Fuji, played by Yuki Kaida, and Yukimura (Sachiko Nagai) are the only two third year guys to be voiced by a woman. Yukimura also is the only captain or vice-captain voiced by a female voice actress.
Downplayed in the Film Adaptation. All the Seigaku regulars are played by the Musical's Seigaku 2nd Cast, who were all 19-22 years old at the time, while the characters were supposed to be 14-16. Hongo Kanata as well was a bit older than Ryoma. The same case is applied to the cameos in the film, since the Musical actors who played random players were around their mid-20's.
Played straight in all the Musicals, but notably averted when Ruito Aoyagi (the 1st Gakuto) was casted. He just turned 16 during one of the plays.
"Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Several across the series, including Junko Minagawa (Ryoma) performing Across My Line, Jun'ichi Suwabe (Atobe) performing Kakumei e no Prelude, and several ending songs being performed by various groups of the actors. "Party Time," the ending song for the Genius 10 OVAs, was actually performed by a different group of actors for every episode.
In English, Viz Media produced a dub from 2007-2008 at Salami Studios in Los Angeles, covering the first 50 episodes. In 2021, Funimation announced that they were producing a brand new English dub for their streaming service. It premiered on Crunchyroll in 2022, although it initially picked up where Viz's dub left off, as the latter was still streaming on Hulu until Viz's license expired in August of 2022. The new dub is recorded at Sound Cadence Studios in Texas, with some actors recording from Los Angeles note and Florida in the case of Joshua Seth .
There's two Latin American Spanish dubs: one from the 2000s for Animax Latin America recorded in Venezuela, and another one from 2021 for Funimation recorded in Mexico.
God-Created Canon Foreigner: Ryoga Echizen was originally only created for the The Prince of Tennis - The Two Samurai: The First Game movie by Takeshi Konomi. After fan acclaim, he eventually used him in The New Prince of Tennis.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: The original 2006 English dub by Viz Media was released on DVD, but they have since gone out of print and as of August 2022 it's no longer streaming on Hulu either.
Network to the Rescue: In April 2021, Funimation announced that they had acquired the rights to the animated productions and would be re-dubbing the series using a new cast.
Neither the video games, the Musical DVD sets, the New Prince of Tennis manga series nor Houkago no Oujisama (" The Prince of Tennis Tribute", also known as "The Prince of Afterschool") have been released outside Japan.
Latin American viewers only had a bit better on this, since only 97 episodes were dubbed.
Mamoru Miyano replaces Yuuta Yamazaki as Ryoga in the anime.
Rinko was originally voiced by Yuki Nakao, however in episode 129 note which she is partially the focus of as the episode centers around her relationship with Nanjiro , Junko Minagawa (who already voices her son Ryoma) voices her both in flashbacks as well as present day.
Since Funimation is redubbing the whole series from scratch, everyone has been recast.
The official radio show of the series, Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio is officially nicknamed as "Rajipuri".
The sequel series, "The New Prince of Tennis", is abbreviated as "Shinpuri".
Pop Culture Holiday: Happy Summer Valentine, Tenipuri's annual valentine event/popularity poll. Fans send in chocolate to vote on their favorite characters, which is counted up and revealed on August 14th. The practice got so huge, the results day graduated to becoming an official Japanese holiday in 2018.
Role Reprise: With the exception of Kotaro Yanagi, the second musical's main Seigaku cast reprised their roles for the 2006 Live-Action Adaptation, including Yuu Shirota as Kunimitsu Tezuka, Hiroki Suzuki as Shuichiro Oishi, Hiroki Aiba as Shusuke Fuji, Hirofumi Araki as Sadaharu Inui, Osamu Adachi as Eiji Kikumaru, Masaki Fuji as Takeshi Momoshiro, Yoshikazu Kotani as Takashi Kawamura, and Kosuke Kujirai as Kaoru Kaido. Also Koji Date plays Choutarou Ohtori, being the only member of Hyoutei who stars in both the musicals and the live-action film.
Screwed by the Network: The show is familiar among Toonami fans for being initially a Toonami Jetstream exclusive, and then being brought onto the television block alongside MÄR, only for both shows to be taken off almost immediately.
The first season of the TV series was animated by Trans Arts. Starting with the first film, Production I.G took over as the main animation studio.
The North American home media releases were initially distributed by Viz Media. Then, in April 2021, Funimation bought the rights to all of the animated productions.
