THE PRINCE OF TENNIS (FILM)

is a 2006 live-action movie directed by Yuichi Abe and based on The Prince of Tennis manga series by Takeshi Konomi. It condenses the storyline from when the audience is first introduced to Ryōma to the Hyōtei arc. The film was released in Japan on May 13, 2006.

Contents

Synopsis

Plot

Cast

The Making Of

Original Soundtrack

Alterations from the Anime/Manga

Schools

Casting

Box Office

DVD Release

External links

Synopsis

Ryoma Echizen, a tennis prodigy, attends Seishun Academy Middle School (Seishun Gakuen), or Seigaku in short, a school famous for its strong tennis club and talented players. Ryoma quickly defeats numerous upperclassmen shortly after entrance to secure himself a spot on the regulars team.

Plot

Twelve year old Ryoma Echizen is the tennis prodigy from America who has the personal history of winning 4 successive victories at the American Junior Tennis tournaments. His father, Nanjiroh Echizen, a tennis player of legendary status, recalls Ryoma back to Japan to attend the distinguished school of Seishun Academy Middle School. Ryoma, a first year, has his eyes set on being on the regulars team of the tennis club, which the school is famous for.
Then, there's the lone girl who watches Ryoma from the audience. Her name is Shioin Higaki, whose parents had died in accident. She is mute due to traumatic shock of her past. She first meets Ryoma when he helps her on the train from loud group of High School boys.
Ryoma arrvies at Seigaku, and is immediately challenged by Kaoru Kaidoh, a second year whose perseverance is daunting, round off the Seigaku regulars team. The members of the Seigaku regulars team come watch the match: the vice-captain, Shuichiro Oishi, who has a calm and rational sense of playing sense, compliments the acrobatic plays of his double's partner, Eiji Kikumaru; making them the Golden Pair. Third year, Shusuke Fuji, a formidable player, is known for his tactical skill on the tennis courts. Then there's Sadaharu Inui, whose tennis style relies on what he calls, "data tennis" and Takashi Kawamura whose personality instantly changes when he grabs his tennis racket. The other second year is Takeshi Momoshiro, known for his power plays. Kaido and Ryoma's match is interrupted by Kunimitsu Tezuka, the captain of the tennis club, whose ranking is that on the National's level. Tezuka makes Kaido run laps for playing a match without a approval, and begins to take an interest in young Ryoma.
Ryoma arrives in time for the monthly campus ranking tournament, but at first, due to his young age and his cool attitude, some club members do not take him seriously; however, during the ranking tournament, Ryoma is quick to prove his skill and become the only first year on the regulars team, just in time for the regional preliminary rounds.
While in a crucial match against Fudomine Middle School during the regionals, Ryoma injures his eye by accident, but his determination to finish the match with his Nitouryuu, and helps bring victory to Seigaku as they can advance to the Kanto conference as regional champions. Tezuka is deeply troubled by Ryoma's style; it's an exact copy of his father's. He is also worried about his own arm, which is injured and will add on injuries when using his Zero Degree Drop Shot. Tezuka plays a secret match with Echizen, and utterly defeats him using the Drop Shot, disregarding his physician's advice. He tells Ryoma to develop his own style of tennis and become the pillar of Seigaku.
As the Kanto conference draws near, Seigaku learns of their first opponent, Hyotei Middle School, their strongest rivals. All the regulars are chosen for the tournament, except for Momoshiro, as Echizen is chosen over him. However, Echizen says he has to represent in the Youth Cup, and is going back to America. Momoshiro is angry of Ryoma's choice and refuses the jersey Ryoma offers him. Egate Mcleod Higaki of Hyotei comes to the courts and trys to provoke the players until Tezuka tells him to leave.
At the Kanto conference, Oishi and Eiji play Doubles 2. They begin a losing streak until Momoshiro reveals himself in the cheering crowd for Seigaku. With new confidence, the Golden Pair make a come back, but lose to Hyotei 5-7. In the crowd, Kaido finds Echizen, who decided to stay. Kaido and Inui begin their Doubles 1 match. Kaido continually takes all the shots and uses his Boomerang Snake, while Inui stands and watches. Finally, he tells Kaido he has their opponents' data and they win the match 7-5. Takashi plays Singles 3 and tries his Hadokyuu, but his big opponent copies the move. They both keep using Hadokyuu until Takashi does the unthinkable: the dangerous one-handed Hadokyuu. His opponent copies, and both keep hitting until both them drop their rackets, their hands and racket handles covered in blood. The match is considered a draw. Fuji, playing Singles 2, borrows Takashi's racket, and amazes his opponent with his Disappearing Serve and Triple Counters; he wins 6-0. Tezuka plays Singles 1 against the popular Atobe; Echizen comes and takes his place as bench coach, and, despite some of the other Seigaku players, Tezuka allows him to rejoin the team.
Atobe seems to gain the early lead, but Tezuka comes back with his Tezuka Zone and Drop Shot. Tezuka gets to match point, but as he tries to serve, his arm gives out. Tezuka continues to play as Echizen takes off his jacket, revealing his Seigaku uniform, and goes to practice. Tezuka loses in the tiebreak, 6-7. Because both teams have two wins, their reserve players will determine the winner. Echizen faces off against Egate, and wins the first game using his team's moves: Eiji's Kikumaru Beam, Kaido's Boomerang Snake, Takashi's Hadokyuu, and Fuji's Triple Counters. However, as an eclipse passes over the court, Egate uses his brutal tennis form and injure Echizen's leg. Remembering his vow to become stronger, Echizen surprises everyone by using Egate's own attack to come back, break the eclipse, and win, and Egate's sister, Shioin, breaks her muteness and cheers for them. Tezuka rewards Echizen with his Seigaku jacket he kept for him.
As Echizen looks up in the stands at their future opponents, his only reply to them is, "Mada Mada Dane." (Simply not there yet)

