Yanagi Renji

Anime Manga
Yanagi Renji
Kanji	柳蓮二
Kana	やなぎれんじ
Gender	Male
Birthday	June 4 (Gemini)
Blood Type	A
Dominant Arm	Right
Nicknames	Master Professor (Kyouju/教授(きょうじゅ)) (by Inui Sadaharu) Rikkai's Big 3 (with Yukimura Seiichi and Sanada Genichirou) Rikkai's Strategist Egghead (by Jonathan St. Georges) Yana-bro (by Tooyama Kintarou)
School
School	Rikkai University Middle School 3rd Year
Elementary School	{{{Elementary School}}}
Class	F
Seat	19
Worst Subject(s)	None
Tennis
Club Position	Regular, Treasurer
Play Style	Counter Puncher
Doubles Partner(s)	Inui Sadaharu Kirihara Akaya Sanada Genichirou Niou Masaharu Mouri Jusaburou
Shoes	DIADORA Rebound Ace DA2 (128076-ED784)
Racket(s)	VOLKL Catapult V1 Midplus
Media
Manga Debut	Genius 182
Voice	[Takemoto Eiji]JP {{{VoiceENCR}}}EN (CR) {{{VoiceENVIZ}}}EN (VIZ)
Tenimyu Actors	Ono Kento (A) Yamaoki Yuuki (B) Mizuishi Atomu (2nd) Isawa Takuma (3rd)

Yanagi Renji (柳蓮二(やなぎれんじ)) is a 3rd year student at Rikkai University Middle School, regular and treasurer of the tennis team, and Japanese U-17 middle school representative and member of the medical team. He, alongside Yukimura Seiichi and Sanada Genichirou, are known collectively as "Rikkai's Big 3", with him being "The Master". He is the childhood friend of Inui Sadaharu and a Data Tennis player.

Appearance

Yanagi is a tall and rather thinly-built person with a short, layered hairstyle. His hair colour is black in the manga and brown in the anime, but his eye colour remains brown through both mediums. He typically keeps his eyes closed, only opening them when he is either in shock or extremely serious. He is often seen wearing the Rikkai tennis team or Japan U-17 jacket and shorts when playing tennis. Though he has many data notebooks, he is not typically seen carrying them in his hands, unlike Inui.

Personality

Yanagi is portrayed as someone who is aloof and analytical. He is extremely intelligent and speaks in a concise manner, often only mentioning relevant points and skipping over filler. As a Data Tennis player, he is very observant of others. Despite being one of Rikkai's "Big 3", Yanagi is the most approachable out of them due to being soft-spoken. He has a tendency to finish off other people's thoughts and sentences due to the data he has collected on them. He is shown to be very respectful and diplomatic towards others. Yanagi acts as a mentor and takes responsibility for Kirihara Akaya throughout the series.

History

Prior to the events of the main story

Yanagi attended a tennis school when he was young. He met Mitsuya Akuto on his way home one day, who taught him Data Tennis. He later teamed up with and taught Inui Data Tennis at the same tennis school, where the two were considered one of the leading doubles teams in the junior tennis world. Realizing that they had never played a game against each other, the two decide to play a best-of-one set. The game reaches 5-4 in Yanagi's favour before they are kicked off the court by their coach. While running away, Inui promises Yanagi to continue the match at an upcoming tennis tournament they were scheduled to play in. Yanagi never showed up for the tournament because he moved away.

Yanagi enrolls in Rikkai's middle school division, where he meets Yukimura Seiichi and Sanada Genichirou. The three first years would then go on to make the regulars of the Rikkai tennis team and carry the team to a national title. In his second year, he meets Kirihara Akaya, who challenges the Rikkai tennis team, proclaiming that he is the best player in the country. After being defeated by Sanada, Yanagi is tasked to watch over Kirihara and keep him in check. Rikkai would then go and win their second national title.

In the autumn of his second year, Yukimura collapses on a train platform on his way home from tennis practice and becomes hospitalized with a mysterious condition shortly afterwards. During this time, Yanagi would often visit his sick friend in the hospital and develops a deep resentment towards his senior, Mouri Jusaburou. The resentment stems from Yanagi watching Mouri waste his talents and not practice, even when he could, when Yukimura desperately wanted to play tennis, but could not.

