Shueisha's
Jump SQ. magazine
announced that Takeshi Konomi's The New Prince of Tennis (Shin
Tennis no Ōji-sama) manga will not appear in its October issue, published
on September 4, 2025. The series will return in the November
edition, available on October 3, 2025 in Japan (early morning
of the same day in Spain).
According
to the publisher, Konomi plans to finish the work within a year,
thus marking the closure of one of the most iconic sports franchises in manga.
A legacy
that began in 1999
Konomi
started the sequel The New Prince of Tennis on Jump
SQ. in 2009, and to date has accumulated 44 compilation
volumes, the last one released on May 2, 2025. The original
work, The Prince of Tennis, was published in Weekly Shonen
Jump between 1999 and 2008, chronicling the competitions of Ryōma
Echizen, a young tennis prodigy determined to reach the national
tournament.
The manga's
success led to an extensive franchise: a television anime broadcast between
2001 and 2005, two animated films and several projects in OVA format, as well
as a live-action film, a series in China and a popular cycle of theatrical
musicals.
Franchise
is still alive in anime
In July
2022, Shin Tennis no Ōji-sama U-17 World Cup, the first
television series in the saga in almost a decade, premiered. Subsequently,
in October 2024, came its sequel titled Shin Tennis no
Ōji-sama U-17 World Cup Semifinal.
Takeshi
Konomi's health
The author
has gone through difficult times in terms of his health. In 2022, due to an
unspecified illness, he suffered several relapses that even led him to use a
wheelchair in 2023. Fortunately, over time he has regained mobility and
is currently able to attend events related to his work.
Goodbye
to a mobile game
Meanwhile,
the smartphone video game The Prince of Tennis II: RisingBeat will
shut down its servers on Sunday, August 31, 2025, marking the end
of another chapter in the franchise's multimedia expansion.
