New Prince of Tennis - 1

Honestly, didn't really know what to expect with this series but I gave it a go and with good reason; the first episode pleasantly enjoyable. Just by watching the first episode, I could somehow already see it's appeal and understood why The Prince of Tennis was a hit that ran in Weekly Shonen Jump for so long.

It's always interesting when you start an anime or manga for that matter with such a wide range of characters, and obviously New Prince of Tennis did this quite well; yes we are introduced the main hero Ryouma before we are introduced to handful of the 50 middle schoolers, each with their own styles of playing and unrealistic techniques, but it just made it seem like you can choose which of these characters will be your favourite instead of having a blatant main character forced upon you.

Ryouma's full introductory scene was 100% clich but that should not upsetting to both fans familiar with the series and people like me who have only read/are only watching New Prince of Tennis. The antagonists also appear in an interesting fashion - you just know they're going to end up as friends! (Well this is a sports story after all, so that clich is needed)

Besides characters, the story started off pretty quickly - the elimination of around 50/300 players from the camp set a very nice pace and actually provided some nice action for the first episode. Granted, without those special moves that make this franchise what it is, the scenes of players engaging in matches was quite boring, going to show how much of a shonen series this is! Fun to watch with crazy techniques and moves but too dull to be a regular tennis story.

Based on the first episode, I'd say there is a high probability that I'll pick up this series, but depending on the other series I'm still not sure whether I would continue to review it.