Kantou Tournament

Finals vs. Seigaku

Yukimura's surgery is scheduled to take place during the finals. Rikkai vows to defeat Seigaku and return to him before he wakes up from the procedure. Yanagi is placed in Singles 3 against Seigaku's Inui—his childhood friend. Inui muses that it is exactly 4 years, 2 months and 15 days since they last met. The two players begin to finish each other's thoughts and predict their next actions before the game even starts, much to Seigaku's surprise. It is then revealed to Seigaku that Inui and Yanagi are childhood friends. The game begins with Inui using his Super Sonic Serve, but Yanagi counters it with a high speed slice, pointing out that Inui wanted to comment on how impossible it would be for him to hit such a shot in his low position. Yanagi continues to counter all of Inui's shots, showing him the true nature of his Data Tennis.

Yanagi continues to destroy Inui's Data Tennis by returning all of his shots, making the latter question the validity of his data as the game progresses. He tells Inui that his complete grasp on Yanagi's data is the reason why he can never defeat him, citing that he was the one who taught Inui Data Tennis to begin with. This causes Inui to let go of his data on Yanagi and play without relying on numbers. Yanagi mocks him for rejecting data, saying that he will never win if he abandons it. Inui smashes a return, sending Yanagi's racket flying out of his hand, declaring that he will rise above their past.

The game drags on until it reaches a score of 5-4 in Yanagi's favour—the same score from the match they were playing 3 years prior. Inui reveals that he purposely recreated their match from that time in order for the two friends to finally settle the fight over who is the better player and that he did not abandon his data. The two drag the game to a 6-6 tiebreaker after intense back-and-forth rallying. The game ends with Inui winning the tiebreak, which stuns Yanagi. By that point in the game, both players had a 50% chance to win, no matter how long the tiebreaker went. Inui tells him that the next time they play, it would be Yanagi that would emerge victorious. When he apologizes to Sanada for losing, the vice captain attempts to slap him, but the hit is blocked by Kirihara's racket, who swears to win the Singles 2 game in 13 minutes so that the team can make it to Yukimura's surgery in time.

Nationals

Prior to the Nationals

Yanagi is seen with Sanada at the meeting to decide the seeding order of the tournament. He muses about Tezuka Kunimitsu's return, which Sanada states that there is no time to relax now that Seigaku's captain is back.

Semifinals vs. Nagoya Seitoku

Rikkai breeze through the tournament, crushing their opponents up until the semifinals, where they face off against Nagoya Seitoku's team, consisting of only foreign exchange students. In order to drag out Kirihara's Devil Mode, Yagyuu Hiroshi, Marui Bunta and Jackal Kuwahara purposely lose their Singles 3 and Doubles 2 matches respectively in order to drive Kirihara into a desperate mental state. After Kirihara secures the win against Liliadent Krauser, Yanagi and Niou Masaharu play and win their Doubles 1 match 6-1.

Finals vs. Seigaku

Yanagi and Kirihara face off against Seigaku's Inui and Kaidou Kaoru in Doubles 2. The two Data Tennis players, once again, find themselves competing to see who is the better player in doubles and can control their partner on the court. Kaidou gets more and more agitated during the match due to Kirihara's attitude towards them, but Inui reassures his junior that his "data is complete". Yanagi expects him to say that and tells Inui that his own data cannot be read so easily.

He counters Inui's Waterfall Serve with incredible speed so that Inui could not stop to think about his next move, but Kaidou returns the negated shot with his Boomerang Snake. Kirihara returns the Boomerang Snake, breaking Inui's glasses in the process and triggering his Bloodshot Mode. Inui continues to hit the same serve, but Yanagi comments that his actions are futile against Kirihara now, who is becoming progressively more violent with his shots. Kaidou protects Inui from sustaining another blow to his face by returning the shot, but Yanagi hits a Cicada Drop, taking the point.

Yanagi continues to manipulate Kirihara, bringing the set to 4-0 in their favour. Getting more frustrated, Kaidou hits a return shot that looks almost exactly like Yagyuu Hiroshi's Laser Beam, stunning the two Rikkai players and taking a point for Seigaku. The shot is then revealed to be a modified version of Boomerang Snake called Tornado Snake as Seigaku takes their first game in the set. Kirihara's Devil Mode gets triggered when he gets hit in the face by one of Kaidou's shots and aims to destroy Inui by hitting all of his returns into him. Yanagi does not stop his partner from attacking his opponents, telling them to give up. Seigaku are forced to forfeit the match at 5-1 when Inui collapses, giving the victory to Yanagi and Kirihara.

Anime-Only Arcs

Movie 2: Eikokushiki Teikyuu Shiro Kessen!

Yanagi is seen with the rest of the Rikkai team in England, having been invited to participate in a junior tennis tournament at Wimbledon. After some of the participants are attacked at night by Clack, he, along with the rest of the middle schoolers from Rikkai, Seigaku, Shitenhouji and Hyoutei, come together to determine what to do.

