~team pimping
TODAY, I am here to pimp to you some very special young men.
RIKKAI DAIGAKU FUZOKU are the Final Boss Team of The Prince of Tennis. They are also the midboss team, which makes them one of two rival teams we Seigaku actually meet play more than once in this series. They are all Very Special Boys and some are not entirely safe. Or sane. Or 'normal' in any sense of the word.
SANADA GENICHIROU
15-year-old Sanada is Rikkai's fukubuchou, or vice-captain, and one of the 'Three Demons of Rikkai' with Yukimura and Yanagi. Called the 'Emperor', he is a HARDASS and DOES NOT TAKE CRAP FROM ANYONE (except Yukimura). He is tall and manly and imposing and basically everything Yukimura isn't openly. He does kendo and his tennis moves are based on FuuRinKaZan. He's an expert at the backhand bitchslap and will do that to his teammates if they break Rikkai's law of no losses (or if they're doing dumb things). But he's honourable and after his own loss, though, he asks them to hit him back. No one has the balls. Until Niou.
NIOU MASAHARU
On a completely different end of the scale - or more accurately, on a different scale completely - there is Niou. Nicknamed the 'Trickster', fourteen-year-old Niou is described as the scariest player on the court. He is brazen, mischevious and likes messing with people for the hell of it. His ability is Illusion; he can project the image of other players. Even Yukimura finds him to be a truly scary person, since he can kind of become him and all. But he's a little childish, and peppers his speech with onomatopoeia... some of which he just makes up himself. In the first match we see him play, he appears to be openly violent in his play (he knocked a boy out by aiming for his face and is taunting him, here), until you realise that it wasn't Niou at all.
YAGYUU HIROSHI
Aaand right on cue, I can slip in Yagyuu's little paragraph. The 'Gentleman', Yagyuu is a right young gentleman indeed. Except totally not. He appears to share Niou's Illusion, and the two aren't just playing doubles together in their first match, they're playing doubles as each other. Yagyuu seems to use his short stint as Niou to break character and act wild, and then slip flawlessly back into his well-known perfect man personality. His signature technique is the Laser Beam, a quick straight shot keeping with his 'straight' image. While not ever being as wild as the whole Niou thing again in the series, he does do some other very un-Gentlemanly things, such as mistranslating English in order to send Kirihara into a rampage and beat the everloving crap out of a guy he was losing to.
KIRIHARA AKAYA
Thirteen-year-old Akaya is the only second-year member of Rikkai's regulars, and he's a right little devil. No, really, I'm not even kidding, it's fucking terrifying. Kirihara has some serious anger and pride issues and if you piss him off enough, this will happen and you will not leave with your skin/knees/vision/all of you intact. But for the most part, he's actually kind of a cute if bratty kid, and is the team's little brother who we adore and all that. Even if he mostly just wants to kick our asses. And even if we kind of promote him losing his mind to win or whatever. ALL'S FAIR IN LOVE AND TENNIS.
JACKAL KUWAHARA
Half-Brazilian Jackal, the 'Man with Four Lungs', is Kirihara's babysitter Kirihara and Marui's babysitter the team allowance supplier ...the somewhat put-upon Token Normal Guy. One half of Rikkai's best doubles team (...we think...?), Jackal is the defensive Iron Wall behind net player Marui (literally). He shaves his head in tribute to his master back in Brazil and likes having an even tan, but aside from that is a pretty average nice guy. Which the team really needs, thank goodness.
MARUI BUNTA
Don't laugh at his name (it kind of... almost means 'ball of fat'), Marui is a skilled player and something is wrong if he doesn't let you know it. Marui calls himself a 'Genius', and will ask his opponents if they agree with his genius moves. A volley techinician with stamina issues, Marui eats sugar before every match in order to help out with that - and chews gum during games, with no regard for choking dangers. Despite his self-promoting habits, there's no denying he's talented. He even has his own adorable fanboy from another school who you should also app. Other than that, Marui's a pretty easygoing and friendly guy, even if Camp's sugar ban might cause him to become addicted to Splenda.
LAAAST but most definitely not least.
YANAGI RENJI
Yanagi is Rikkai's dataman, nicknamed the 'Master', and the last of the 'Three Demons of Rikkai'. If you thought Inui had a lot of percentages and statistics in his head, this is the guy who taught him all of that. Inui and Yanagi were tinyfriends and you should totally app Yanagi and make everyone happy. Yanagi usually plays with his eyes shut, until he gets super serious. He and Yukimura are very close and refer to each other by given name, which is rare in this whole series (then again, he calls Sanada by his given name too). Yanagi is very very smart and has no need for notebooks like Inui. But he's also kind, and has a solid senpai/kouhai teacher/student-y sort of relationship with Kirihara. YOU SHOULD APP THIS BOY o9"
also, Echizen Ryoma get your twelve-year-old shota prince ass in here so I can kick it.
thanks for taking the time for this tl;dr guys and i am sorry if you read all that, i really am. :(