This is a great news for sports manga fans as probably the longest running sports manga series Hajime no Ippo will be joined by the New Prince of Tennis as they try to continue on their success.
Just to give you an overview, this time, they're Middle Schoolers battling it out to be chosen in the U-17 team Japanese High School Representation selection camp. Ryoma Echizen just came back from conquering a US Open and as usual the Seigaku team is complete together with other middle school teams like Rikkai Dai, Hyotei and Shitenhouji. The first challenge in the selection camp was to grab a tennis ball in order to qualify as a candidate and our favorite middle schoolers easily did that as opposed to other nobodies bragging about their tennis skills. The second challenge was to pair up and as usual long-time doubles pairs quickly formed their teams but to everyone's surprise, they will be battling their teammate to remain as a candidate in the selections. This challenge is still on-going though with only seven chapters to date of this series continuation.
Some things to note:
1. So far, the selection camp's results of prospective candidates were looking like that of the Japanese representatives in the US vs Japan arc wherein the final battle was between Kevin and Ryoma.
2. I really don't quite dig Eiji winning against Oishi. Eventhough Oishi has been portrayed as more of a doubles player and has been inferior to Eiji in terms of skills when they play one on one, I still don't quite get it why Eiji's name has been popping out as a candidate option. Besides the Kikumaru beam smash and the dopple ganger, there's only the acrobatic technique in which the author can call it Kikumaru's own.
3. What happened to the Fuji vs Tezuka after the National Championship arc? If I remember correctly, Fuji challenged Tezuka to play against him after he won in the finals. And it also seems that Fuji has very few appearances so far in the new series.
4. Akutsu joins part of the U-17 selection camp. It was quite a surprise for me considering he wasn't even interested in playing tournament tennis again though but this is quite a nice new development.
5. No new prodigies on the middle schoolers' ranks. Perhaps the author just wants every Prince of Tennis fan to be happy that their favorite PoT characters are still intact and included in the series. Sad to say though that no new prodigies have come since Ryoma was not around for a long time.
With only seven chapters released, I think the author is still plotting the storyline for the old and new characters alike. I hope it won't turn into a one-sided middle school-filled line up of the U-17. Slam Dunk fans who have lost hope that the series will be revived after a shocking ending in which Shohoku failed to advance to the national championship will be very much delighted at the storyline of Prince of Tennis series. Seigaku unlike Shohoku won the national championship and guess what, the author is continuing the series in the form of the New Prince of Tennis ala Dragon Ball to Dragon Ball Z. The shift to middle school really is refreshing for manga readers like me who have long been starved of the storyline that Slam Dunk has teased us. Have fun reading the manga!
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