Japanese U-17 Representative Selection Camp

Prior to the U-17 Camp

He is seen with Inui in his room, learning about and concocting various versions of Inui Juice to bring to Rikkai's team practices.

Invitation to the Camp

Yanagi is one of the 50 nationally-ranked middle schoolers selected to join the Japanese U-17 Representative Selection Camp. He, along with all of the other middle schoolers and some of the high schoolers, manage to stay in the camp after he secures one of the 250 balls dropped onto the camp. He is seen commenting on the shuffle match between Momoshiro Takeshi and Oni Juuijirou.

U-17 Pair Matches

Yanagi pairs up with Kirihara for the pair matches when the coaches reveal that the middle schoolers would be playing against each other to keep their spots in the camp. Yanagi goes up 3-0 in the tiebreak, causing Kirihara to trigger his Devil Mode. This does not faze Yanagi, who continues to take points off of Kirihara until the score reaches 6-0. Seeing Kirihara's determination to become strong enough to defeat the "Big 3", Yanagi forfeits the match, even though he is one point away from winning. Before he leaves the camp, Yanagi begs Shiraishi Kuranosuke to keep Kirihara's temper in check in order to prevent him from entering Devil Mode now that he is unable to be around to do so.

Mountain Training

Yanagi and the other losing middle schoolers get onto a bus to head home, but find that the bus has taken a detour to the base of a mountain instead. They meet Coach Saitou Itaru alongside Echizen Ryouma and Tooyama Kintarou, where the coach tells the group that, in order to prevent the gap between the winners and losers from growing, they must scale the mountain and undergo a different kind of training. After they scale the mountain, they are greeted by the head coach of the U-17 camp, Mifuune Nyudou, though they are not made aware of that fact.

Mifuune makes the middle and high schoolers face off against each other, with the losers being forced to sleep in a cave for the night. All of the middle schoolers, save for Yanagi and Inui, end up being eliminated due to the unpredictably rocky court changing the trajectory of the ball when it lands on the ground. Using their combined Data Tennis skills, the two dwindle down the high schoolers until it becomes a 3 against 2 match. Mifuune then calls the victory for the high schoolers before Yanagi and Inui could eliminate them.

After the Sportsman Hunt is called off, Yanagi and Inui are seen musing about how much progress the other middle schoolers have made since they arrived. After the losers' scheme to steal all of Mifuune's sake from him, the coach calls for all of them to begin staging their revolution to get back into the U-17 camp.

Camp Revolution

Yanagi, along with the other losers, returns to the camp as the "Black Jersey Brigade" and begins to occupy the 2nd Court.

When the Top 20 All Japan Junior Representatives return from their foreign expedition, the camp announces the 20 members of the second string chosen for further strength training. Yanagi was not among those selected. The Nos. 11-20 representatives are given free reign to play around and most of them easily wipe out the selected second stringers. Yanagi observes the matches alongside Inui and then faces off against the No. 17 representative, who turns out to be his Data Tennis mentor, Mitsuya. He greets his opponent, calling him "Akuto-niisan", which surprises Inui. Mitsuya promises to give up his No. 17 representative position to Yanagi if he can defeat him in a game.

In the middle of the match, Yanagi fails to return a returnable shot, stating that he can see the outcome of the match and that he has a 0% probability of winning. He gives up on trying to play the game against Mitsuya, realizing that he can never win against the person who taught him Data Tennis. Inui shouts at him to not give up and to remember their match at the Kantou Tournament. Yanagi then decides to throw all of his data away in order to complete the match, but collapses from exhaustion in the process. Mitsuya chides him for being reckless and that Yanagi had "died" when he tossed away his Data Tennis. Inui then steps in for Yanagi and completes the game against Mitsuya, revealing that Yanagi had been sending him data the entire time. Though Inui won the match, the No. 17 badge went to Yanagi, as it was his data collection that allowed Inui to defeat Mitsuya.

Yanagi is then seen with the other middle schoolers who have defeated the Nos. 11-19 representatives. The group returns to the main courts, where the Genius 10 and the other middle schoolers are waiting for them. He is carried in by Inui, as he had not yet recovered his strength.

Genius 10 Challenge

Yanagi is seen alongside the other middle schoolers, but provides commentary and play-by-play analysis of the matches instead of actively playing in any of them. When Head Coach Mifuune returns to the camp and announces that the U-17 World Cup is allowing each nation to send forward a team consisting of middle school representatives, Yanagi is not among the 14 selected. Despite this, he joins the medical team along with Mitsuya and Inui and accompanies them to the U-17 World Cup.

U-17 World Cup

Prior to the U-17 World Cup

In Coach Mifuune's competition between the middle and high schoolers to see who can pick up more women at the beach, Yanagi is seen alongside Inui, serving various Inui Juices to the Japan U-17 team. They are introduced as Mitsuya's assistants.

