The Seishun boys are just one match away from the national title! Ryoma brings out every shot he knows against Seiichi “Child of the Gods” Yukimura. But Yukimura's strange powers cause Ryoma to lose his sense of touch, then his sight. Swinging blindly, his hearing even begins to fail. Can Ryoma come back to win the Nationals for Seishun, or does he “still have a long ways to go”?!
I can't believe I am done. I want more! I loved this series. I thought it was fun with charming characters.It was interesting and had a good pace to it.Good characterization really makes a story stand out.This is not only for sports fan's. I am not a tennis player.I actually do not do sports. But manga like this expands your knowledge and most of all inspires!
badly want to continue reading their journey bc i think the ending was anticlimactic but i heard the new prince of tennis is still on going and theres no group translating it :(
The final volume of The Prince of Tennis features more magical shots - this time, Ryoma loses his sense of touch and sight. What?! The players battle it out for the nationals title. The manga ends with what I belive to be the lyrics to a Prince of Tennis song, translated to English: "Dear Prince." It concludes the Sakuno arc by showing her as an eighth grader with her tennis racket - she's trying out for the team. I'm glad Konomi chose to include her at the end; I'm glad she developed beyond her awkward, stuttering seventh-grade self. I do wish, however, that she'd played a larger (and more important) role throughout.
The volume concludes with a short novella written by the Konomi. I'm not sure how the original Japanese version read, but the translation isn't the greatest; sometimes I wasn't sure who was speaking, particularly at the end between Tezuka and Oishi (I thought Ryoma was challenging Momo at first) as well as the Sakuno/Tomo bit. I like that the novella ties up a lot of the loose ends, even if it does it in a sort of cliche way.
I'm super sad that the series is over - I'm sure I'll check out the sequel series The New Prince of Tennis at some point.
I absolutely love this series. I never wanted it to end. I literally cried when I finished this series. This book pretty much summarized the goal of the Seishun team which was to win the Championships... of course their opposing team wasn't gonna go down with a fight. Throughout the series, I loved the determination and enthusiasm of the characters. I love how they were described and how they all played such an important role in the series. I love the plot, the story and how these amazing boys who worked together as a team and overcame challenging conflicts.
Please Takeshi Konomi, I hope you continue this series :).
I started off really liking this series. The games were fun and I found myself eager to read each new volume to know how the next match would turn out. But by the end I was just reading to get through it. The problem is that it turns from a story about regular tennis (even if it's rather unbelievable that all these kids would be so good at it they're as good as the pros) into this magical realism thing where they all have super powers...except it's still talked about as if it's perfectly normal tennis.
I don't really like this sort of magical realism where there are no rules and stuff is just random. If it had been established that this is a world where people have super tennis powers, then okay, sure. But it just kept getting more and more ridiculous as the story went on. I know most mangaka are writing whatever comes into their heads without really having a full plan, and that's fine. I generally enjoy it (except if you're Takei Hiroyuki and write yourself into a corner and so just stop writing altogether instead of trying to think of a solution), but this just feels like really sloppy writing.
I can't help but compare it to Hikaru no Go and Slam Dunk, the only two other sports manga I've read, and it just really doesn't hold up at all. Slam Dunk's final game is one of the few fictional scenes I've ever gotten teary-eyed over, yet I really couldn't care less about the final game in PoT. I knew Seigaku was going to win and I knew it would be through Ryoma's magical moves, not through any actual skill. (And it turned out to be even worse; remembering that tennis is fun made him invincible? WTF ever.) On the surface PoT appears to have hard work and teamwork, but somehow they don't really seem to affect anything because it's magical powers.
And this is totally not anything new, but something that annoyed me all the way through the series. If you are going to draw a manga where all the characters look (and often act) like adults, why set it at a junior high? Why not at least set it at high school so as to be maybe slightly more believable. The idea that any of these people are junior high students is laughable.
The Prince of Tennis, Vol. 42 continues where the previous tankōbon left off and contains the last eight chapters (372–379) of the on-going manga series.
The tankōbon concludes not only the Finals of the All-Japan National Tournament that has Seishun Academy playing against Rikkaidai Junior High School, whom they played before during the Kantō Prefectural Tournament, but the series as well It concludes the third Singles Match with Ryōma Echizen vs. Seiichi Yukimura.
Seiichi Yukimura has the ability to create yips, which is a sudden loss of fine motor skills that comes on without apparent explanation, on his opponents. First he takes away the sense of touch for Ryōma Echizen and later his sense of sight. However, despite this, Echizen manages to get into the Pinnacle of Perfection mode to eventually win his match with a score of 6–4. With this win, Seishun Academy wins the round and the National with a score of 3–2 matches.
This tankōbon is written and illustrated by Takeshi Konomi. The Final Round for the All-Japan National Tournament concludes with Seishun Academy winning the tournament and stopped Rikkaidai Junior High School for winning the Nationals for the third year in a row. Yukimura demonstrates the awesome ability of incapacitate one of his opponent's sense. How Echizen manage to overcome this is a tad silly, he enters the Pinnacle of Perfection, because of his love and joy of tennis.
Overall, The Prince of Tennis is a wonderful series about the tennis team of Seishun Academy in particular their only freshman member – Ryōma Echizen. The narrative of the story encompasses approximately three months as the reader reads witnesses Seishun Academy tennis team goes through tournament by tournament on their road to win the All-Japan National Tournament. The tennis played is not realistic, but more akin to tennis with superpowers, but entertaining nevertheless. Although, it is difficult to remember that these members are Middle School kids as they speak and play like High School teens.
All in all, The Prince of Tennis, Vol. 42 is a wonderful conclusion to an equally wonderful series.
