|
|
Home
|
Manga/Magazines
|
|
Written by maehara
|
|
Saturday, 26 April 2008 16:00 |
 Sports-related manga and anime is a genre I've never really "got" - if I was that interested in the sport, I'd just flick over to Sky or Setanta and, you known, watch the real thing. But for some reason, there are any number of sports series that have become hugely popular - and Prince of Tennis is the colossus amongst them. So let's see what all the fuss is about...
1 - Ryoma Echizen
Ryoma Echizen is a tennis player, and he's causing a bit of a stir - at the tender age of 12, he's entered the local under-16 league, two levels above where he should really be playing, and the under-16s aren't impressed. Surely it's a mistake, as there's no way a 12-year-old would be able to compete with them? Uh, no - as a group of overly-cocky high-schoolers are about to find out, Ryoma has a talent at tennis that could put many people older than him to shame. When in America, he won the national junior tournament four years running - and now he's looking to take Japan by storm, too...
2 - Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Ryoma has joined the same school as Sakuno, and on his first day heads down to the school tennis courts hoping to join the tennis club. Most of the seniors are away for a match, so trying out isn't going to happen, but a few other students are there - and seem to be using their tennis skills to fleece some younger students of their money in a hit-the-target-and-win game. Time for Ryoma to teach them a lesson...
3 - 8th vs 7th!
Takeshi has heard all about Ryoma's skills, and wants to see first hand if what he's heard is true - and so he challenges Ryoma to a one-set match. Being a year older than Ryoma, he should on paper have an advantage, but Ryoma quickly begins to overpower the older boy. Takeshi's not so interested in winning, though, but in learning what he can about Ryoma's techniques - the best way to do that, and to learn how to counter them, is to play against them, and he soon begins to get a handle on Ryoma's tactics. Until he realises that Ryoma's been going easy on him...
4 - Declaration of War!
Seigaku's tennis club holds a ranking tournament each month to choose the starting lineup for the school team - it's their way of providing a little incentive for their players to play to the best of their ability. It's unheard of for a 7th-grader to make the side, though, so everyone's dismissive of Ryoma's chances - especially Arai, an 8th-grader who really seems to have too much of an opinion of himself...
5 - Dust Covered Racket
Arai has decided that Ryoma needs to be taught a little respect (not the the kid's done anything to him - the only person making a fool out of Arai at the moment is Arai himself), and that the best way to do that is by a little public humiliation. By playing him and showing that his skills aren't as good as rumour has them, perhaps - and of course, Arai isn't planning on playing fair...
6 - Ripples
Having been given a dud racket - wrong tension on the strings, rickety frame, all the things that make for a racket that really can't be used to control the ball - Ryoma's having problems getting into his stride against Arai. That's just what Arai wants, of course, although since everyone knows that Ryoma's playing with a handicap it's not like he'll get much kudos from a win. But talent has a way of shining through in any situation, and as Ryoma gets the hang of his racket's failings, so it's Arai who finds himself on the end of a humiliation. And as an added bonus, his performance is enough to earn Ryoma a place in the school's next ranking tournament...
7 - Ranking Matches Begin!
Ryoma's place in the ranking tournament is a big deal - 7th graders usually never get chosen to take part - and not only is he proving that he deserves to be there, he's winning his matches by huge margins. His next opponent, Kaido, is expected to give him a run for his money, though - he's also been walking over his opposition, and even Ryoma's classmates aren't sure their friend can pull this one off...
There's something about getting a copy of "the world's most popular manga" to review that adds just a little pressure to the mix. What is there about it that makes it so good? If I think it sucks, does that make me strange? What if a torrent of angry fans trash my site if I cricitise it?! You get the picture. Prince of Tennis is the world's most popular manga, based on sales, but after volume one, I'm already wondering why.
The basic problem is this: take Ryoma, put him in a tennis match, and after one interation you already know how every other match in the volume is going to turn out: Ryoma's opponent will be someone who should be better than him (older kid, playing longer, whatever), but our hero will always have some technique at this disposal that will help him beat his opponent - and to rub salt into the wound, he'll maybe reveal that he was playing with his bad arm all along (Ryoma's left-handed, but plays with his right unless he wants to really humiliate you). Rinse, repeat. At each step, he proves a point, or annoys someone, and that leads to - you guessed it - another tennis match where much the same thing happens. Hell, even when people want to teach Ryoma a lesson about respect, they try to do it by challenging him to a tennis match - uh, hello? Not going to work.
And through it all Ryoma's so busy playing tennis that you don't get any feel for his personality, other that to say that he's arrogant and inconsiderate to others. Just like most of the rest of the school tennis team, in fact - none of them are characters where you can honestly say you like them, or care about whether they win or lose.
You're probably getting the feeling by now that I'm not hugely impressed, and you'd be right. I'm also aware that this is only the first volume, though, and that this early in a new manga series the concept usually hasn't quite settled - it sometimes takes a while for the author to flesh out his creations and get the story going where he really wants it to go. Of course the tennis will be the main focus, but there are plenty of opportunities for other things to happen to stop the series from becoming a monotonous string of Ryoma victories - Sakuno is the most obvious 'side' character for providing other entertainment, through her generally fun nature and obvious crush on Ryoma, while the boy wonder is also making friends at his new school that could form the basis for future stories. That means that, while this volume isn't what I'd call a great start, there's still enough potential here that the series should be able to go in interesting directions. I'm figuring that its huge popularity in Japan means that potential does eventually get used, so I can't quite bring myself to give up on Prince of Tennis yet. It had better do something different soon, though...
|
|
