The story is still about the tennis prodigy Echizen Ryoma, the team he had in Seishun Gakuen or Seigaku, and, tennis games, of course. The ending is the episode 68 of the anime, so imagine how big a chunk of the original story was gone to fit this in an almost two-hour film. The district preliminaries and prefectural tournament were skipped, so the tournament showed was the Kanto regionals.
It is good that they managed to show each of Seigaku regulars' signature moves. It is also good that there are games because, after all, this is about Echizen whose life revolves around tennis and this is truly a sports show. However, the bad side of these is that all the characters lack depth.
I hoped to see Ryoma's relationship with the other members, how he would become one of them, but it wasn't shown. The longer interaction he had was with Tezuka and with Kaidoh and those were also matches. In the end, what I saw was an arrogant Ryoma who desires to become stronger, same as the one from the beginning of the movie, and it ends there. The rest of the characters were also flat. Even if I got a glimpse of the past of the movie-only characters Egate Mcleod HIgaki and Higaki Shioin, they still lacked some depth, though I think Egate was the better, though still not fine, character than Echizen himself here.
I have to give the writers a nod for deciding to make a movie-only character for the ending. Had they followed the anime/manga, the ending would be Ryoma's game with Wakashi Hiyoshi. Although that was a good one, it wouldn't show much of Ryoma's struggling. (I felt like I was watching his game with Akutsu when Egate showed his playing style.)
Shioin's character kind of irked me because she replaced Ryuzaki Sakuno. (Yes, I'm a fan of RyoSaku.) Anyway, she's the type of character that was better off the story, but I think that she was placed there so that the other Higaki wasn't as flat as the other characters.
With regards to acting, I think they range from bad to acceptable. I think Hongo Kanata captured Echizen's arrogance. Shirota Yuu lacked the strictness and coolness and seriousness of Tezuka. The actor who acted as Egate did a fine job becoming an irritable character. The actor who portrayed Atobe also lacked arrogance.
The background music played in matches suit the atmosphere as it feels like being challenged or having the need to overcome something or preparing for something big to come. The ending song was fine.
A once in a lifetime experience of watching this is more than enough.
Overall, the story is rushed and the characters suffer from lack of development and depth. There's nothing noteworthy in acting and music. Watch this if you're an avid fan of the series who doesn't like missing out on anything related to PoT. Watch this if you can bear with exaggerations of this sports' games. Watch this if you can't bear to miss anything of Hongo Kanata or Shirota Yuu. Otherwise, don't.
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It is very entertaining with all that exaggerated actions on the court and the story is classic, about someone who never been defeated, was stumbled and was able to stand up at the end. I also like how the supporters cheers on their team, with all the chant, banners, color coding whatnots, it is fun watching it.
The actors were good in portraying their role but I don't feel any character depth, but most of them were eye candy. The lead actress though has minimal contact and scenes with the prince of tennis, and I am not happy with her acting, she's like frozen or something, it didn't just reach me (maybe it's just me hehe) but her playing the music instrument on him was a touching scene.
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Compared to the anime, this seems rushed. That maybe because its a movie. I liked the anime better. I liked how this was based on the anime.
I liked how the character has a lot of different moves. It reafreshed my memory from the anime.
I liked the ending music, the movie showed. Made me fel like the need to dance.
Some of the characters was complete reflections of the anime characters.
I expected too much from the movie because i really enjoyed the anime, but still i would stil recomend it to people. I still enjoyed this.
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Point 2: Kanata Hongo was the best choice for this kind of role. He always does his best acting when his character has a secret strength. Sometimes they are smart, sometimes secretly evil, sometimes secretly strong or a punk, and in this case, because he is a little short and young, he deceives his opponents.
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This review may contain spoilers
This is The Prince of Tennis Live Action that I first watched. And this is also the first Live Action made. Because the format is movie, so many scenes must be cut or modified to meet the duration. I can understand that, but there are also some modified roles, which in my opinion are quite essential. An example is Ryuzaki-sensei's role. Here it is told that he was young, so Sakuno's role was abolished, replaced by the younger sister of Higaki.Overall, the story is close to the story in the manga and quite entertaining, but I would be very happy if this title was made in the form of a drama series. Speaking of acting, the two roles that I like in this movie are Tezuka and Ryoma. Both of them (Hongo Kanata and Shirota Yu) can play Ryoma and Tezuka well, so their role characters are really like the characters in the manga.
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Tennis Anyone?
I love the Prince of Tennis anime and even though in the US I have only been able to watch the first 50 episodes I still thoroughly enjoyed it.This is the Japanese movie version from 2005 and I would have liked it more had I not seen the animation or the 2019 Chinese remake on Netflix. As others have stated it was just too much information to cram into 2 hours . Plus I didn't like that some characters had to be combined or left out all together. I missed the guy bonding and friendships of the team and I missed the line-ups of the other school teams.
The thing I loved about the movie is that Konata Hongo as Ryoma was perfectly cast; as was Yu Shirota as Kunimitsu; he also looked a lot like the anime character which I totally dug!
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Watching the movie earlier than now was actually my plan but I was afraid that the live action won't meet my expectations since I am a fan of the anime version. But last night I've decided to download it and watched it and guess what it exceeded my expectation.
The casts where mindfully chosen, acting skills was superb, effects are expensively done, in short, PERFECT!
The tears I've wasted while watching it totally paid off. I was drown into the story of determination, sportsmanship and friendship. It was indeed a wonderful movie.
I am hoping for more. Even until now the word "matamatane" keeps on replaying in my mind, this means "still not there" the words of Ichizen Evey fight or should I say the last words he said in the movie. But anyways, it was a great movie. I'll give it a 10/10 ratings. Watch it!
Aim / To Be / Stronger
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Magic games, fire balls and Echizen's ambition Everything is ok. Unfortunately, I complain of unexplained threads again. Why Ryoom had to move... Who the misterious, mute girl and what kind of links she has with Higaki... Aww...
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