Viz Media has announced that the Cartoon Network has renewed the anime series Prince of Tennis and MAR for a 'second season' on the Saturday night Toonami block.  Prince of Tennis, which is based on the manga series by Takeshi Konomi (published by Viz Media), airs at 10 pm (ET, PT) on Saturday nights followed by MAR, which is based on another Viz manga (by Nobuyuki Anzai), at 10:30 pm.

Prince of Tennis (Tenisu no Ojisama) is extremely popular in Japan where the on-going manga series has already reached 37 volumes.  The Prince of Tennis anime, produced by JC Staff and Production IG, ran on Japanese TV from 2001 to 2005 for a healthy 178 episodes and two OAV sequels, including The Prince of Tennis: The National Tournament, which is due to be released in Japan in June.  Viz Media is releasing the lengthy Prince of Tennis anime in 'Box Set' editions (MSRP $39.95), each of which contains 13 episodes.  The first Prince of Tennis Box Set is due out on April 24th, with a second 13-episode collection set to follow on July 24th.

Both the MAR manga (15 volumes) and anime series (102 episodes) are shorter than Prince of Tennis.  Viz plans on releasing the MAR anime series on a series of normal DVDs (MSRP $19.98 each), the first of which is due out on June 12th.  The second volume of MAR is slated to be released on August 7th.