Commemorating the series' 20th anniversary, there will be a new set of OVAs in 2019. In these OVAs, popular matches from the original Prince of Tennis will be animated once more. After winning the popularity poll at Kyoto University earlier this year, it seems the match between Tezuka and Atobe will be included, however, no other matches have been announced yet.
How do you feel about them doing old matches again rather than a third season of NPoT and which ones would you like to see the most?
Awesome! Im so excited! There are many matches that need to be there! I think thats from the original anime and not from the nacional tournament.
Obvious Atobe vs Tezuka!
-Kaidoh vs Kamio
-Kikumatu/Oishi vs Kaneda/ Akazawa
-Ryoma vs Akutsu
- And all matches against Rikkai because in the anime they sucked
How many matches should we be expecting to see, around 5?
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In any case, besides the one confirmed, I expect:
-Niou/Yagyuu vs Kikumaru/Oishi.
-Akaya vs Fuji.
-Ryoma vs Sanada.
-Atobe vs Ryoma.
-Sanada vs Tezuka.
Absolutely no idea. I think a question that goes hand-in-hand with this one is also how long we should expect matches to be. In the original anime, Tezuka vs Atobe was 4 episodes for instance - are they going to cut that down to a single episode?
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Anyway, if I'm being honest, I don't feel very enthusiastic about this whole thing. There are two reasons.
First of all, it's not really necessary most of the time. I assume that in the case of most matches that are going to get this treatment, they already put some effort into making them back then - they're still watchable. For example, I watched the Tezuka vs Atobe match earlier and it was fine in my opinion. Sure, the visuals aren't as polished as in the newer stuff, but I would argue that the old anime had some legitimate advantages over what we're likely to get from these OVAs. As I mentioned earlier, there's the question of how these matches are going to be paced. Will it be one episode per match or will they still have two to three episodes?
Even going back to the animation itself though, I feel the original anime had some things that modern episodes lack. While the newer episodes look nicer, I'm under the impression that they lost quite a bit of fluidity when it comes to movements. In the old episodes, you'd still have a few scenes with nice foot and stroke motions on regular shots, but those aren't very common anymore nowadays (the only thing they've gotten consistently better at are service motions).
I feel the only old matches that this is worth doing for are the ones at the end of the Kanto tournament, i.e. those that never got animated properly to begin with.
As for the second reason though, it bugs me that this isn't really a 20 year anniversary. It's a 10 year anniversary that's ten years late. It might be a bit hard to believe, but by the time 2019 rolls around, NPoT will be running for a decade, or in other words, half of the series' total lifetime will be NPoT. Yet it doesn't seem to be represented at all in these celebrations. Not in the Best Games!! OVAs and not in the upcoming movie. There's the fanbook, sure, but chances are that would've come out regardless.
Now, I understand that the middle schoolers are more popular, so the marketing efforts are more catered towards them. But at least to some degree, that's because they barely put in any effort to make the high schoolers marketable to begin with. If memory serves, outside of the anime, they've had about a dozen character songs between all of them and that's about it? For comparison, the first musical premiered in 2003, four years after the manga had been serialized - and it's hard to deny that the musical had quite an impact on popularity. Then they did a second season from 2011 to 2014, which was fair, but rather than moving on to the U-17 afterwards, in 2015 they started over once more. At the current rate, season 3 will finish around 2019 I guess - will they adapt NPoT afterwards? It's possible, but I wouldn't bet on it. No wonder that the high schoolers aren't catching up in popularity when only the established cast is being pushed.
So I guess to form some sort of conclusion here, instead of this series, I would've much preferred another set of Another Story OVAs or something along those lines, with central characters from both the original cast and the new additions. For a theme, something about Ryoma in America before the start of the series, Atobe in England, Tokugawa in France and Byoudouin traveling the world could've worked. Or really anything that pushes the series forward rather than simply basking in its past glory.
Really hope we at some point get the OST from the Ova vs Genius 10, imo it rivals the original soundtrack but can't find it anywhere. Hopefully with a new release we might get some music released.
Edit: Ordered the bluray from japan see how that goes hrug:
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Bluray came in and I watched the first bit so far. It looks really good. They also included Ryoma vs Tezuka on the street court which was a nice surprise and featured a sweet Samurai Ryoma.
Gonna try and scan in the materials that came with it as well when I get a chance.
Bluray came in and I watched the first bit so far. It looks really good. They also included Ryoma vs Tezuka on the street court which was a nice surprise and featured a sweet Samurai Ryoma.
Included as in it was part of the episode or extra? If it's the former, I wonder if that decreases the chances of us getting Ryoma vs Sanada in a future volume.
Included as in it was part of the episode or extra? If it's the former, I wonder if that decreases the chances of us getting Ryoma vs Sanada in a future volume.
Atobe chant
Tezuka Enters
Handshake
Opening credit roll (which is pretty cool as well, features all of the teams)
Flash back to the street match that goes through the whole match
Back to the Atobe vs Tezuka match (this was a far as I watched so far)
I'm not entirely sure because I'm entirely relying on memory but in the opening for Best Games there was a sequence with manga panels, including the ones that have already been announced and a some? more, and I believe Ryoma vs Sanada was in there! So I wouldn't get your hopes down just yet ^^
Long time lurker here, I apologize for my question if it has been answered.
I know the popularity for the series isn’t the same as what it was before, but do you folks think by any chance the best games ova episodes will get picked up by a group to provide subtitles?
If anyone knows a group that can do subtitles I can provide the RAWs for both OVAs so far. I'm also gonna get the 3rd when it releases at the end of January.
Long time lurker here, I apologize for my question if it has been answered.
I know the popularity for the series isn’t the same as what it was before, but do you folks think by any chance the best games ova episodes will get picked up by a group to provide subtitles?
If anyone knows a group that can do subtitles I can provide the RAWs for both OVAs so far. I'm also gonna get the 3rd when it releases at the end of January.
So I joined Saizen Fansubs discord as they have translated Prince of Tennis in the past and posted my request for interest in subbing the new OVAS. I also linked them to our forums for reference.
I received a response from one of the members saying for us to post the RAWS of the episodes onto nyaa. I hope this may be a start to something.
If you do not mind posting the RAWS to nyaa, I will reply to their discord with a link. Again, I’m not sure if anything will happen. At this point I am willing to offer a fan sub group a donation to anyone who decides to pick it up. If anyone else is interested as well, the more the merrier.
So I joined Saizen Fansubs discord as they have translated Prince of Tennis in the past and posted my request for interest in subbing the new OVAS. I also linked them to our forums for reference.
I received a response from one of the members saying for us to post the RAWS of the episodes onto nyaa. I hope this may be a start to something.
If you do not mind posting the RAWS to nyaa, I will reply to their discord with a link. Again, I’m not sure if anything will happen. At this point I am willing to offer a fan sub group a donation to anyone who decides to pick it up. If anyone else is interested as well, the more the merrier.
I received another response from someone in the Saizen Fansub Group discord and wanted to know if the following source for the OVA’s are Blu-ray rip or web-rip
I jumped the gun and mentioned Blu-ray rip given the context of @Friss first comment in our thread mentioning the upload of RAWS (given the context that he/she is purchasing the OVAS)
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