Cast

Role	Actor
Ryoma Echizen	Kanata Hongo
Kunimitsu Tezuka	Yuu Shirota
Shuichiro Oishi	Hiroki Suzuki
Shusuke Fuji	Hiroki Aiba
Eiji Kikumaru	Osamu Adachi
Sadaharu Inui	Hirofumi Araki
Takashi Kawamura	Yoshikazu Kotani
Takeshi Momoshiro	Masaki Kaji
Kaoru Kaidoh	Kousuke Kujirai
Keigo Atobe	Ryuuji Sainei
Egate Mcleod Higaki	RIKIYA
Yuushi Oshitari	Daiki Nakae
Ryoh Shishido	Junpei Suzuki
Choutarou Ohtori	Koji Date
Gakuto Mukahi	Tokio Emoto
Jiroh Akutagawa	Genki Ishii
Munehiro Kabaji	Kazutoshi Yamakawa
Nanjiroh Echizen	Goro Kishitani
Sumire Ryuzaki	Hitomi Shimatani
Shinji Ibu	Yasuka Saitoh
Akira Kamio	Yuuki Fujiwara
Genichirou Sanada	Eiji Moriyama
Renji Yanagi	Mamoru Miyano
Kintarou Tooyama	Masato Wada
Shioin Higaki	Sayuri Iwata
Aoi Kentarou	Daiki Sano
Hikaru Amane	JURI
Masaya Sakurai	Shun Takagi
Sasabe	Mitsuyoshi Shinoda
Sasabe's friend #1	Kenta Kamakari
Sasabe's friend #2	Takashi Nagayama
Referee	Yusuke Ishibashi
Bystander	Ruito Aoyagi
Bystander	Takumi Saito
Bystander	Ryou Washimi
Bystander	YOH

The Making Of

Prior to the movie's release at the Japanese box office, a Prince of Tennis Navigate (or Making Of) DVD was released for fans to purchase. Navigate DVD

Original Soundtrack

The soundtrack is composed by Taro Iwashiro and was released in Japan on May 12th, 2006. It also features music from the group, Yellow Cherry.

