Prince of Tennis Adds Cast and Theme Songs for Its Autumn Return
The franchise's next arc arrives this autumn from TMS Entertainment, a studio that streams hundreds of episodes free on YouTube, though not one of them is Prince of Tennis.
By Riley Kuroda · AnimeSphere staff · July 22, 2026
The tennis franchise that first reached television in 2001 is still not finished. A new series, *Shin Tennis no Ouji-sama: U-17 WORLD CUP Kesshou Member Ketteisen*, is lined up for this autumn, and the production has now revealed its theme songs along with more casting.
The addition drawing attention is Yū Shirota, known mainly as a film actor, who takes the role of Romeo Fernandez on the Spanish side. Anime News Network has the full announcement. Our catalogue lists the show under that Japanese title, marked Fall 2026 and not yet released; nothing firmer than the season has been given.
It extends a story that already spans the 2001 original, *The Prince of Tennis II*, the U-17 World Cup series and its Semifinal continuation, four separate entries standing between a newcomer and this autumn's premiere.
TMS gives away a lot of anime. Just not this.
*Prince of Tennis* is a TMS Entertainment property, which makes the availability question more interesting than usual. TMS is one of the more unusual rights-holders in the industry: it runs an official YouTube channel, Anime! on TMS, that posts full episodes free and legally. It is one of the largest single feeds in our index, 27 titles and 729 free, US-viewable episodes come from that channel alone, out of 7,405 free episodes across 758 titles sitewide.
*Prince of Tennis* is not part of what they give away. Not the 2001 original, not *The Prince of Tennis II*, not the U-17 World Cup series or its Semifinal. Zero free episodes across the entire franchise on AnimeSphere. Catching up before autumn will cost you money somewhere else, and we would rather say that plainly than leave it vague.
The school sports anime you can watch free
The nearest free equivalent we carry is *Yowamushi Pedal*, 38 episodes from that same TMS channel, in Japanese with English subtitles. It is the school-club competition structure you know from tennis, worked out on road bikes instead. The direct sequel, *Yowamushi Pedal: Grande Road*, adds another 24, also English-subtitled, so the pair runs to 62 free episodes of one continuous story.
Also free from the same channel and confirmed English: *Magic Knight Rayearth* (20 episodes, English dub), *Sherlock Hound* (26) and *Cat's Eye* (33).
Why we open the uploads before listing a language
One caveat applies to any "it's on the official channel" claim, ours included: not everything TMS posts is in English. Their *Sonic X* uploads turned out to be Portuguese, and *Monster Rancher* came back in Spanish. Both series most Western viewers know in English. A metadata field will cheerfully tell you otherwise. So we play the actual video before we print a language, and when we cannot confirm one, we do not claim one.