Yamabuki (Prince of Tennis)
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Yamabuki Middle School (私立山吹中学校?) is a national caliber tennis team in the manga and anime Prince of Tennis. They first appear in the semi-finals of the Prefecturals Tournament Arc, facing Fudomine Middle School. They easily beat Fudomine, due to the fact the members of the Fudomine team were in a car wreck before the match. They then play Seishun Academy Middle School. Seishun beats them with a match score of 3-1. They then advance to the Kantou tournament, but lose to Fudomine in the quarterfinals. They still win 5th place, getting them into Nationals, but they lose in the early rounds.
[edit] Members
[edit] Minami Kentarou (南健太郎?) (Captain)
3rd year. Minami is a doubles player who typically plays with Higashikata. They are strong in the basics and use a strategy to pressure opponents.
Notable Matches: vs. Kikumaru-Oishi pair, the match starts off with the Yamabuki doubles pressuring Oishi with hard shots. When Eiji goes to help, Oishi declines it. Eventually Seigaku regains their pace and wins the game. Together, he and Higashikata are known as "the Jimmies", which refers to the Japanese word 地味 (jimi), which means plain, or dull. They definitely do not like this nickname.
[edit] Sengoku Kiyosumi (千石清純?) (Vice-Captain)
3rd year. "Lucky Kiyosumi" Sengoku is a strong player on the team. He has a strong tennis sense and extremely sharp eyes. He sees even the fastest moving balls. His strongest weapon is his jumping serve, dubbed "Kohou (Tiger Cannon)". After a loss against Fudomine's Kamio, he leaves tennis for a short time. [Only in the anime] In this time he throws away all his ways of playing tennis, and focuses on boxing. When he comes back, his new style, "Boxing Tennis" becomes a turning point in his style of play.
[edit] Dan Taichi (壇太一?) (manager)
1st year. Not much is known about Dan, except for the fact that he looks up to Akutsu ever since meeting him in the school courts. He wears a green headband, one that Akutsu tossed away in that same encounter and Dan has kept ever since. Dan is the same height as Ryoma and is not allowed to play because of his height and inexperience. In the anime he copies Ryoma's style and challenges him to a match.
Notable Matches: Vs. Ryoma, Dan challenges Ryoma in the anime and loses horribly. Dan shows that he learned the Twist Serve and Drive B, but fails to win a single game against Ryoma.
[edit] Akutsu Jin (阿久津仁?)
3rd year. Akutsu is a punk type person, who was a once-per-decade tennis player. But after the match against Ryoma he has a mild change of heart; while he keeps his rough attitude, he's more willing to help those who need him, as proved when he helps Ryoma prepare for the Kantou final against Sanada. He also shows up at the middle of the match together with Taichi, who has become his sort-of protegé.
Akutsu uses an incredible playstyle. He uses the unusual flexibility of his body to put high speeds on his shots and hit balls in unnatural positions. Some of his famous techniques are the "Sliding" and the way he disappears and suddenly shows up at the net. He formerly used a style where he aimed the ball at people to win, similar to the style of Kirihara Akaya.
After he loses to Ryoma in the Yamabuki match Akutsu quits tennis, but he shows up after Ryoma's big loss against Rikkaidai's Genichirou Sanada and challenging him to a match, claiming that he wanted to see if Ryoma hadn't turn into a coward. At first Ryoma is losing game after game, but then turns the match around and wins.
Akutsu was raised alone by his mother, Yuuki (he was born when she was only 19 years old, and his father is never mentioned) and has been a friend of Takashi Kawamura for years. They met in a karate dojo they used to attend as children.
Notable Matches: Vs. Ryoma, Akutsu put much pressure on Ryoma with his unnatural movements. Ryoma couldn't predict which way the ball would go and ended up running in the opposite direction. Eventually Ryoma uses his split step twice and is able to reach the ball. During the Time-out Nanjiroh mentures that Banji's voice of Buddha is starting it's a reference to the way Banji coaches Akutsu; however, after that Akutsu's drives becomes more powerful. Ryoma wins and Akutsu, satisfied with his own performance and feeling that there's nothing else to do, definitely quits tennis.
vs. Kevin Smith, even though Akutsu quit tennis he still challenges Kevin Smith for revenge (Kevin had beaten up all the Yamabuki regulars with his violent playstyle), but he takes a humiliating loss due to the fact that Kevin uses all Ryoma's techniques to beat him including the Drive A, One-footed split step and Drive B.
Akutsu's last apparition in the manga is in chapter 330, during the Kawamura v/s Gin Ishida (Shitenhouji) match. Unable to return Ishida's ultra-powerful shots anymore, a seriously injured Kawamura is sent literally flying towards the crowd much to the horror of his teammates, but Akutsu catches his friend mid-air and saves him from crashing into the seats.
[edit] Higashikata Masami (東方雅美?)
3rd year. Minami Kentarou's doubles partner. Also notably the tallest in the Yamabuki group, measuring at 187 cm. The other half of the Jimmies.
[edit] Kita Ichiuma (喜多一馬?)
2nd year. The doubles partner of Nitobe. Likes tomatoes, and is equally cynical. Has trademark swirls on cheeks.
[edit] Nitobe Inakichi (新渡米稲吉?)
3rd year. The doubles partner to Kita. Cynical, sarcastic, and weird. Has a trademark plant protruding out of the top of his head.
[edit] Muromachi Touji (室町十次?)
2nd year. Referred to on rajipuri as Yamabuki's "eternal secret weapon", as his matches are usually never shown. Muromachi has a smart mouth and seems to think highly of his senpai, Sengoku.
[edit] Nishikiori Tsubasa (錦織翼?)
3rd year. The replacement for Akutsu after he quits tennis, but doesn't manage to do a lot.
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| Tennis team members: | Ryoma Echizen | Kunimitsu Tezuka | Shuichiro Oishi | Shusuke Fuji | Eiji Kikumaru | Takashi Kawamura | Sadaharu Inui | Takeshi Momoshiro | Kaoru Kaidoh |
| Schools: | Seishun Academy Middle School | Fudomine Middle School | St. Rudolph Gakuen | Yamabuki | Hyotei Gakuen | Midoriyama | Jyosei Shonan | Rikkai Daigaku Fuzoku | Rokkaku Chuu |
| Supporting characters: | Sumire Ryuzaki | Nanjiro Echizen | Masashi Arai | Satoshi Horio | Kachiro Kato | Katsuo Mizuno | Sakuno Ryuzaki | Tomoka Osakada |
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| List of Prince of Tennis episodes | Tennis no Ojisama - Futari no Samurai | The Prince of Tennis (film) | The Prince of Tennis Musicals | Takeshi Konomi | |