What Could Have Been: Kintaro was supposed to have a larger role, and it's speculated that Konomi actually thought of having him as the main character before coming up with Ryoma.
Daisuke Watanabe (Tezuka) and Kyosuke Hamao (Eiji), both from the 1st Season Seigaku 4th cast, started to get shipped a lot after they both starred in 4 out of 5 movies of the Takumi-kun Live-Action movies.
Any former alumni who had co-starred in a Boys' Love movie with Takumi Saito (1st Season Oshitari 1). So far, we have Yoshikazu Kotani (1st Season Kawamura 2, in "Boys Love"), Hiroki Aiba (1st Season Fuji 2, in "Sukitomo"), and Ryunosuke Kawai (1st Season Hiyoshi A, in the adaptation of "Itsuka no Kimi e").
Dawson Casting: The actors are between 18 to their late 20s, playing characters in middle school.
This is lampshaded in Dream Live 1st, when Inui comments that his mother picks his wardrobe, and Oishi reminding the audience that they're all are teenagers in middle school.
Averted with Ruito Aoyagi (1st season Gakuto), who turned 16 during the Hyotei plays.
Dyeing for Your Art: Yuki Jutta (1st Jackal) shaved his head instead of using a bald cap.
The Other Darrin: Aside from the actors graduating and Passing the Torch to the next cast, there were cases where the recast happened without graduation.
"Remarkable 1st Match Fudomine" has some mixing in the cast: Since Kotaro Yanagi was unable to perform due to his 2003 car accident, Kimeru stepped in as Ryoma, while Takashi Nagayama, who was originally playing Eiji, played Fuji. And then they called again Ichitaro Yamazaki to play Eiji.
"More Than Limit St. Rudolph Gakuen" had Kengo Ohkuchi as Tezuka (instead of Eiji Takigawa), and Eiki Kitamura as Kawamura (instead of Yoshitsugu Abe).
"Side Fudomine ~Special Match~" (2004-2005), was a remake of the original Fudomine play. This version has Endou Yuuya as Ryoma (he shared the role with Yanagi Kotaroh, who returned after his recovery). Also, YOH replaced Takuma Sugawara as Tachibana and Yuki Fujiwara played Kamio instead of Yasuyuki Matsui.
Starting with The Imperial Presence Hyotei, Date Koji was replaced by Seto Yusuke for the rest of the Musicals of the 1st Season, even when the original Hyotei Cast reunited for the special stage of The Imperial Presence Hyotei in Tokyo.
While there was a Rikkai B assembled for The Final Match Rikkai First, Toshiki Masuda replaced Yagami Ren as Yukimura, while Yuuki Yamaoki replaced Kento Ono as Yanagi, Mio Acaba as Marui and Shingo Toda as Jackal for the rest of the Season (they both played their parts for both casts). Averted for Kanesaki Kentaro, who was the only one to play Sanada for both Rikkai casts during the entire season.
In Dream Live 7th, the Seigaku 1st cast made a special guest appearance, but Eiki Kitamura replaced Abe again because of scheduling conflicts. It's even mentioned by the guys themselves on stage.
Real Life Writes the Plot: Since Kotaro Yanagi had his accident, the musicals from Fudomine to Hyotei were written to give Ryoma fewer singing lines whenever Kotaro played him because Kotaro wasn't able to sing the same anymore. This is notable during 'The Imperial Match Hyotei', where Ryoma has very few singing lines during the whole play, and the following plays had more Ryoma songs after Kotaro graduated with the rest of the second cast.
Many of the actors start off as rookie actors in the musicals, and eventually move on to bigger productions, music careers, bigger acting profiles, and so on.
Like Aiba, Hirofumi Araki has a lot of roles in musical adaptations of anime and manga, and went on to voice Hikaru Zaizen in the National Tournament arc.
Stunt Casting: Some of the actors had already established careers before being cast in the musicals.
Singer Kimeru (who sings Openings and Endings for The Prince of Tennis and Yu-Gi-Oh!) played the first Shusuke Fuji.
Mamoru Miyano aside from being already famous as a voice actor, played 1st Season Tetsu Ishida and later went on to voice Ryoga Echizen in New Prince of Tennis.
Subverted. Hiroki Aiba started his career in the musicals, and later moved on to voice acting and other gigs as a dancer. For the 'New Prince of Tennis' plays, he returns to play Kanata Irie on stage, who he also voices in New Prince of Tennis.
