The Game.

II. Guide to PoT, Part Two: 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.

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II. The Game (and the Plot).

My friend Starla (soundczech on lj) calls PoT’s special tennis vocabulary “the valorization of the ordinary.” It is junior high tennis fought in Samurai terms, every game being portrayed in terms of struggle with the Self and the Other. It’s true that this type of structure is a basic staple of Shonen Jump sports manga. But Prince of Tennis takes this trope to a whole new level of character development and style.

A. Magical Tennis.
Zero shiki drop shot! Twist-o Serve! Moon Volley! Tsubame Gaeshi! Tannheuser something-or-other! Rondo Towards Destruction!
The world of Prince of Tennis is a world where people frequently defy all known laws of physics and nature, turn every conceivable color of the rainbow, create tennis moves which function symbolically, and occasionally destroy planets. Tennis moves take fifteen minutes to complete. It’s like Dragonball Z with tennis balls instead of dragonballs, whatever those are. EXCEPT IT ISN’T, and here’s why:

Prince of Tennis is really about tennis. The game of tennis. There is a reason that Echizen Ryoma has been made an official mascot of the Japanese Tennis Association, and that an estimated thirty thousand people in the country of Japan began playing tennis as a result of watching this show. Heck. I began playing tennis as a result of watching this show. Which, to anyone who knows how unathletic I am, should tell you a lot.

So, these gravity-defying tennis moves? Nearly all of them have basis in actual tennis techniques. The creators deliberately draw parallels between specific play styles and actual tennis players. The drop shots, the split step, the twist serves and kick serves are all real moves that pro tennis players use. Think of it this way: if you could buy into all the crazy-ass ice-skating things they do in The Cutting Edge, then there’s no way you’ll have a problem with Prince of Tennis. Yes, it’s ridiculous. Yes, the names they give their fancy-schmancy tennis moves are absurd. But they’re also wonderful, in that they are every ridiculous sports movie climax you’ve ever seen taken to its natural and logical extreme: high-level, exhilarating, physics-defying sports, all the time. And the matches are really suspenseful. The fact that the characters casually turn around and have conversations with each other about the ball that is currently flying at top speeds to hit them in the face? You get over that. I promise.

B. Character growth and development.

And here’s why you will get over it. Beneath and above the technical absurdity of the actual tennis itself, Prince of Tennis is all about attaining excellence at all costs, about growing individually and as teams. One thing I love about Tenipuri is that unlike a lot of sports stories in my experience, the emphasis isn’t given just to the growth of the main player, or even to the underdog hero sports team; all of the members of all the teams not only come to have meaning but to grow through the sport they play. Tenipuri is very democratic in that everyone matures somehow during the 178 eps, and you may think that’s not such a huge feat until you actually see for yourself just how huge the cast is, and how big is the literal meaning of “everyone.”

When Ryoma first begins to play for Seigaku, he is unmotivated and unmoved by anything except the desire to beat his father, Echizen Nanjiroh, who was once a major player on the international tennis scene, and who (according to the anime) dropped out unexpectedly after the semifinals of the U.S. Open and retired to marry and become a father. Nanjiroh is an odd, eccentric character who has nonetheless lost none of his ability, but who drives Ryoma crazy because of his refusal to play and take Ryoma seriously. When we first meet Ryoma all he cares about is beating his father. The course of the series is to show how that changes, and how Ryoma evolves, not only athletically, but in terms of understanding what it means to become “the pillar of Seigaku.” Ryoma’s evolution is center stage, but Tenipuri is primarily a coming-of-age narrative, not just for him but for all of the characters.

Orphne suggests at this point that instead of trying to convince you that the anime about gay boys playing tennis actually has *gasp* character development! I should refer you all back to the glowy people and rainbows. She has a valid point. Starla adds: “they’ll come for the rainbows. They’ll stay for the characters.” She is exactly right.

C. Structure and symbolism.

I tried to get other people to write this part for me, but no one would. Um. Coming-of-age narrative combined with very strong symbolism (pillars, basically. LOTS AND LOTS OF PILLARS) about growth and strength. In terms of characterization one of the neatest things about Tenipuri is the ways in which the signature tennis moves of every tennis player reflects something about that character himself. So the Tezuka Zone, which has a way of propelling the ball back to Tezuka no matter what direction the opponent hits it, is the perfect key move for Tezuka, who is a character with a very magnetic personality who pretty much has every player around obsessed with him. Fuji’s Triple Counters are aesthetically beautiful, very refined, but absolutely destructive. Atobe’s Wagnerian opera moves and the Rondo/Tango Toward Destruction are just like he is–flashy and hard to resist.

Tennis moves themselves are also used to symbolize and signal character growth and plot movement: so when Ryoma wants to show Tezuka that he has accepted his role as Seigaku’s support and will pick up where his captain leaves off, he begins a key match by using one of Tezuka’s signature moves: the zero-shiki drop shot. Likewise, when Eiji learns to channel Oishi’s strength and wisdom when Oishi can’t be physically in the game with him, he uses Oishi’s signature lob, the Moon Volley, to illustrate that he is temporarily taking over Oishi’s role in their partnership.

