News
Prince of Tennis 3D CG Film's 1st 3 Minutes Streamed
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The official website for the Ryōma! Shinsei Gekijōban Tennis no Ōji-sama (Ryōma! Rebirth: The Prince of Tennis Movie) 3DCG anime film began streaming the first three and a half minutes of the film on Wednesday. The video previews the film's opening musical and dance number.
The film opened in Japan on September 3, and has earned 185,752,920 yen (about US$1.69 million) as of Sunday. The film is playing in theaters in two versions, in which some scenes are different to move the story on two parallel tracks. The "Decide" version focuses on the Seigaku team captain Kunimitsu Tezuka and Rikkai team captain Seiichi Yukimura, while the "Glory" version focuses on the Hyōtei team captain Keigo Atobe and Shitenhōji team captain Kuranosuke Shiraishi.
The film's story begins with the main lead Ryōma arriving in the United States, and finding Sakuno Ryūzaki being accosted by a "tennis gang." Ryōma swings a ball at them to help Sakuno, but ends up hitting a ball tossed by a mysterious wheelchaired man. At that moment, Ryōma and Sakuno somehow travel back in time to the time when Ryōma's father Nanjiro was still playing in America as "Samurai Nanjiro."
Original manga creator Takeshi Konomi supervised the film. The anime was previously slated to open in spring 2020, but was delayed to 2021. 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.
Hiroshi Koujina (2011 Hunter × Hunter, Kiba) directed the anime at The Monk Studios and Keica with cooperation by Studio KAI. GAGA is distributing the film. Takehiko Hata (Lupin III: Goodbye Partner) wrote the script, Patricia Hishikawa was the CG supervisor, Kei Yoshimizu was the animation director, and Momoko Yamada was the CG director. Takeshi Takadera was the sound director, and Kei Tsuda composed the music. Original manga creator Takeshi Konomi himself wrote all the insert songs for the film, including the lyrics for the rap songs.
Sources: Ryōma! Shinsei Gekijōban Tennis no Ōji-sama film's website, Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web
this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history