of Prince of Tennis! There has been many adaption such as the live action, anime, movies, musicals and games. The character songs are great! For me reading Prince of tennis taught me stuff and is unforgettable. I will never get bored of it.

I know nothing about tennis nor sports and I couldn't care less, but this manga is really amusing. I reread it three times by now and love it even more than the first time. There's not much development in the character department and the plot is quite simple, though I can't complain; I really love Ryoma's personality and am very glad he didn't change. That and absolute lack of a female lead or any female characters to begin with won me over !!love!!
It's a very easy and quick read. There's also quite a few goodies for yaoi fangirls (or fanboys), such cute slashiness <3

The best part about Prince of Tennis is NOT the cool moves, but rather the right time to use it. Usually, one or two exceptional players beat Kaido's Buggy Whip (Is it called that?), or Nanjiro's the only guy that can keep Ryoma at his toes. Who says the moves aren't cool? Without the moves, Prince of Tennis wouldn't be so popular! What do you expect? This manga is fiction, thus the moves are fiction.

One thing I didn't like about Prince of Tennis was...all the regular players looked able; all the muscles, hands, and legs are moving at the right speed and pace but...not the first years besides Echizen. Look at Sakuno, she's looks fragile, as if one hard swing could break her into pieces. Look at two of Echizen's male friends, they're so puny, they have scrawny arms, like they're only in 4th grade, but Echizen doesn't look anywhere near it. It's nice to able to differentiate (dunno if that's a word XDDD) the main character from the rest of the not-so-important characters but, c'mon! At least, make Sakuno more mature with boobs or something! And Sakuno's grandma? Man, choose one! Make her a man OR woman, not a woman with man looks!

i just heard that their was going to be a "new" prince of tennis following ryoma again?! And that it would start in march 2009.....and they said that this was just the prologue.... but im not sure, cus i did like the ending nd now i hear this s the prologe?!...hmm but i do want to read it more now, srry for the rant.......

im giving the animae a 10 cause i have not read the manga.i watch it on toonami jetstream where i get my half fill of animae.i dont know who my favorite is tho,ryoma or his dad...oh well its exiting and doesnt do tame exitmentwhen.dont worry manga fans i will get to the manga when ive finished the other several series im reading

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.

I used to follow Prince of Tennis, back when it was still on the regional matches. I actually think (yes, present tense) the beginning was good; it followed the shonen sports formula to a T, but it had good matches and decent characters.

Somewhere along the lines, PoT began to lose me - not because the matches got increasingly ridiculous, but because the manga was making me care about the main team less and less. It simply boiled down to the fact that I really don't care to see Ryoma win because he is an annoying little brat who doesn't really have much characterization and his opponents are much more interesting. The thing about Ryoma is that he "grows" automatically, spontaneously in the middle of a match. There's no rationale or drama behind it, you simply know by previous experience with the manga that he'll reach limit break mode somewhere along the lines and explode during a match. There is no real development there, whereas with other classic sports shonen leads, you see that growth and development in the character as they slowly overcome the obstacles in their way. Eyeshield21's Sena is really the best example of this.

Anyway, this is probably a personal preference kind of thing, but I really wanted to offer an alternate view of why people would dislike this manga as opposed to the usual "lol ridiculous skills" argument. In terms of making a good main character, this manga really failed - there's no real reason to follow a sports shonen when you don't care to see the main character win.