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Funimation Adds More The Prince of Tennis Anime, OVAs on August 17

Funimation announced on Sunday that it will add the The Prince of Tennis anime (episodes 51-75), The Prince of Tennis II, The Prince of Tennis II OVAs, and The Prince of Tennis II OVA vs. Genius 10 on August 17.

The company will stream Prince of Tennis with English subtitles and the various The Prince of Tennis II anime with English, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles. Funimation will add an English dub at a later date.

Funimation announced on April 2 that it will stream the entire anime franchise. The company began streaming the two-part The Prince of Tennis II Hyotei vs Rikkai Game of Future (The New Prince of Tennis: Hyotei vs Rikkai Game of Future) original video anime (OVA) project later in April, and then began streaming the OVA project with an English dub last month.

In addition, Funimation will also stream the following at a later date:

• The Prince of Tennis OVAs
• The Prince of Tennis: Futari no Samurai
• The Prince of Tennis: Atobe Kara no Okurimono
• The Prince of Tennis: Eikoku-shiki Teikyū-jō Kessen!
• The Prince of Tennis Best Games

The franchise will stream on Funimation in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Mexico, and Brazil; on AnimeLab in Australia and New Zealand; and on Wakanim in France, Germany, Russia, and Scandinavia.

Takeshi 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. Viz Media published the 42nd and final volume of Konomi's original Prince of Tennis manga run in North America in 2011. 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.

More 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. Three OVAs ran in theaters in August 2018, April 2019, and November 2019 respectively before shipping on home video.

The first part of The Prince of Tennis II Hyotei vs Rikkai Game of Future anime debuted in Japan on February 13, and the second part debuted on Japan's U-NEXT service on April 17.

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, 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. Funimation has not yet announced if it will stream this film.

Crunchyroll previously 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.

Source: Funimation (Nicholas Friedman)