Takeshi Konomi is a Japanese manga artist best known as the creator of the long-running and internationally popular series The Prince of Tennis. Born on June 26, 1970, in Osaka Prefecture, Konomi developed an early connection to tennis through his father, a tennis enthusiast, and began playing the sport at the age of five or six. His childhood passion for drawing, combined with a love for manga such as Dragon Ball and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, led him to declare his aspiration to become a manga artist in his school graduation essays. After high school, he attended Tokai University and, upon graduation, committed to a career in manga.

Konomi made his professional debut in 1993 with Tetsujin – Sekai Ichi no Hard Guy. Before achieving major success, he worked as an assistant to manga artists such as Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro and gained experience by submitting his work to Shueisha. His first serialized work, Cool Rental Body Guard, ran in Weekly Shōnen Jump in 1997. However, his breakthrough came with The Prince of Tennis, which began as a short story in 1998 before commencing serialization in Weekly Shōnen Jump in July 1999. The series concluded in March 2008, spanning 42 collected volumes.

The Prince of Tennis follows tennis prodigy Ryoma Echizen and his teammates at Seishun Academy as they compete to become Japan’s top middle school tennis team. The manga’s success established Konomi as a major figure in sports manga, leading to a wide range of adaptations. In 2001, a 178-episode anime television series began airing, produced by Trans Arts and co-produced by Production I.G. This was followed by a series of original video animations, anime films, and stage musicals that began in 2003 and have continued regularly for over two decades. A live-action film was released in 2006. Konomi served as executive producer for the 2021 3DCG anime film Ryoma! The Prince of Tennis, which presents an original story set in the three-month gap between the original manga and its sequel, and he also wrote the film’s insert songs.

A sequel manga, The New Prince of Tennis, began serialization in Jump Square in March 2009 and continues to run. This sequel inspired further anime adaptations, including a 2012 television series and a series of original video animations. Most recently, Konomi’s work formed the basis for The Prince of Tennis II: U-17 World Cup, an anime television series that aired in 2022, and its direct continuation, The Prince of Tennis II: U-17 World Cup Semifinal, which aired from October to December 2024. In mid-2025, Konomi announced that The New Prince of Tennis would conclude its serialization within one year, marking the end of the franchise’s manga storyline after more than 26 years.

Beyond his work as a manga artist, Konomi has been deeply involved in the multimedia expansion of his creation. He has provided voice cameos in the anime, composed and written lyrics for character songs, and performed a duet with the voice actress for Ryoma Echizen. His creative identity is strongly tied to the sports genre, particularly tennis, which he played as a youth and later served as an instructor. The Prince of Tennis is noted for its stylized and sometimes superhuman depiction of tennis techniques, as well as a large cast of male characters that attracted a significant female readership. By November 2019, the manga had over 60 million copies in circulation, and Konomi’s tax contributions placed him among the top-earning manga artists in Japan in the early 2000s.