I'm really not sure what to make of this volume. Ryoma comes back and this match is leaving him... blind? Deaf? Yeah sure okay buddy. It's weird, especially that Ryoma continues to struggle so much. This last battle goes so quick and then the series up and ends with no real epilogue to speak of. The match, frankly, is pretty boring with few new moves or interesting back-and-forth except for one singular shot. The whole series really became about having one super technique that's so good you don't actually watch tennis you just see the dude with an aura around him and go "oh that means he's winning".
But it also pulls the thing where Ryoma... enjoys playing tennis! Wow! Where's this been the entire time? Look at me, Slam Dunk is one of my favourite stories of all time. I love when a series is all about someone's love for the game/sport/whatever and how they gradually have to admit their passion. There's a little bit of this from Ryoma at the start, where there was this hint that he begins having this desire to train instead of... I guess... doing it because his dad forces him to? It's unclear. It's basically three or four pages in some of the earliest volumes that never gets touched on again. I can see how this is supposed to be his arc but it never quite fits him. He's always been good, he's always looked like he enjoyed tennis, suddenly pulling this out like it's his big defining moment doesn't feel earned.
What DOES feel earned is everyone else watching and going "oh, right, tennis is supposed to be fun". All their stupid special moves and bullshit physics and superhuman powers and all that, and the biggest turning point is Ryoma going YAY TENNIS IS FUN I LOVE TENNIS. It's funny! Maybe it's supposed to be dramatic, I think it's written to be a big life-changing thing, but man is it funny to see them all stunned by this.
This final volume reads like a pretty good finale that is completely unearned so in turn falls flat. I could see this working if you already loved the series, for me it's ending as not-completely-garbage which is a welcome surprise.
5/5 (Review is for the series as a whole and does not contain spoilers)
This series follows 7th grader Ryoma Echizen as he strives to become the number one tennis player at his junior high school. Throughout the series, Ryoma faces off against numerous opponents, each one stronger than the last, in an effort to help lead his tennis team to becoming the champions of the National Tennis Tournament.
This series is a cute, action packed story about some junior high school students playing tennis. No prior knowledge of tennis is necessary, as the author takes the time to explain how certain shots are executed and briefly mentions which professional tennis players may use those shots. As the story progresses, some of the tennis shots get a bit more unrealistic and overly dramatic, but it adds to the excitement and builds tension. (So note that if you are an avid tennis player, it might seem a bit out there in terms of realism.) This is a great series for people who enjoy sports manga, and who enjoy competition, as the boys in this manga continue to push each other to new heights in their skills. There are also some good lessons in the story that teach the readers about having fun and continuing to persevere even when things get tough. It also teaches readers that sometimes we lose, and that’s okay too. In terms of age ratings, I would say that this series is a safe one for those in middle school, or perhaps even a bit younger. Overall, I really enjoyed this manga for its low stakes, fun action, and enjoyable cast of characters.
I have been a fan of this series every since I came across the anime series on YouTube long time ago. I enjoy watching it, but I was only able to watch a few with ENG Dubs. Then I saw it on Hulu and watched it when I can over and over again! This year I came across that it going to be on Crunchyroll and have ENG dubs but only for 51 - 80. Hulu have the first 50 anime! I’m to inpatient to wait for the anime to add more dubs. So I decided to buy the manga! There are some different between the anime and the manga but they stay true to most parts! Each have their advantages but depending on the person preference! For me I enjoy the manga more because like most shows / movies there are only so much some creators can put into the shows. The books can carry more information and details you might thought was important that was left out or the creator of the anime might added something that wasn’t even in the manga to help push their story along! For that reason I said the manga is better! I will tell anyone that they should read the manga first. But if they wanted to get a idea what the manga series like than watch the first anime. They did pretty good to be similarly to the manga first book.
« Prince du tennis » est un mangas qui aura occupé une bonne partie de mon adolescence et Echizen restera un garçon arrogant, agaçant mais terriblement attachant. Malheureusement, après avoir lu des mangas comme Haikyû!! où le suspense est à son comble et où nous voyons réellement les personnages s’entraîner et évoluer, Prince du tennis ne répond plus à mes attentes. J’en garderai un bon souvenir mais je ne suis pas sûre de le relire une nouvelle fois.
I was not as excited reading Ryoma’s match against Seichi also know as The Child of Gods the best player in the country. Overall I did like the theme of just having fun and they being the catalyst for enjoying the game and persevering thru the challenges of the game.
Overall enjoyed the series. Check out the anime and the 2019 Chinese version of the series on Netflix for really good adaptation to tv.
A great sports manga with great fights that even moved me in to tears. I loved how each players who experience defeat strive to be better. Though I really want to see Ryoma defeated his father and Tezuka in the end. But well there's still the New Prince of Tennis series that we could look after for.
I can't believe I read and finished this series. It was better than I thought it would be. I always used to dump all over this series and now I regret not reading it sooner. There is little to no filler and it goes by quick. The plot is engaging and the characters are likable. I really enjoyed it and I can't wait to start the sequel.
And so concludes The Prince of Tennis manga with all the happy endings for everyone. The anime counterpart of this volume was pretty much the same except for some parts such as Ryuzaki-sensei crying in the manga. The anime also included some epilogue parts for the seniors, not just Kaidoh, Momo, and Ryoma.
manga terpanjaaaaaaaang episodenya yang pernah saya baca sejauh ini.. untung ceritanya bagus dan seru, jadinya masih tetap aku lanjutin baca ampe tamat. :')
katanya bakalan ada New Prince of Tennis. GOSH.. Takeshi Konomi got to be kidding me! (tapi pengiinn) xoxo
I loved how this series ended, and I can't wait to read the sequel. The final match against Yukimura was perfect because it fully showed the fun that Ryoma had playing tennis that was hinted at in the Kanto Finals match.