Structurally PoT is about change and movement–literally a movement and adjustment between hemispheres and a reconciliation of two cultures, among other things. One of the strongest recurring images in PoT is of airplanes overhead. We see airplanes at key points in the transition of Ryoma’s identity from an unchallenged and very isolated American prodigy to his assimilation not only into a much more traditionalist culture, but into a team and a group of friends for the first time in his life. Whether Ryoma will be able to reach his full potential depends on whether, ultimately, he can navigate these two cultures successfully. To that end the parallels between Ryoma and his father are carefully drawn, as well as the parallels between Ryoma and Tezuka, and Tezuka and Nanjiroh. The two of them represent opposite ends of a sliding scale of goals for Ryoma–whether he pursues his only goal of beating his father, or expands his vision and his goals to incorporate something that is ultimately more meaningful. The convergence of two cultures seems necessary here for Ryoma’s ultimate understanding of himself and his game, and Tenipuri repeatedly highlights the fact that Ryoma is an English-speaking transplant who is still adjusting to fit into Seigaku in more ways than just athletically.

D. Anime/Manga divergences.

Initially I was planning to include more spoilers for the series, but having changed my mind I won’t spend much time on this point. At some point during the writing of the series, the anime passed the manga and had to create its own plot line. As the series in both manga and anime progressively pushes the limits of what a bunch of junior high kids can do with their tennis, the anime inevitably pushed it faster and higher by virtue of its appearing more frequently than the manga.

The final third of the anime takes all the themes I have mentioned–convergence of cultures, the growth of all players from all teams, Ryoma’s understanding and acceptance of his role as Seigaku’s underlying strength, and Tezuka’s positioning himself as central to that role–and deals with them on a much more literal level than the manga thus far has ever been able to do. In addition to what is a major plot divergence, the anime uses those themes to draw out new conflicts in the storyline in a more concrete way than the manga.

It is ultimately impossible to combine all of the plot points from both the manga and the anime into one storyline; but the final third of the anime significantly increases understanding of themes the manga plot is never able to flesh out in quite the same way. You will hear me gripe all the time about the anime divergence and what I think most people would agree are unrealistic plot developments, but ultimately, especially for all the complexities of character development that it opens up to us, I would not part with the final arc of the anime plot for anything in the world.

Additionally, now that the manga is almost through (or at least appears to be coming to its climax after six years), the anime creators are releasing six OVAs (stand-alone movies) starting in March, that will pick up precisely where the divergence began, and continue with the manga plot just as if it had never left. This is tremendously good news for all fans of the series, because the most recent arc of the manga has been utterly fantastic.

E. Passion and love.

This should be the section I spend the most time on, but it sort of leaves me inarticulate. Franzi says I should just squee and gush at this part, because that’s what I want to do. Maybe that’s the best way.

There is. There is so much love in Prince of Tennis. There is, as I quoted ssj10 the other day, this raging undeniable ultimately pointless but all-consuming passion for the game, for the love of it and for the love of the excellence in yourself that it inspires. When Ryoma starts out he’s described as a “monster” in tennis–12 years old and unstoppable. But he’s a monster because ultimately he isn’t playing for anything deeper than winning against an obnoxious opponent. Tezuka lights a fire under him by showing him how far he has to go (he still has lots to work on) and by challenging him to find something within himself that no one else can match. Tezuka says to Ryoma, “show me your tennis, the tennis that only you can play.” And Ryoma’s journey is to learn, as all the other players learn, exactly what that tennis is. It’s not just his tennis, it’s his heart, his pure desire to be the best that he can be.

That is what I love about Prince of Tennis. Tezuka says to Oishi after challenging Ryoma for the first time, “I wanted to show him my tennis.” He wanted to show Ryoma not only what real competitive tennis looks like, but what passion looks like, in its rawest form. Tezuka does that, later on, when he plays his first tournament game in front of Ryoma. I consider this match–Tezuka’s match in the Regional tournament against Hyotei–to be the epitome and essence of everything that I love about the series. In this match, Tezuka gives himself to the game in ways that only someone who is deeply, utterly in love can.

And Tezuka is that deeply in love with tennis. This is what makes him the magnetic force that he is on and off the court. This is what causes Fuji to remark later on that he had thought they were alike, he and Tezuka, but now he understood that Tezuka is at a completely different level. Tezuka’s tennis inspires Fuji; it inspires Ryoma; they and each of the other Seigaku regulars, as well as Tezuka’s different opponents, respond ultimately to what is Tezuka’s challenge to all of them as he plays: to search deep inside themselves and find something they love that much, that they are willing to throw themselves into, with no limits and no restraints, and belief in your own inability to hold yourself back.

On a completely different level, the relationships of Prince of Tennis are (literally?!) encircled in love, in warmth, and shows of good faith. Everyone loves everybody. Everyone forgives, everyone moves forward together, everyone comes to respect and understand change and growth and maturation as part of the game of tennis, and part of the act of growing up. Seigaku is the best support group in the whole wide world. Tennis in Tenipuriland doesn’t just make you gay (though it unquestionably does); tennis apparently also teaches you how to leave your hostility behind and meet your opponents with respect, and your friends with love.

Lots and lots and lots of love.

Part 3: EVERYONE IN JAPAN IS GAY.