Prince of Tennis

Prince of Tennis, or tenisu no oujisama, started as a Japanese sports manga that was serialized in Weekly Shounen Jump, was adapted as an anime series, and has evolved into a media franchise with popular musicals, computer games, trading cards, etc. Recently a Chinese live-action drama adaptation began airing as well. In 2009 Shin tennisu no oujisama began serialization in JUMP Square.http://mangahelpers.com/m/new-prince-of-tennis Accessed May 5th 2011. The story is set several months after the end of the first manga series.
==Synopsis==
Prince of Tennis is a shounen sports manga that follows the progress of a protagonist team, Seigaku, toward the National junior high competitions, and the progress of the nominal hero, Echizen Ryouma, toward the realization of his full tennis-playing potential.
==Fandom==
The LiveJournal PoT fandom was large and consistently active, though it has a certain amount of turnover among the fans who favor some particular media format and leave when that version concludes.
Given the large number of rival teams that the protagonist team faces over time, and the ultimate sympathy with which those characters are developed, many fans are drawn to one or two teams in particular. Thus the PoT fandom is also prone to divisions along team lines, with separate comms devoted to discussion of and fanworks for those teams.
===Pairings===
*Zaizen/Kenya
*Tezuka/Fuji
*Sanada/Yukimura
*Tezuka/Atobe
*Tezuka/Echizen
*Kikumaru/Ooishi
*Nioh/Bunta
*Kenya/Shiraishi
*Jackal/Bunta
*Chitose/Shiraishi
*Chitose/Tachibana
*Bane/Davide
*Hiyoshi/Gakuto
With such a large cast, containing only a token woman or two, the potential for rivalslash is high. Given the intensity with which team bonds are presented, in-team pairings are also very common, especially between characters shown playing as doubles partners.
Despite, or possibly because of, the vast number of possible pairings, pairing wars are relatively rare in this fandom.
While het stories are not very prevalent, there is a small community of fans who do write Ryoma/Sakuno.
A 2006 post in dinosaur_zone tallied shipping preferences among respondents, and compared them to the membership numbers in some of the pairing-specific communities.
====Naming====
An interesting peculiarity of PoT fandom is to give doubles pairings names on the pattern of "the Adjective Pair". This is based similar titles Konomi gave for some doubles teams, but was expanded considerably by the fans. This naming practice has been criticized for unclearness2007 post complaining about pairing names; contains terms now considered ableist slurs, but the names of the more popular ships are fairly well-known. Many of the accepted names stem from a list of possible names given in the video game Smash Hit! 2, which were translated and catalogued by fans. For example, Tezuka and Ryouma are listed as the Pillar of Seigaku Pair, and Tezuka/Ryouma became known as Pillar Pair.
Other fan-collected lists of pairing names:
*A list based on suggestions from the PoT forum
*List of the Smash Hit names with explanations
*A list from the fan wiki, including some names of unknown origin and some from the original Smash Hit list
*FF.Net thread discussing pairing names
===Challenges===
*PoT Challenge (2005-2006)
*Iron Tennis (2005)
*All Japan! 2006
*TeniPuri Gift Exchange (2006-2007)
*The Tenipuri Spring Fluff Exchange (2007)
*Art of Tenipuri (2007-2008)
*teni_challenge (2007-2008)
*Tenipuri Cross Pair Exchange (2012-2016)
==Communities==
*Tenipuri - General Livejournal community with over 3000 members, allowing all fanfiction, fanart, discussions, icons, songs, etc.
*PoTFics - Prince of Tennis Fanfiction Writers' Journal, nearly 800 members, for fanfiction only.
* 4_d_luv_of_fuji, a Live-journal community for the character Fuji Syuusuke
* ahun_pair, a pairing-specific community dedicated to Momoshiro/Ryoma
* atoshishi, a pairing-specific community dedicated to Atobe/Shishido
* zukatofuji, a pairing-specific community dedicated to Tezuka/Atobe/Fuji
* Triopuri, a threesomes exchange community on Live-journal
* tenipurimusic, a Livejournal for PoT related music.
* Tenipuri SG, a Livejournal for Singapore fans.
* Tenipuri 5, a roleplay Livejournal set in the Babylon 5 universe.
