Anime — The New Prince of Tennis

Something of a make-weight series, picked to give us an even number of series on the go; a sequel to a long-running series I'd not watched. But sports anime (even if this has about as much to do with tennis as Saki does mah-jong) are usually at least harmless tosh that don't involve hopelessly herbivore high-schoolers and their romance woes.

And on that level, this short series did not disappoint.

It started off simply enough -- a bunch of middle-school players joining a high-school summer camp, and showing their magical-boy tennis prowess against lads two or three years their senior. And then out of the blue, after a bout of sudden death elimination contests, it's suddenly mountain climbing, survival training and crawling through laser defence system like something out of Mission Impossible, until our heroes win enough karma to go back and face the top high-school squad.

Verdict -- did what it said on the tin.