List of The Prince of Tennis characters
The Prince of Tennis manga and anime series has a large cast of fictional characters created by Takeshi Konomi; many have appeared in the musical and film adaptations. The cast of the series is largely made up of the members of the various tennis teams for the schools portrayed in the series, their coaches, and various family members and supporters.
The main character of the series is Ryoma Echizen, a 12-year-old tennis prodigy who joins the Seishun Academy tennis team. The main cast is rounded out with the other eight regular players for Seishun, all of whom have various special abilities at playing tennis. Beyond them, there are many rival schools whose players reappear during the course of the series.
Protagonists
The protagonists of the series all attend Seishun Academy, or Seigaku for short. The school is famous for its talented tennis club in which the series' leading protagonist, Ryoma Echizen, is enrolled in the school by his father, Nanjiro Echizen, a former professional tennis player and Seigaku alumni. Although Seigaku has long been known for its tennis club, the void created by Nanjiro's departure years earlier throws the team into somewhat of a slump, leaving them unable to make it to Nationals over the next several years until a first year, Tezuka, joins the team. The story picks up two years later, with Tezuka now in his third year. The team slowly reforms, and Seigaku pulls off its first National victory with Ryoma's addition to the team.Ryoma Echizen
Ryoma is the series protagonist and the only first year on the Seigaku tennis team. His play style is all rounder, and his signature serve is the "Twist serve", a variation on the standard topspin serve where the ball is hit with a combination of both topspin and sidespin, allowing the ball to bounce high and curve toward the receivers' face. His arsenal of skills also include the Drive A, B, C, and D, the Cool Drive, the Samurai Drive, and Cyclone Smash. His strengths include his ability to analyze his opponents' abilities during the match and adapt his own play accordingly to take advantage of their weaknesses. He is left-handed, but he often starts matches playing right-handed. Though often playing Singles 2 or 3, he begins to take Singles 1 by the end of the Kantou tournament, with the fate of the team's overall success riding on his game; the pressure often seems to be helpful towards his performance, bringing out the best in him — depending on the skill level of the opponent. His bored and cocky demeanor masks his underlying affection and respect for his teammates, especially his close friend Momoshiro and team captain Tezuka. By the time of The Prince of Tennis II, all of middle schoolers are shown to have developed great respect for Ryoma to the point where even some of the best high schoolers at the U-17 camp find him impressive. However, Ryoma ultimately ends up getting kicked out of the U-17 camp after interfering with a match to protect a friend. This expulsion is rescinded, however, but not before Ryoma joins the All-American representative team instead.In The Prince of Tennis live-action film, Ryoma was portrayed by Kanata Hongo. In the musicals, Echizen has been portrayed by actors Kotaro Yanagi, Yuya Endo, Dori Sakurada, Shogo Sakamoto, Ryuki Takahashi, Yuki Ogoe, Kazuki Furuta, Nichika Akutsu and currently Hikaru Imamaki.
Kunimitsu Tezuka
Tezuka is the national-level captain of the Seigaku tennis team. Like Ryoma, he is an all-rounder, and his special shots include the "Tezuka Zone," which uses his exceptional racket control to put spin on the ball to allow all shots to return to Tezuka no matter where the opponent tries to hit, and the "Zero-Shiki Drop Shot", which is a drop shot with heavy backspin that can make the ball roll towards the net rather than bounce towards the opposing player. He was later able to adapt his drop Shot into a serve.Tezuka is noted for being rather distant during practices and never smiling. However, he truly cares about his team and always tries to help them improve. At the nationals match against Sanada of Rikkaidai, Tezuka uses another special technique opposite to "Tezuka Zone" called "Tezuka Phantom" which forces the ball out of the cour, but the side effect injures his left arm.
At the end of The Prince of Tennis II Chapter 37, Tezuka is noted to have unlocked the last door of Muga No Kyouchi and has stepped off the training camp to become a Pro in Germany, where he receives tutelage under the 17-year old pro player Volk, and subsequently joins the All-German Representatives. During exhibition match against Japan, he teamed up with Q.P and decimated Atobe Keigo and Kirei Kanata pair in a 6-0 match.
