The episodes covering the third and fourth seasons of The Prince of Tennis anime series are directed by Takayuki Hamana, animated by Trans Arts, and co-produced by Nihon Ad Systems, J.C.Staff, and Production I.G. The two seasons originally aired on the terrestrial Japanese network TV Tokyo from October 2002 to August 2003. The anime is an adaption of Konomi's Prince of Tennis manga series created in 2000. The series revolves around a 12-year-old tennis prodigy named Ryoma Echizen, who moves back to his native Japan in order to attend his father's alma mater, a private middle school famous for its strong tennis team.
Viz Media handles the distribution of the series in North America, where the anime debuted as streaming media on Viz's and Cartoon Network's joint online broadband service called Toonami Jetstream on July 14, 2006. It first aired on North American television as part of Toonami's Saturday programming block on December 23, 2006.
Four pieces of theme music are used for the episodes in seasons three and four: two opening themes and two ending themes. The first opening theme, "Make You Free" by Kimeru and Hisoca, and the first ending theme, "White Line" by Aozu - the voice actors of Ryoma Echizen, Tezuka Kunimitsu, Shusuke Fuji, and Shuichiro Oishi - are used from episode fifty-four to seventy-five. The second opening theme, "Long Way" by Ikuo, and the second ending theme, "Kaze no Tabibito" (風の旅人?, lit. Wind Traveler) by Fureai (ふれあい), are used for the remaining episodes of the two seasons.
Famous quotes containing the words list, prince, tennis and/or episodes:
“Do your children view themselves as successes or failures? Are they being encouraged to be inquisitive or passive? Are they afraid to challenge authority and to question assumptions? Do they feel comfortable adapting to change? Are they easily discouraged if they cannot arrive at a solution to a problem? The answers to those questions will give you a better appraisal of their education than any list of courses, grades, or test scores.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“It is now many years that men have resorted to the forest for fuel and the materials of the arts: the New Englander and the New Hollander, the Parisian and the Celt, the farmer and Robin Hood, Goody Blake and Harry Gill; in most parts of the world, the prince and the peasant, the scholar and the savage, equally require still a few sticks from the forest to warm them and cook their food. Neither could I do without them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else.”
—Joseph Heller (b. 1923)
“What is a novel if not a conviction of our fellow-men’s existence strong enough to take upon itself a form of imagined life clearer than reality and whose accumulated verisimilitude of selected episodes puts to shame the pride of documentary history?”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)