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The New Prince of Tennis: Hyōtei vs. Rikkai Anime's Promo Video Reveals February 13 Debut
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The official website for The Prince of Tennis franchise began streaming a promotional video on Saturday for The New Prince of Tennis: Hyotei vs Rikkai Game of Future anime. The video reveals and previews Rei Todoroki's theme song "1/2 no Mirai e" (Toward a 1/2 Future). Additionally, the video reveals that the first part in the anime will stream on the U-NEXT streaming service starting on February 13, in addition to the anime opening in theaters on the same day.
Junya Enoki will play Yoshio Tamagawa in the anime. The anime will tell an original story featuring "Hyōtei vs. Rikkai." Takeshi Konomi is supervising the match-making for the anime. The anime will mark the first time that the two schools are facing off against each other.
Keiichiro Kawaguchi (ISLAND) is directing the anime. Mitsutaka Hirota (Anime-Gataris, Nanbaka) is writing the script, and Akiharu Ishii (Blood+, Ultramarine Magmell) is designing the characters.
The second part of the anime is slated to premiere in either February or March.
Konomi serialized The Prince of Tennis manga's original run in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine from 1999 to 2008. The manga follows middle school tennis player Ryōma Echizen as he battles rivals to reach the national tournament. That original manga inspired a 2001-2005 television anime, two anime feature films and a theatrical short, various video anime projects, a live-action film, a live-action television series in China, and a popular stage musical series.
Konomi then launched The New Prince of Tennis manga series in Shueisha's Jump SQ. magazine in 2009. The story picks up after the national tournament, when Ryōma joins a select group of middle school players at Japan's top training camp for players under 17. This ongoing sequel manga spawned its own 2012 television anime series The Prince of Tennis II. The Prince of Tennis II OVA vs. Genius 10 series then ran for five volumes from October 2014 to June 2015.
Most recently, the franchise has inspired the Tennis no Ōjisama BEST GAMES!! original video anime (OVA) project. The project retells the story of the franchise's top matches. The first OVA began its limited two-week screening in Japan in August 2018, and shipped in Japan on Blu-ray Disc and DVD in October 2018. The second OVA received a two-week event screening in Japan starting on April 2019, and then shipped on Blu-ray Disc and DVD in June 2019. The third OVA screened in theaters in Japan for two weeks starting in November 2019, and shipped on home video in January.
The Ryōma! Shinsei Gekijōban Tennis no Ōji-sama (Ryōma! Rebirth Movie The Prince of Tennis) 3DCG film for The Prince of Tennis franchise will open on September 3, 2021, after being delayed from spring 2020. The film will feature a completely original story that takes place in the three-month time period between the events at the end of the The Prince of Tennis manga and the start of The New Prince of Tennis manga.
Viz Media published the 42nd and final volume of Konomi's original Prince of Tennis manga run in North America in 2011. Crunchyroll streamed The Prince of Tennis II television anime into several countries as it aired in Japan, and it then streamed the spinoff original video anime projects.
Sources: The Prince of Tennis franchise's website, Comic Natalie, Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web
