The Prince of Tennis II: U-17 World Cup Anime Casts Tomokazu Seki as Entire Greek Team

The official website for the Shin Tennis no Ōji-sama U-17 World Cup (The Prince of Tennis II: U-17 World Cup) anime series announced that Tomokazu Seki is voicing every member of the Greek team. The anime's Twitter account acknowledges that the surprising news sounds like an April Fool's joke, but insists that it is real.

The seven Hellenic Republic team members Seki is voicing are:

Zeus Iliopoulos (as previously announced)

Thalatta Hercules

Papadopoulos Evangelos

Vulcan Laërtius

Hermes Kounellis

Orion Stephanopoulos

Aporon (Apollon) Stephanopoulos

The anime will be the first anime in the franchise in about a decade.

The new series features the returning cast members:

• Junko Minagawa as Ryōma Echizen
• Ryotaro Okiayu as Kunimitsu Tezuka
• Hiroki Yasumoto as Hōō Byōdōin
• Junichi Suwabe as Keigo Atobe
• Sachiko Nagai as Seiichi Yukimura
• Yoshimasa Hosoya as Kuranosuke Shiraishi
• Tarusuke Shingaki as Eishirō Kite
• Mamoru Miyano as Ryōga Echizen

New cast members include:

• Hiroki Takahashi as Ralph Rhinehart
• Kenjiro Tsuda as Dodo Obando
• Takayuki Kondō as Kiko Balentien
• Naru Kawamoto as Alan Hopkins
• Masaya Onosaka as Rocky Meredith
• Kohei Kiyasu as Maxwell
• Kentarō Tone as Jürgen Borisovich Volk
• Tomokazu Seki as Zeus Iliopoulos
• Subaru Kimura as J. J. Dorgias
• Kazuyuki Okitsu as Alexander Amadeus
• Natsuki Hanae as Prince Ludovic Chardard

Keiichiro Kawaguchi (ISLAND) is returning from the last 2D anime, The Prince of Tennis II Hyotei vs Rikkai Game of Future, to direct the new series at Studio KAI and M.S.C, and Mitsutaka Hirota (Anime-Gataris, Nanbaka) is again superivising the scripts. Akiharu Ishii (Blood+, Ultramarine Magmell) is back to design the characters and serve as chief animation director.

Singer Yoshiki Ezaki and hip-hop duo Bleecker Chrome are collaborating for the anime's opening theme song "I can fly." TeniPri Artistars will perform the ending theme song "Dear Friends."

The new anime will premiere on TV Tokyo in July.

Takeshi Konomi serialized The Prince of Tennis manga's original run in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine from 1999 to 2008. The manga follows middle school tennis player Ryōma Echizen as he battles rivals to reach the national tournament. That original manga inspired a 2001-2005 television anime, two anime feature films and a theatrical short, various video anime projects, a live-action film, a live-action television series in China, and a popular stage musical series.

Konomi then launched The Prince of Tennis II manga series in Shueisha's Jump SQ. magazine in 2009. The story picks up after the national tournament, when Ryōma joins a select group of middle school players at Japan's top training camp for players under 17. This ongoing sequel manga spawned its own 2012 television anime series The Prince of Tennis II. The Prince of Tennis II OVA vs. Genius 10 series then ran for five volumes from October 2014 to June 2015.

The manga also inspired the Tennis no Ōjisama BEST GAMES!! original video anime (OVA) project that retells the story of the franchise's top matches. The project includes three OVAs that released in 2018-2019. The anime franchise also includes the two-part The Prince of Tennis II Hyotei vs Rikkai Game of Future anime project that debuted on February 13 and April 17.

Most recently, the Ryōma! Shinsei Gekijōban Tennis no Ōji-sama (Ryōma! Rebirth Movie The Prince of Tennis) 3DCG film for The Prince of Tennis franchise opened on September 3.

Update: Anime's website link fixed. Thanks, Mokil.

Sources: The Prince of Tennis II: U-17 World Cup anime's website, Comic Natalie