* Tenimedia, a Livejournal to talk about TeniMyu, PoT stage musical.
* tenihime, a roleplay genderswap Livejournal.
* seishungakuen, a general Livejournal community.
* pot_de, a Livejournal for German-speakers.
* PoT Claims, a Livejournal to claim PoT characters.
* Po(s)T Secrets, a Livejournal for PoT related secrets.
* pinoy_tenipuri, a Livejournal for fans from the Philippines.
* love_salad, a Livejournal for crackships.
* kevinxryoma, a Livejournal community for Echizen Ryoma/Kevin Smith shippers.
* lucky_kitty, a LiveJournal community for Sengoku/Kikumaru
* tourneypuri, a Livejournal community for polls related to the series.
* Camp Tenipuri, a roleplay Livejournal community
* higa_chuu, a LiveJournal community for Higa Junior High.
==Archives==
*Prince of Tennis on Fanfiction.net (some 20,000 stories as of December 2011, making it one of the larger anime/manga fandoms on ff.netAlthough still well behind behind Naruto (291K), InuYasha (102K), Bleach (61K), Yu-Gi-Oh (58K), Hetalia Axis Powers (47K), and not quite overtaking Card Captor Sakura or Yu Yu Hakusho (9 December 2011).).
*Prince of Tennis on Archive of Our Own (approx 1200 works as of December 2011; over 6000 by April 2021).
*Prince of Tennis tag on Pixiv
*TeniPuri tag on Pixiv
*TeniFuri (BL works) tag on Pixiv
*Penal-tea contained a fanart gallery as well as doujinshi.
==Fanworks==
===Fanfiction===
===Fanart===
===Doujinshi===
In the early 2000s Prince of Tennis had a very active doujinshi community, resulting in high popularity at Comiket.What is the Comic Market? Accessed May 5th 2011. Even professional mangaka, such as Kodaka Kazuma, were producing doujinshi for this fandom.http://www.mangaupdates.com/authors.html?id=184 Accessed May 5th 2011. Due to the vast number of male characters most fan comics featured yaoi couples.
===Vids===
===Fan Soundtracks (aka Fanmixes)===
*An example: Prince of Tennis: When Fan Meets Fanon by petronia
*Prince of Tennis tag on 8tracks
=== Zines ===
* Jump for the Stars - cinematic-style zine featuring shounen anime series as movie posters (2022)
===Meta===
Ship Manifesto pairing essays: 
* Right by Your Side by aishuu, Tezuka Kunimitsu x Fuji Syuusuke (Mar 2005)
* Golden Love by lexarose, Oishi Syuichirou x Kikumaru Eiji (May 2005)
* In the Shadows by tokkitsu, Hiyoshi Wakashi x Taki Haginosuke (May 2005)
* Essence by muzivitch, Yanagi Renji x Kirihara Akaya (May 2005)
* Contents Highly Flammable by sumeragiskank, Sanada Genichirou x Atobe Keigo (May 2005)
* Relativity by darknightrain, Yanagi Renji x Inui Sadaharu (Jul 2005)
* A Sublime Paradox by post_position, Yagyuu Hiroshi x Niou Masaharu (Sep 2005)
* Samurai's Honor by pengiesama, Sanada Genichirou x Yukimura Seiichi (Sep 2005)
* Her Knight in Flapping Tennis Garb by bobbissimo, Echizen Ryoma x Ryuzaki Sakuno (Mar 2007)
* My Analysis and Evidence on How Canon/Gay/Married Shishido and Ohtori Are by green_tea_river, Shishido Ryou x Ohtori Choutarou (May 2007)
Idol Reflection character essays:
* Trickster of the Courts by assyrian, Niou Masaharu (Sep 2005)
* "I'll Crush You!" by assyrian, Kirihara Akaya (Oct 2005)
* Defreezing the 'Ice King' by thesundaywriter, Tezuka Kunimitsu (Oct 2005)
* To Stand Under A Diva's Spotlight by thesundaywriter, Atobe Keigo (Oct 2005)
* Delicate Blossom by dropsofgleam, Sakuno Ryuuzaki (Jan 2007)
==References==
Category:Prince of Tennis