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Prince of Tennis 3D CG Anime Film Delayed to 2021
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins, Egan Loo
A stage presentation at the Jump Festa '20 event revealed on Saturday that the Ryōma! Shinsei Gekijōban Tennis no Ōji-sama (Ryōma! Rebirth Movie The Prince of Tennis) film for The Prince of Tennis franchise will now open in 2021. Original manga creator Takeshi Konomi is supervising the film. The event showed a video for the film, revealing the film will be in 3DCG. The video featured the character Ryōma rapping.
The anime was previously slated to open in spring 2020. The film features a completely original story that takes place in the three-month time period between the events at the end of the The Prince of Tennis manga and the start of The New Prince of Tennis manga.
The event also revealed that a live event for the anime franchise's theme song artists will take place on February 29 in Tokyo. An art exhibition for the franchise is being held in Fukuoka from December 27 through January 6 and in Kyoto from February 11-24.
Takeshi Konomi serialized The Prince of Tennis manga's original run in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine from 1999 to 2008. The manga followed middle school tennis player Ryōma Echizen as he battles rivals to reach the national tournament. That original manga inspired a 2001-2005 television anime, two anime feature films and a theatrical short, various video anime projects, a live-action film, a live-action television series in China, and a popular stage musical series.
Konomi then launched The New Prince of Tennis manga series in Shueisha's Jump Square magazine in 2009. The story picks up after the national tournament, when Ryōma joins a select group of middle school players at Japan's top training camp for players under 17. This ongoing sequel manga spawned its own 2012 television The Prince of Tennis II anime series. The Prince of Tennis II OVA vs. Genius 10 series then ran for five volumes from October 2014 to June 2015.
Most recently, the franchise has inspired the Tennis no Ōjisama BEST GAMES!! original video anime (OVA) project. The project retells the story of the franchise's top matches. The first OVA began its limited two-week screening in Japan in August 2018, and shipped in Japan on Blu-ray Disc and DVD in October 2018. The second OVA received a two-week event screening in Japan starting on April 5, and then shipped on Blu-ray Disc and DVD on June 25. The third OVA screened in theaters in Japan for two weeks starting on November 15, and will ship on home video on January 28.
Viz Media published the 42nd and final volume of Konomi's original Prince of Tennis manga run in North America in 2011. Crunchyroll streamed The Prince of Tennis II television anime into several countries as it aired in Japan, and it then streamed the spinoff original video anime projects.
Source: Jump Festa '20 livestream, Prince of Tennis Super Stage (Egan Loo)
