There are just some things that one can't outgrow, and for me, Prince of Tennis (TeniPuri) is one of them. I first got into TeniPuri back in 2007, when I was still in highschool and eight years later I'm, once again, hooked on the series and its franchise (anime, manga, character songs, stage musicals– you name it). It's ridiculous, really, how much I love this series with all the outlandish tennis moves with just as outlandish names. Would you believe they made a stage musical out of it? A hugely successful one at that? I've been practically drowning in TeniPuri for the past month and it was only a matter of time before I did something TeniPuri-related.
So here it is: TeniPuri-inspired nails. To be more specific, Hyotei Gakuen-inspired nails. Prince of Tennis tells of Seigaku's, a middle-school tennis team, bid to win the National Tournament and Hyotei Gakuen is one of the many rival schools they face.
Image from Zero-chan.net
Like many of the other rival schools in the series, Hyotei is full of eccentric characters that are all strangely endearing that it's difficult not to root for them. Eventually, they ended up as my second favorite rival school in the series, the first one being Rikkai Daigaku Fuzoku.
Hyotei's color motif leans more towards light blues and gray it was easy for me to find lacquers from my collection that would suit their image.
Hyotei's color motif leans more towards light blues and gray it was easy for me to find lacquers from my collection that would suit their image.
(L-R) Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat, OPI Teal the Cows Come Home, Clinique Made of Steel
In Japanese, Hyotei (氷帝) can be roughly translated into "ruler of ice." (If I'm not mistaken.) Due to this, Hyotei is associated with ice. This association is most notable when it comes to the captain and one of my favorite characters, Atobe Keigo. This is largely due to one of his techniques in the series called "World of Ice", where he can see an opponent's weak spots which are represented by shards of ice. (Sshhh. This is anime/manga. It's allowed to be outrageous.) In the musicals, Hyotei even has their own version of what I call the "douchebag rival song" aptly entitled "Ice Emperor" in which they pretty much tell the protagonist team, and everyone else to "Kneel down, worship, and honor us." This is why I opted for an icy blue and I thought Teal The Cows Come Home was perfect. I added Made of Steel as an accent nail to nail (pun intended) that Hyotei Gakuen color motif.
Anyone who knows me knows that I am weak against sparkly things, so instead of just going with the icy blue and dark grey I added on rhinestones and glitter. It may seem a bit over the top, but I was going for Atobe Keigo, arguably the center of Hyotei and known for being over the top. Self-styled and widely recognized as "King," Atobe's flamboyant tendencies have been somewhat of a running joke within the franchise and the fandom, so the rhinestones play into the theme well. Maybe I should change the title of this post to "Shousha wa Atobe!" instead.
I had a lot of fun with this nail art. Granted, it was a bit difficult getting the rhinestones on my nails, but seeing the end-result is satisfying. Isn't it pretty? Not only is it a combination of two of my interests (anime/manga and cosmetics holla), but it suits the Christmas Season as well! December is drawing near and nothing says Christmas festivities quite like a little sparkle sparkle.
I'm hoping I could do more of these cross-overs in the future. Rikkai nail art would be nice, if only I could pull off yellow nails.
Until next time!