In The Prince of Tennis live-action film, Tezuka was portrayed by Yu Shirota. In Musical: The Prince of Tennis, Tezuka has been portrayed by actors Eiji Takigawa, Kengo Ohkuchi, who stood as Tezuka in the place of Eiji Takigawa in the More Than Limit St. Rudolph Gakuen musical, Yu Shirota, Keisuke Minami, Daisuke Watanabe, Baba Ryoma, Takuma Wada, Hideya Tawada, Takuma Zaiki, Yuya Uno, Ryo Aoki, and Kento Yamada.
Tezuka is the captain of the Seigaku tennis team and its number one player, and has an unbeaten tennis record. The word "stoic" doesn't even begin to describe him. He doesn't smile, doesn't laugh, and has a very no-nonsense type of personality.
Later on, it comes out that Tezuka is indeed a very passionate person who will never surrender in his pursuit of his ideals. What are they? Why, the success of his tennis team. His determination and stubbornness are nearly unmatched. He will lead through example if it kills him - or forever destroys his ability to play.
Tezuka is aloof from his teammates but highly regarded. He is a good student, president of the student council, and is popular.
His catch phrase, "let's not be careless!" was painfully learned in his first year. As a new player, he was stronger than his seniors, and tried not to embarrass them by playing with his right hand. However, this was discovered and an enraged senpai struck him in the left arm. This injury comes back to haunt him, and eventually causes him to leave for Germany for treatment.
Tezuka's goal is to become the "pillar of Seigaku." He was challenged by the captain in his first year to become the "pillar" the team could rely on. This is how he eventually ruins his arm - he plays past the point of reason to exist as an example to his teammates.
Shuichiro Oishi
Shuichiro Oishi is the vice-captain of the club. Oishi and Kikumaru Eiji make up Seigaku's national level doubles team, known as the "Golden Pair". Oishi is known as the 'Mother Hen of Seigaku', because he constantly worries and frets for the team's well-being. He remains calm and rational in a match, allowing him to form strategies quickly. He uses the Moon Volley, a topspin lob that travels very high over the court and lands just in bounds. He can also use the "Drop Volley", a feint hit with the power of a drop shot, making the trajectory much closer to the net. He is portrayed by Hiroki Suzuki in the live-action film.He and Eiji often use the "Australian Formation", where they stand directly on the center line to confuse the opponents as to which way each player will move when the ball is placed into the opposing court. The "I-Formation" is a variation where Eiji stays below the net and Oishi serves the ball down the center. They also develop "Oishi Territory", which has Oishi focus on the net while Eiji stays in the back. It takes advantage of Oishi's ability to read the opponent while passing information to Eiji in the back. They later develop the "Synchronization" ability, which lets them play and move as if they are one person.
Despite his worrywart nature, Oishi is actually an extremely strict and disciplined leader, and a brilliant tactician on the court. His competitive nature is a stark contrast to his more timid public personality. He seems to easily become embarrassed as Kaido, but is also seen practicing proper etiquette more so than anyone else in the series because of his consideration for others.
Oishi plays the mother in the tenipuri episodes. Inui is her husband; Ryoma Echizen, Kaoru Kaido, and Takeshi Momoshiro are her children.
In The Prince of Tennis II, Oishi earns the No. 16 badge for the U-17 first string. He is also one of the 14 middle schoolers to represent Japan at the U-17 world cup. Despite the fact that he's not the captain of the middle school representatives, Oishi represents the Japanese U-17 team as a whole on the world stage, drawing lottery slots to determine the team's initial positions for the tournament.
In Musical: The Prince of Tennis, Oishi has been portrayed by Yuichi Tsuchiya, Hiroki Suzuki, Yukihiro Takiguchi, Yuya Toyoda, Yuki Tsujimoto, Jin Hiramaki, Ikkei Yamamoto, Shun Ishida, Yu Matsumura, Takanori Ezoe, and Takakazu Hara.
