Review: Prince of Tennis Manga - Nationals Arc

If you’ve been following my reviews, you’ll know that I’m a fan of almost all anime and manga with a super-genius protagonist. Prince of Tennis, therefore, would logically be one of my fav. series. If you haven’t seen or read Prince of Tennis before, I suggest you read my review of the anime series before reading this one, because the Nationals Arc is a post-anime arc.

For those reading the manga, I think chapters 250+ (until chapter 293 so far) qualifies as the Nationals Arc. This is when all our favourite characters go into battle at the Nationals level. Besides the original schools, e.g. Seishun Gakuen and Hyoutei Gakuen, a few new schools enter the fray, e.g. Okinawa Higa Jr. High. This story arc is also when Prince of Tennis descends into ultimate Dragonball-style.

Judge for yourself:

The Giant Habu technique by a Higa Jr. High player. An unbelievable amount of spin is applied such that the ball spins and moves randomly and unpredictably. It is almost impossible to return.

Fuji’s Fourth Counter, Zagerou Zutsumi - Dragonfly Illusion. The manga translators explained this technique as “…pretty much an illusion of a non-moving ball that they (opponent players) can never reach…” How is this done? No idea, since they didn’t bother to explain it this time. But I think it is more likely that it was impossible to explain (in any sort of logical manner at least).

While prior techniques, like Fuji’s Triple Counters, were all somewhat rationalizable, these new techniques are stretching the boundaries of imagination. Fun yes, but I feel that they somehow cheapen the manga as a whole. For me, much of the fun that came with Prince of Tennis was how players would manage to defeat their opponents with genius-level techniques, but not crazy-level techniques. For example, Fuji’s Hakugei used the wind, while Atobe’s Rondo smash was just highly skilled aiming. These older techniques were somewhat logical.

Then there is the elegance factor of the new techniques. The new DBZ techniqes are class-less, and boring - as if they were created with little thought. Contrast them with Fuji’s Triple Counters, or even techniques in other anime series like Bleach. Kuchiki Byakuya’s Shikai and Bankai or Kuchiki Rukia’s Shikai are prime examples. The difference in class is as wide as heaven and earth.

Okay, so this turned out to be more of a rant against PoT rather than a proper review. But I really feel that the cheapening of PoT techniques in this Arc is the essence of its failure. And now that I’ve updated myself to the manga chapters, I actually feel thankful that the anime series ended before this arc even began. At least, you won’t have to bear the sight of totally unrealistic and completely unrationalizable techniques.