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NEWS: Funimation Adds The Prince of Tennis Anime Franchise, Including 2021's Game of Future


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malvarez1



Joined: 17 Nov 2008
Posts: 1628
PostPosted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 9:48 am Reply with quote
This is definitely up there with Netflix licensing and dubbing Saint Seiya as one of those "never, even thought this would happen" kind of deals. I always assumed that eventually Discotek would give it a subbed only release.

And the fact that FUNi also grabbed most of the sequels, too. That's a crazy commitment, not that I'm complaining. Maybe MAR can be next...
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NJ_



Joined: 31 Oct 2009
Posts: 2996
Location: Wallington, NJ
PostPosted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 10:41 am Reply with quote
^It is crazy, especially because this was one of Viz's known flops from when they were dropping almost everything in the late 00s (just like MAR, Full Moon, Blue Dragon, etc).

It'll be interesting to see if FUNi sticks with this all the way through because Japan loves to put out sequel after sequel for this series so more could come in the middle of this. It'll also be interesting if they get any of the old Viz cast for the new dub considering how much they have relied on LA since the move to recording remotely from home studios.
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deathfromabove1993



Joined: 23 May 2009
Posts: 120
Location: Chicago, IL
PostPosted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 11:36 am Reply with quote
NJ_ wrote:
^It is crazy, especially because this was one of Viz's known flops from when they were dropping almost everything in the late 00s (just like MAR, Full Moon, Blue Dragon, etc).

It'll be interesting to see if FUNi sticks with this all the way through because Japan loves to put out sequel after sequel for this series so more could come in the middle of this. It'll also be interesting if they get any of the old Viz cast for the new dub considering how much they have relied on LA since the move to recording remotely from home studios.


I highly doubt they'll bring back any of the old Viz cast members to reprise their roles, but mostly likely they'll be recast as different characters. In any case, I wish them well on dubbing the majority of the franchise.
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perroloco



Joined: 10 Dec 2008
Posts: 307
PostPosted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 12:13 pm Reply with quote
This is great news!
I have seen pretty much every episode and OVA of the Pot franchise... Maybe not haha after all this franchise probably has like 50 OVAs and counting, I might have missed some.
Even if it's not dubbed it would be great to finally have a legal site with PoT here in Mexico, although I would love for it to get a dub so it gives me an incentive to rewatch it (or listen to it while doing some stuff lol)
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Ultimate N



Joined: 13 Mar 2018
Posts: 131
PostPosted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 12:42 pm Reply with quote
I tried watching the original series in the dub but I got bored, but I'm pretty confident it was because the original dub was pretty weak. Funimation giving this franchise a new dub is actually great because it'll obviously be better and I'll likely get more invested in the franchise now. Also the fact that ALL of it is getting dubbed is just insane and I'm hype to get into this classic franchise.
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merr



Joined: 11 Dec 2004
Posts: 462
PostPosted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 2:38 pm Reply with quote
That’s a big commitment for a franchise that has not done well here historically. I wonder if the dub is getting subsidized by Japan in some fashion.
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Ajc228



Joined: 29 Dec 2015
Posts: 264
PostPosted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 3:48 pm Reply with quote
merr wrote:
That’s a big commitment for a franchise that has not done well here historically. I wonder if the dub is getting subsidized by Japan in some fashion.

I was wondering the same thing. It’s hard to imagine that this series would generate the kind of attention that would warrant this kind of financial investment. I don’t see Americans clamoring for relatively older tennis series.
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Cardcaptor Takato



Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 4784
PostPosted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 4:03 pm Reply with quote
I remember being a big fan of Prince of Tennis back in my high school days though I never got to see all of the anime. I think Prince of Tennis has a second chance to be more successful now than it did when it first came out because we've had other sports shows with bishounen guys that appeal to fujoshi fans that have been relatively popular like Free, Kuroko's Basketball, and Haikyuu, and more recently Sk8 the Infinity, whereas when Viz first released it anime was just entering the mainstream and anime was still mainly thought of as being mostly just lots of action and sci-fi type shows. So nowadays I think there's more variety of shows for something like Prince of Tennis to hopefully do better. I also think the eh dub Viz released for it probably didn't help the show much. But it would be great to finally have the entire franchise out officially. I still wonder why they don't just make another full season of the series instead of doing these OVA and movie specials every few years as it seems like Prince of Tennis is still fairly popular in Japan. Also the live action Chinese series is streaming on Netflix.
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NJ_



Joined: 31 Oct 2009
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 5:22 pm Reply with quote
Still though this series is very, very long plus there's a chance this could end up like Initial D, redubbing old & new material then dropping it at some point because it didn't sell (though in Initial D's case, releasing their dub out of order did not help matters but the nail to that one was when it went straight to SAVE for re-release).
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crosswithyou



Joined: 15 Dec 2007
Posts: 2892
Location: California
PostPosted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 6:12 pm Reply with quote
Ah... Tenipuri.... My username is actually a Tenipuri reference. Wink

I think one of the reasons why this series does so well, at least in Japan, is because of the cast though. I'm not sure a dub cast would be able to bring attention to the series the same way the seiyuu did in Japan.
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NOGI48



Joined: 14 Feb 2016
Posts: 70
PostPosted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 6:33 pm Reply with quote
My childhood, I love The Prince of Tennis. I'm glad its getting a 2ed chance.
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Zalis116
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Joined: 31 Mar 2005
Posts: 6864
Location: Kazune City
PostPosted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 8:30 pm Reply with quote
Ajc228 wrote:
I was wondering the same thing. It’s hard to imagine that this series would generate the kind of attention that would warrant this kind of financial investment. I don’t see Americans clamoring for relatively older tennis series.

The Western commercial viability of sports anime has improved over the last decade, but I agree, I have to wonder how many today would go for a franchise that (at least at its beginning)...

1) is in 4:3
2) was made in standard-definition
3) is an early-2000s digipaint anime, AKA "the era of anime most loathed by fans and critics alike."

Though I certainly wish Funimation well with their endeavor, and hope that Prince of Tennis doesn't end up being a massive money-loser for them. Maybe the license got ridiculously cheap after years of disinterest from US distributors?
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Cardcaptor Takato



Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 4784
PostPosted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 8:55 pm Reply with quote
The show for now seems to still be streaming on Hulu along with the old dub so watch the old dub while you can.
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sdsyukichan



Joined: 22 Jun 2006
Posts: 93
Location: Ontario, Canada
PostPosted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 9:13 pm Reply with quote
I never, ever thought I'd see this but I am beyond thrilled. I've waited for years for someone to pick up PoT again and I can't believe it's even being done so thoroughly. I really hope more people give it a chance this time around. It's completely ridiculous but such a good series.
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db999



Joined: 23 Dec 2017
Posts: 299
PostPosted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 11:01 pm Reply with quote
Well, this was unexpected, but it is a welcome surprise. I was really into this show in Middle School, but it did bomb hard in English. I think part of the reason why it failed in America was also because of how it ran on Toonami. I don't know if anyone else remembers this, but they didn't air the show in chronological order, they just decided to skip all-around in the story, like instead of airing episode 1 then 2 then 3 then 4 and so on they would show episode 1 and then they would do episode 5 and then 16 and then 7 and then 2 and then go to episode 20. So it was impossible to follow the story and if you wanted to actually watch it like normal you had to go to the Toonami Jetstream website which I never liked using because the episodes would never play correctly. I eventually just started watching fansubs because it was so annoying. I still can't believe they did that it made no sense, and they also did it with MAR and that was probably why those shows bombed as hard as they did.

I also think it didn't do that well because, in my opinion, the show takes until like episode 20 to start getting really compelling, but once the over the top special techniques all of the characters use get introduced it becomes a lot of fun, so I hope this does well and I'd love to see it get fully dubbed.
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