And indeed, one must push the Suspension of Disbelief to new levels when watching Prince of Tennis tennis. It's SUPER-HUMAN TENNIS. If Clark Kent and Peter Parker decided to have a game of tennis, it would be this kind of tennis, and Bruce Banner would play the winner. But yeah, once you get your SoD comfortable, it's enjoyable enough. I've watched up to ep 89, at the moment.

The characters really carry the series. I can see why it's so intensely commercialized and 76,924 sets of plushes were made for it. I luuuuvvv Ryoma. He's an awesome, awesome little BASTARD. He never stops being adorable. Finger-binoculars!!! ::dies:: But, dude, Kaidoh. I LOVE KAIDOH. XD XD XD. Probably because he doesn't get as much attention, and that makes me more excited over him whenever they show him. He's a giant snake plushie. But damn, the series abuses him so much off-court, and on-court they rough him up so badly in his matches, you'd think he was playing soccer than tennis; Bodily crashing and sliding all over the court. x_X; ::wipes the constant dirt off his face for him:: And INUI... oh, what can I say. The series would probably be 30.8% less interesting without him. I wonder if there is an Inui/Fear Factor fic out there.

I also like Tezuka. And Atobe. And Shinji. And Kawamura's Engrish is great-o. And how Fuji is with his brother amuses me to no end. And... on-court Akutsu is COOL. I am SO sad he stopped playing. Akutsu is... thrilling! My extra usage of HTML tags is indicative of my sincerity. I want more Akutsu!! (chibi-Akutsu was great) It would have been interesting to see how others would have handled playing him, like Atobe/Hyotei or some other good player/team. But at the same time, it's kind of cool that Ryoma was the only one who got to. That Taichi Dan, though, is really fucking irritating. He's the only character I seriously hate so far, as in, all the time. Everything he does or says annoys me. So that episode where he injects himself into Seigaku's practice pissed me off. This fucking girl is more annoying than Ryoma's other two fangirls. At least we got to hear more about Akutsu in that ep. While I was checking my burns, I caught sight of him appearing again in one of the later eps, so I'm looking forward to that. ^_^

Golden Pair matches are boring. Early on, they would only bother to show bits of it (as if they thought so, too) and it was still hard to sit through. I noticed Kikumaru's character was introduced as more mellow in the beginning. Later, he becomes childish and whiny with weird "nya nya"'s and "hoi hoi"'s. That reminds me of sitcoms, and how the characters become more extreme and defining with quirks as the show becomes popular. Except with Kikumaru, it was kind of weird and unexpected, from how he's seen in the first eps. And Oishi's character is too... good for me to accept anywhere past 'tolerate.'

While I like his character all right off-court, Momoshiro's tennis play is boring, too. >_> And I think it's BS that he beat Sengoku. Compensating for his deficiencies as a stand-out player maybe. Whenever it's a GP or Momo match, I find myself constantly urging the episode and match to end already, staring at the elapsed video time. But I guess how much I like the player affects my interest level. But Momo's tennis really is boring! >_< Except when he's doubled with Ryoma. Cuz then you got, you know, RYOMA.

One Ryoma match did bore me though and that was the one vs Shinjou Reiji. In fact, that entire sub-arc with Jousei Shounan was weird and off. I kept getting the feeling like I was watching an OVA for the series. Which, I guess, is true in a way, since I read they didn't play this school in the original manga storyline. The Inui-Momoshiro doubles match was like nothing more than a re-scripted version of the Inui-Kaidoh/Ohtori-Shishido match. And dude, Wakato Hiroshi. WTH. What a jackass, LMAO. "CHANGE-OVER!!" It made me think that's how Youji might be written in a WK fic if the author didn't like him. XP But it was actually the most interesting of the Jousei matches. Or that just might be my Kaidoh-bias talking.

And I realized, it's recently that the art of the manga looks so good, compared to how it was in the early chapters. I saw some raw scans of chapter 300 and dang, that's hot. Atobe, especially.

It's funny how I feel about Atobe. As I suspected from looking at Kodaka Kazuma's dj before I started the series, I do enjoy the idea of Oshitari/Atobe. But now that I've watched some of the series, I find I really like Atobe/Tezuka, too. That's rare for me with a character, pairing order-wise. But the other day, I found some scans of a cute doujinshi about "The Little Atobes" and it describes the different faces of Atobe, in the form of little chibis inside his head, each one taking the reigns for different situations. And I think that explains how I'm capable of liking both pairings pretty well. There's Captain Atobe, whom I imagine Oshitari would be confront with, and then there's Flashy Atobe, whom Tezuka would be 'subjected' to, heh. So depending on which Atobe we're dealing with and with what kind of counter-part, my preferences for him change...

Man, I'm dying to watch episode 163!! Kaidooohhh! But I'm also disappointed that they ended the anime so early, and also inserted their own ending. And from what I've heard, it is NOT an ending I like. >:( But I've already downloaded all the current manga, so I guess it can stay alive for me there. But I really hate having to follow action/sports in manga, even if it is the original form.

Chibi-baby-Kaidoh is like the cutest thing EVER. Surpassed only by Baby/Toddler-Sasuke. I watch the Tenipuri Family ep over and over just for that baby hiss. Baby-Kaidoh w/pacifier, on tricycle... kittens... omg... >_< ::dies from overload:: I love looking at chibi-Ryoma too. His eyes are sooo cute. They are round and adorable and still sharp and clever. But the bestest moment had to be chibi-Ryoma when he lost that point to chibi-Fuji and reacting from Inui's emo-juice. That was just... priceless.