Live action TV
Description
Kintarou Tooyama is a first-year student at Shitenhouji Junior High School and the youngest regular member of its tennis team, widely recognized as the team’s strongest player. He is known as the "Super Rookie of the West" for his dominant performance in the Kansai Tournament, where he defeated the region's top players before the National Tournament. His name is inspired by the folk hero Kintarou, known for superhuman strength, which aligns with his own extraordinary physical abilities.
Standing at 151 centimeters tall with a petite build, Kintarou possesses an almost unbelievable level of raw power. His physical feats include bending a golf club with his bare hands, lifting a scooter over his head and throwing it, and defeating a group of high school students and adult bodyguards in a fight. His stamina and speed are equally unparalleled, as demonstrated when he missed his train to Tokyo for the Nationals and simply ran the entire way from Shizuoka Prefecture. He favors a wooden racket, a treasured item entrusted to him by an elderly woman named Sugi, a former professional tennis player who introduced him to the sport. Kintarou learned tennis from Sugi after boasting he could win at any sport, and his personal motto, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," is a lesson he took from their time together.
Personality-wise, Kintarou is exceptionally carefree, naive, and energetic, with an almost childlike demeanor. He has a notoriously poor grasp of the Japanese language, frequently messing up sayings and misreading kanji. Most famously, he mispronounces fellow prodigy Ryoma Echizen's surname as "Koshimae". He also once believed that Ryoma had a body of steel, poisonous fingers, and three eyes after misunderstanding a teammate's description. His imagination is vivid and often influenced by manga, which leads to his most notable quirk: an intense fear of his own captain, Kuranosuke Shiraishi. After reading a manga about monsters with poison claws, Kintarou became convinced that Shiraishi has deadly poison claws hidden beneath the bandages on his arm, a belief that the captain and his teammates exploit to keep the wild first-year in line.
As a tennis player, Kintarou is a natural prodigy who relies on instinct rather than calculated strategy. His playing style is described as "wild," harnessing his immense physical gifts to generate overwhelming power and speed. His signature technique is the "Mountain Storm," a powerful overhead smash in which he spins rapidly in the air to create a massive gust of wind, a shot that is considered stronger than Gin Ishida's Level 108 Hadoukyuu. His teammate, Senri Chitose, has stated that Kintarou is the player closest to achieving the Pinnacle of Perfection, known as Ten'imuhō no Kiwami.
His central role in the story is as a rival and counterpart to Ryoma Echizen. After his teammate's defeat prevented an official matchup, Kintarou challenged Ryoma to an impromptu one-point match, which ended in a spectacular stalemate when both of their ultimate shots collided. During the National finals, he tried to stall for time so that an injured Ryoma could recover, challenging the formidable Seiichi Yukimura and losing effortlessly. He shares a friendly but competitive bond with Ryoma, and they often push each other to improve. Later, both are invited to the elite U-17 training camp, where they become partners in mischief and training, famously ignoring their initial matches to explore the facility together. At the camp, they train rigorously, learning to hit multiple balls at once, and Kintarou eventually challenges the powerful high schooler Oni Juujirou. During this intense match, Kintarou finally achieves the Pinnacle of Perfection, his love for the game allowing him to transcend his physical limits and continue playing even when his body could no longer stand. This development marks his growth from a raw, untamed force of nature into a player who can combine his immense instincts with tactical thinking and the ultimate level of tennis proficiency.
Standing at 151 centimeters tall with a petite build, Kintarou possesses an almost unbelievable level of raw power. His physical feats include bending a golf club with his bare hands, lifting a scooter over his head and throwing it, and defeating a group of high school students and adult bodyguards in a fight. His stamina and speed are equally unparalleled, as demonstrated when he missed his train to Tokyo for the Nationals and simply ran the entire way from Shizuoka Prefecture. He favors a wooden racket, a treasured item entrusted to him by an elderly woman named Sugi, a former professional tennis player who introduced him to the sport. Kintarou learned tennis from Sugi after boasting he could win at any sport, and his personal motto, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," is a lesson he took from their time together.
Personality-wise, Kintarou is exceptionally carefree, naive, and energetic, with an almost childlike demeanor. He has a notoriously poor grasp of the Japanese language, frequently messing up sayings and misreading kanji. Most famously, he mispronounces fellow prodigy Ryoma Echizen's surname as "Koshimae". He also once believed that Ryoma had a body of steel, poisonous fingers, and three eyes after misunderstanding a teammate's description. His imagination is vivid and often influenced by manga, which leads to his most notable quirk: an intense fear of his own captain, Kuranosuke Shiraishi. After reading a manga about monsters with poison claws, Kintarou became convinced that Shiraishi has deadly poison claws hidden beneath the bandages on his arm, a belief that the captain and his teammates exploit to keep the wild first-year in line.
As a tennis player, Kintarou is a natural prodigy who relies on instinct rather than calculated strategy. His playing style is described as "wild," harnessing his immense physical gifts to generate overwhelming power and speed. His signature technique is the "Mountain Storm," a powerful overhead smash in which he spins rapidly in the air to create a massive gust of wind, a shot that is considered stronger than Gin Ishida's Level 108 Hadoukyuu. His teammate, Senri Chitose, has stated that Kintarou is the player closest to achieving the Pinnacle of Perfection, known as Ten'imuhō no Kiwami.
His central role in the story is as a rival and counterpart to Ryoma Echizen. After his teammate's defeat prevented an official matchup, Kintarou challenged Ryoma to an impromptu one-point match, which ended in a spectacular stalemate when both of their ultimate shots collided. During the National finals, he tried to stall for time so that an injured Ryoma could recover, challenging the formidable Seiichi Yukimura and losing effortlessly. He shares a friendly but competitive bond with Ryoma, and they often push each other to improve. Later, both are invited to the elite U-17 training camp, where they become partners in mischief and training, famously ignoring their initial matches to explore the facility together. At the camp, they train rigorously, learning to hit multiple balls at once, and Kintarou eventually challenges the powerful high schooler Oni Juujirou. During this intense match, Kintarou finally achieves the Pinnacle of Perfection, his love for the game allowing him to transcend his physical limits and continue playing even when his body could no longer stand. This development marks his growth from a raw, untamed force of nature into a player who can combine his immense instincts with tactical thinking and the ultimate level of tennis proficiency.