Many The Prince of Tennis fans might have expected Ryoma’s return to be an unseen match or maybe a future arc. Not surprising, we here at Honey’s Anime even thought the same thing ourselves! Strangely though, Ryoma! The Prince of Tennis <Decide> is like an OVA episode extended. Ryoma is in America and he runs into his female friend Sakuno Ryuzaki. Our cute Ryuzaki gets into a bit of trouble with some foreigners and Ryoma comes in to save the day. But for reasons we won’t spoil, Ryoma and Ryuzaki end up passing out after two colliding tennis balls hit and send them into the past when Ryoma’s father was still a star player. The story is a bit far-fetched and is quite laughable but seeing Ryoma return in this strange new set-up was a nice twist! Plus, watching Ryoma play against his dad was really cool…well at least for the few moments they play without the strange interruption which will make sense soon.

As we noted before, as Ryoma! The Prince of Tennis <Decide> takes place in the past, we get to see Ryoma’s father—who was once a legendary tennis star himself, and see his skills on the court. We also witnessed more of Ryoma’s past which alludes to some themes not explored in the anime series. Don’t fret though, we get several cameo appearances from characters to make sure the story doesn’t focus entirely on Ryoma for the entire 1 hour and 40-minute duration. Ryoma! The Prince of Tennis <Decide> doesn’t really give you a deep narrative but maybe that is why even non-fans can still get some enjoyment from the film.

When Ryoma! The Prince of Tennis <Decide> begins, the opening scenes will no doubt please fans as several big characters—we won’t spoil who for you fans out there—make an appearance and begin to…dance and sing?! You might believe this will be the only time they do this dance/musical routine but if you want more or less, you’ll be happy/sad to know Ryoma! The Prince of Tennis <Decide> has numerous dancing/singing scenes in it. It can be a bit goofy to see your favorite characters begin to sing and dance like they have become part of a J-Pop idol band but there are some cute moments that we didn’t dislike. One scene has Ryoma and Ryuzaki singing in a church and we just had smiles plastered on our faces during this moment. Again though, fans might tilt their heads in utter confusion at seeing their beloved tennis prince go from star player to dancer.

Okay, we’ve been avoiding the biggest elephant in the room but we need to finally talk about the CGI that is used to animate Ryoma! The Prince of Tennis <Decide>. Unlike the traditional animation used before for the series, Ryoma! The Prince of Tennis <Decide> is entirely 3D—or better known as CGI—which isn’t bad but will no doubt turn off fans and CGI haters alike. As fans of the original anime, we won’t deny seeing this new art style threw us off. It didn’t take us extremely long to get used to the CGI but we didn’t really love it either. We kind of wish Ryoma! The Prince of Tennis <Decide> utilized the original style but in the end, it was good and we have still seen way worse CGI films out there.