Guide to PoT

At last, I have finished my long-overdue Guide to Tennis no Oujisama. This guide is very extensive, and is broken up into 7 parts which you will find on the sidebar of this journal. The post you are reading contains the Table of Contents. The contents all link directly to sections of the seven other posts in this series. They are backdated and will remain public.

Preface: Why I’m making this post.

I’m making this post because people keep asking me about Tenipuri: What I like about it, how I got into it, where they can find it, what its components are. I keep hearing people talk about how immense and confusing the fandom can be, and it really is. And I wanted to give people a way into the series and into the fandom, because they’re both pretty immense and intense.

Although 7 posts is monstrous, I’ve tried to make each section as brief as possible. The contents are designed to help you skip to the parts you’re interested in, so please use them rather than sit through a ridiculously huge post that can basically be summed up as: this show rocks, you should see it, here’s how.

Table of Contents.

Follow the links to go to specific sections, hit the back button to return. There are sub-contents at the top of each page.

Introduction.
I.How I got into Tenipuri
II. Background on Tenipuri
III. Run-down on Manga/Anime for the beginner.
IV. What You Should Know If You Only Read This Post.

Reasons to Love the Tenipuri Series:

I. Characterizations.
A. Ryoma.
B. Seigaku.
C. The Supporting Cast.
D. Final Note on Characterization.

II. The Game.
A. Magical Tennis.
B. Character growth and development.
C. Structure and symbolism.
D. Anime/Manga divergences.
E. Passion & the heart of Prince of Tennis.

III. The Gay.
A. EVERYONE IS GAY. NO. SERIOUSLY. EVERYONE. IS. GAY.
B. Real men play doubles.

Reasons to Love Tenipuri Fandom. (aka The Crack.)
I. The Chibi Eps (Chibipuri)
II. The Musicals (Tenimuyo)
III. The Music (soundtracks + bands)
IV. The Movies
V. The Radio Shows (Rajipuri)
VI. The Video Games.

Where to Find It & Other Resources.
I. Manga availability.
II. Anime availability.
III. Musicals availability.
IV. Livejournal resources.
V. Other Fandom Resources.
Information, Character Summaries, & Ep Guides.
Fanbooks:
Media:
Doujinshi
School Shrines
Fanart
Ship Manifestos:
Fanfic
VI. Things I Love.
Thanks and Final Notes.

Bonus Post: Gratuitous Picspam!!!

INTRODUCTION.

I. Background on Me & PoT:

I got into Prince of Tennis back in May when my dear friend started emailing me to tell me all about Echizen Ryoma and his huge eyes and his kitty cat and fancy-schmancy tennis moves named after Wagnerian operas. I watched one ep, went ‘eh, it’s cute.’ But Orphne kept talking about it, so I went back and watched one or two more, and suddenly found myself completely in love.

II. Background on Tenipuri:

Tennis no Oujisama (Prince of Tennis), also known as Tenipuri, was created by Takeshi Konomi, an artist who is himself a tennis player, and who actually has a cat named Karupin. Konomi draws Tenipuri for the Shonen Jump manga publisher; the series has been running for over six years. It is still ongoing, over 350 issues – the anime ran for 4 years and 178 episodes. There is a continuity divergence between the manga and the last third of the anime, which was the point at which the anime overtook the series and kept going on its own interesting new plot arc. The Tenipuri manga appears to be finally reaching its climax, but there are no plans to end the series. In the meantime, it has also produced, in addition to the anime itself, six live-action musicals (yes, musicals), one animated movie, nearly 150 weekly radio broadcasts featuring the show’s actors, a bunch of video games, innumerable soundtracks, singles, and solo albums, and one live-action movie. Also a ton of Swag.

Suffice it to say that Tenipuri is very popular.

III. Basic briefing on anime/manga:
Manga: Japanese comics books. You read them from right to left. The artist is called the mangaka. or just, you know, “artist.” Manga often inspire anime, aka animated series done in the particular style Japanese animation and comic art has become known for. Shounen-ai refers to manga/anime that is “slashy.” Yaoi refers to manga/anime where the hot gay sex is written in. Shoujo-ai is the femmeslash equivalent of shounen-ai, as yuri is the female equivalent of yaoi. The hot effeminate male characters who get all the action are called “bishounen” or sometimes just “bishi.” You don’t need to know any of this for this post, but I thought I’d give you a rundown anyway, in case you were curious.

important note on names: Names are reversed in Japanese. Ryoma’s first name is Ryoma and his family name is Echizen, but his name is always written as Echizen Ryoma. In Tenipuri what characters are called is inconsistent. I’ll give you their names up front, Japanese style.

IV. What You Should Know If You Only Read This Post:

• You will come for the crack, and possibly to mock my bad taste.
• You will stay because of the characters, and the love, and possibly the crack X 1000000000.
• If you already know you want to watch the show/read the manga, the info you want is here.
• This guide attempts to be unbiased and objective. But you should know in the interest of full disclosure, that I ship Tezuka/Ryoma, and the reason I made this entire grueling series of posts is in the hope that more people will fall in love with them, as I have.Right! On to the Info!

This page has the following sub pages.

• The Game.
• Everyone in Japan is gay.
• Characters
• Crack.
• Resources.
• Picspam!