Synopsis of Tennis no Ohjisama/Prince of Tennis:
Prince of Tennis (or Tennis no Ohjisama in Japanese) is an anime/manga that centers around the character Ryoma Echizen, who is known as the "Prince" of tennis because of his four consecutive wins in the Junior American tournament. He is also the son of Nanjiroh Echizen, whose nickname on the court was "Samurai." Nanjiroh was a famous tennis player throughout the world and shocked the pro circuit some years previous when he suddenly decided to retire. (No one seems to know exactly why he chose to retire, especially since he was on the verge of being considered no. 1 in the world when he quit.)
Ryoma Echizen, on the other hand, has only just entered middle school and is in no way ready to quit tennis. He returns from America to attend a Japanese middle school called Seishun Gakuen (or Seishun Academy, roughly), which is somewhat famous for its tennis club. However, their team has been stuck at the prefectural level for some years, and this is the first year in some time where it looks like Seishun has a shot at the Nationals. This is where Ryoma shows up and shocks the Japanese tennis world with his talent. He winds up securing a spot on Seishun's regular tennis team, even though he's only a first year (most players on the team are third year students, or roughly in U.S. terms, ninth-graders). And with Ryoma on the team, it looks like Seishun's dream of making it to the Nationals is just a step away from becoming a reality.
Tennis no Ohjisama was originally created by Takeshi Konomi, in the form of a manga series (Japanese comic book). The manga is still running, and is currently being serialized in the famous Shonen Jump magazine in Japan. The series was also made into a popular anime, which ended at episode 178, along with a full-length movie and a short OVA. A new OVA series is being released as of March 2006. Also, several versions of a musical of Tennis no Ohjisama have added to the series' increasing popularity, along with a brand new live action movie released in May, 2006. Meanwhile, tons of PoT merchandise continues to be released in Japan, so it looks like the popularity this series enjoys isn't going to fade anytime soon. As for North America, Viz is currently translating the manga and is several volumes into the series. The anime has been licensed by Viz as well, and plans are in the works to show subtitled episodes on Toonami Jetstream, an online service that will be provided by the popular anime segment of Cartoon Network called Toonami.