Pre-World Cup Exhibition Match vs. Germany

After the draw to determine the exhibition matches, Yanagi and Inui show up to the rest of the middle schoolers, carrying data and intel on the German U-17 Team. Once again, he is seen providing commentary on the matches from the sideline.

Group Stage

Yanagi does not actively participate in the group stages of the tournament, but he attends team practices regardless.

Round of 16 vs. Aramenoma

He is selected to replace Ishida Gin as one of the middle school representatives after injuries sustained by Ishida during the group stages render him unable to compete. Due to the enigmatic nature of the country, Yanagi and Inui are unable to collect data on them. The U-17 Aramenoma team forfeit the match against Japan after they were defeated by Echizen and Tooyama the day before, allowing Japan to advance to the quarterfinals.

Quarterfinals vs. France

Before the quarterfinal match against France, Yanagi runs into Mouri, the latter of whom asks about Yukimura's condition, claiming that he was worried about his junior. This causes Yanagi to lash out against him, saying that he will never understand the pain and struggles Yukimura went through and that he would never forgive him for what happened.

Yanagi ends up playing in the Doubles 1 match against France's Edgard Delacroix and Jonathan St. Georges with Mouri as his partner. The first set starts off well for Japan and they lead 5-0, but Yanagi opts to play by himself rather than utilize Mouri's skills to their advantage. Before the start of the sixth game in the first set, Yanagi sees the same sports drink on the bench that Yukimura found while he was going through rehabilitation, making him realize that the "Sports Drink Fairy" was Mouri all along. The two reconcile before the game resumes with Mouri asking Yanagi to control him in order to allow his data tennis to shine the brightest. France mount a comeback and steal the first set from Japan when Delacroix reveals his Art Tennis.

Going into the second set, Mouri falls asleep in order to allow Yanagi to collect his data in his "deep sleep" zone-like state. This also prevents St. Georges from collecting his data as well. Yanagi is surprised to see Mouri in this state, but continues to collect data on him in order to defeat France. Believing that Yanagi was collecting data on his doubles partner, Delacroix uses his Art Tennis on St. Georges, "painting" him a different personality in order to disrupt Yanagi's analysis. He wins the second set 7-5 after Mouri wakes up and allows Yanagi to use his skills as he sees fit.

Before the start of the last set, Mouri tells Yanagi to stop thinking of himself as one Rikkai's "Big 3" and aim for the top spot instead. France begin by taking the advantage, going up 5-0 with Yanagi playing passively in order to complete his data on Delacroix and St. Georges. He realizes that, while St. Georges' personality changes, his physical self remains the same and, is therefore, predictable. Delacroix chides him for believing that St. Georges was not collecting his data the entire time, but Yanagi counters by saying that he does not let anyone collect his data that easily. Yanagi and Mouri turn the set around and end up winning, claiming the victory for Japan. He carries Mouri back to the benches, where Yukimura awaits them with a cold sports drink for Mouri.

Semifinals vs. Germany

Before the match, Yanagi is seen with Inui, the latter of whom is giving Yukimura three years' worth of data books on Tezuka. He is surprised to see his friend give up all of his data, but Inui states that he does not need it anymore and that he wishes to collect data beyond what Tezuka is capable of showing.

Yanagi is then seen cheering on Yukimura as he faces off against Tezuka. He and Sanada both watch as Yukimura makes amends for what happened at the Nationals by projecting the image of Echizen onto Tezuka in order to overcome his trauma from Teni Muhou no Kiwami.

Personal Information

• Father's Occupation:
• Most Visited Spot on Campus:
• Hobbies:
• Dislikes:
• Spends His Allowance On:
• Most Wanted Item:
• Skills Outside of Tennis:
• Place he'd like to travel:
• Gift he'd give his dearest:
• Random Fact:

Preferences

• Favorite Food:
• Favorite Color:
• Favorite Motto:
• Favorite Movie:
• Favorite Book:
• Favorite Music:
• Favorite Type (of person):
• Favorite Date Spot:

Tennis Bag Contents

Item

Definition

Another item

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Relationships

Character

Brief description of relation to character

Another character

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Tennis

Stats

Speed	#
Power	#
Stamina	#
Mental	#
Technique	#

Kurobe's Memo:

Speed - #:

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Play Style

Summary of the way he plays tennis Yanagi is a counter puncher and a Data Tennis player.

Data Tennis

Brief description

Trivia

• Miscellaneous trivia
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Quotes

• TBA

Others about Yanagi

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Yanagi about others

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Gallery

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