The track listing is as follows:
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# 'Atobe Hametsu e no Rondo'
# 'Tezuka no Omoi'
# 'ORE wa Makenai'
# 'Ryoma Shutsujin'
# 'Ryoma VS Higaki'

Alterations from the Anime/Manga

The movie is a condensed version of the manga and anime series, thus a lot of the events that happen are condensed and characters were changed.

★ For instance, the character of Sumire Ryuzaki's age was changed so that instead of being a grandmother (and Nanjiroh's junior middle school coach), she became a year younger than Nanjiroh and became a former junior middle school student with him.

★ In the movie, the character of Wakashi Hiyoshi from the Hyotei school was replaced by Egate Mcleod Higaki, whereas in the manga/anime, there was no Egate Mcleod Higaki, he was created as an original character for the movie.

★ Similarly, Egate Mcleod Higaki's sister, Shioin Higaki, is also an original character that was not in the manga/anime series. Her purpose in the movie is to pretty much serve as the anime/manga character, Sakuno Ryuzaki.

★ In the movie, the Oishi/Kikumaru pair takes on the Oshitari/Mukahi pair, while originally it was the Momoshiro/Kikumaru pair who did so. Additionally, they lose and the Inui/Kaidoh pair win for Seigaku, while in the manga the opposite happened.

★ The entire prefectural tournament, along with the matches against St. Rudolph and Yamabuki, are skipped over.

★ In the anime, Echizen faces against senpai Arai prior to becoming a regular. In the movie, Kaido is the first to challenge Echizen. Because of this change, when Echizen plays in the ranking matches, he faces against Momoshiro and Inui. In the anime, his second match was with Inui, but the first match was with Kaido.

★ In the ranking match, Momoshiro has already developed the Jack Knife.

Schools

★ Schools that appear in the movie besides Seigaku and Hyotei: Fudomine, Rokkaku, Higa-Chuu, Rikkaidai and Shitenhouji.

Casting

★ Only the 2nd Seigaku cast from The Prince of Tennis Musicals kept their respective roles for this movie, with the exception of Kotarou Yanagi, who played Ryoma in the musicals.

★ As well, Koji Date was the only The Prince of Tennis Musicals actor from the 2nd Hyotei cast to reprise his role as Choutarou Ohtori.

★ Everyone else was completely recast.

★ The role of Ryoma Echizen was recasted so that instead of having Kotarou Yanagi reprise his role from the musicals for the movie, Kanata Hongo was cast to better portray Ryoma as Hongo, 15, was closer to the age of Ryoma (12) while Yanagi, 20 was much older. Furthermore, as Yanagi had been injured in a car accident, he was unable to perform the physical tennis plays that was required of the character.

★ Cameos of graduated Tenimyu actors appear in the movie.

★ Yasuka Saitou, who played Shinji Ibu, also played Takashi in ''Mirrorman REFLEX'' and portrayed Masumi Inou/BoukenBlack in ''GoGo Sentai Boukenger''. Also Ryuuji Sainei, who plays Keigo Atobe, portrayed Ban/DekaRed in ''Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger''

★ Hiroki Suzuki, who played Shuichiro Oishi, currently portrays Jan Kando in ''Juken Sentai Gekiranger''

★ Hirofumi Araki, who played Sadaharu Inui, currently portrays Rio in ''Juken Sentai Gekiranger''

Box Office

The movie debuted #10 in the Japanese Box Office.

DVD Release

The DVD was released on September 28th in two editions: Premium Edition (9240 yen) and Regular Edition (4935 yen).

External links

★ The Prince of Tennis Movie Official Site

★ The CinePuri Fanlisting
Trailers from the Official Website

★ ''Theatrical Trailer''


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★ Windows Media Player 300

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★ Windows Media Player 56

★ ''Teaser Trailer''

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★ Windows Media Player 300

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★ Windows Media Player 56