Shusuke Fuji
Shusuke Fuji is a third year student at Seishun Academy. The middle child of three, he has an older sister, Yumiko, who is very attractive and admired by his friends; his younger brother is Yuta, who was a student at Seigaku, but transferred to St. Rudolph. Fuji is a leap year baby, only getting to properly celebrate his birthday properly every 4 years. He is given the title "tensai", or genius, due to his tactical skill on the tennis court. Fuji's most famous moves are known as the Triple Counters: Higuma Ootoshi for returning smashes; Tsubame Gaeshi which runs on the ground without bouncing, effective against players at the baseline; and Hakugei, a shot that uses the wind to hop straight into the air and return to Fuji on the bounce, effective against players at the net. During the nationals, he creates more effective versions of his Triple Counters; three more original counters to deal with complex spin shots, low spin shots, and net balls; and even masters how to play with his eyes closed. In addition, Fuji has an underhand serve that seems to disappear when the opponent is about to hit it. A running gag in the series is that Fuji has interest in or else near-immunity to strange foods and drinks that others would find revolting to the point of fainting. Should he ever pass out from consuming any of the strange concoctions Inui or other data tennis characters come up with, the item in question is deemed a true terror.He is generally very relaxed and in control, often seen with a calm and content expression on his face with his eyes seemingly closed from lightly smiling, and rarely plays at full power. He only seems to do so when he witnesses some form of injustice or wins on the behalf of others who placed their personal health at risk playing tennis. For this reason, data-driven players like Inui and Mizuki cannot predict his movements at all. Fuji later admits to Tezuka that this is due to the fact that he has zero motivation to win, at least prior to the Nationals. There are a few people that can "wake" the true player in Fuji and force him to play seriously, and these few are either nationally ranked or extremely talented tennis players. Seigaku teammates Kunimitsu Tezuka and Ryoma Echizen, Shitenhōji captain Kuranosuke Shiraishi, Hyotei Gakuen Chuto Bu regular Yushi Oshitari and Rikkaidai Fuzoku regular Akaya Kirihara have been acknowledged by Fuji to be actual challenges. When he is excited, provoked, or serious, Fuji reveals his sharp eyes: light brown in the manga and blue in the anime.
In The Prince of Tennis II, Fuji laments over how he longer has Tezuka to help drive him to keep improving at tennis after the latter leaves for Germany. Fuji recreates his tennis to be more offensive in order to be more competitive at the U-17 world cup, at which he is one of the 14 middle schoolers representing Japan. His first new counter, Hollyhock Blizzard, reflects this by replacing the Higuma Ootoshi altogether, as this new counter returns opponents' smashes with a smash of his own.
Fuji is one of the few male characters in the anime who is voiced by a female voice actor, others being Ryoma Echizen, Kintarou Tooyama of Shitenhouji, Taichi Dan of Yamabuki, Youhei and Kouhei Tanaka of Jyosei Shonan, and Seiichi Yukimura of Rikkaidai Fuzoku. However, Ryoma, Kintarō and Taichi are first years, thus younger and more naturally voiced by a voice actress. Despite Fuji and Yukimura being third years, they are also voiced by voice actresses.
In the anime series, Fuji's voice actress is Yuki Kaida who also voices Fuji's sister, Yumiko. For the live-action adaptation film of The Prince of Tennis, Tenimyu actor Hiroki Aiba portrays Fuji.
In Musical: The Prince of Tennis, Fuji has been portrayed by actors Kimeru, Takashi Nagayama, who stood in during Remarkable 1st Match Fudomine due to a cast change, Hiroki Aiba, Yūta Furukawa, Taito Hashimoto, Ryo Mitsuya, Yusuke Yata, Yuki Kamisato, Fuma Sadamoto, Ibu Minaki, and Haruki Mochida.