Tenjou Tenge

Title:Tenjou Tenge
Heaven and Earth
Tenjho Tenge
Tenjo Tenge
天上天下
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Notables: AMANO Yuri
ARIMOTO Kinryu
Animation - Madhouse
CHIBA Isshin
CHIHARA Minori
HAMADA Kenji
HISAKAWA Aya
HIYAMA Nobuyuki
HOSHI Souichiro
IKEDA Shuichi
KAWARAGI Shiho
MADONO Mitsuaki
MIKI Shinichirou
MIYAKE Kenta
MIYAZAKI Issei
MORIKAWA Toshiyuki
Music - Avex Mode
Original Concept - Oh! Great
R1 License - Pioneer (Defunct)
SEKI Tomokazu
SHIRAISHI Ryoko
TERADA Haruhi
YAO Kazuki
Nagi Souichirou and best friend, Bob, are both tough street fighters, but when they transfer to a new high school, they get their a**es kicked by the local gangs. They find out that their new high school is dedicated to refounding the martial arts, and combat ability is rated higher than academic skills. And what is with the cute Natsume Aya, who has decided to become his girlfriend (without even bothering to ask him)? But Souichirou is a glutton for punishment, with a fighting spirit that cannot be kept down for long.
[TV series, 2004, 24 episodes, 23 min; see also the sequel Tenjou Tenge: Ultimate Fight, and Tenjou Tenge:The Past Chapter]

(Turn the volume up and scream - Party-time, bump-bump-bump-a-head!)
1:29min Series Opening - YouTube Video
Episode Details 
99
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Watch 7 6 7 6 6 6 Ggultra2764 [series:815#1552]
Made at around the same time as Ikki Tousen, Tenjho Tenge was another anime that popularized the ecchi-action genre during that time. Though unlike Ikki Tousen that relished a bit too much in its ecchi at the expense of plot and characters, Tenjho Tenge makes a solid attempt to establish these with the exploration of exploring the hostilities between the school's Executive Council and Juken Club. While the series still dabbles into a good deal of fan service, this doesn't detract from the anime's story too greatly. The series is essentially two separate, fragmented stories with one set in the present dealing with the current rivalry between the factions, and the other exploring how the rivalry came to be. The former case has the typical feel of a shounen battle anime with characters fighting to get stronger and overcoming the odds, and Soichiro being your typical brash, battle-loving, and slow-witted hero. The latter made for the more interesting developments of this series as it set up some rather tragic circumstances for the current rivalry with some key characters victims of conspiracies and supernatural powers that are beyond their control, though I'll concede this comes at the expense of development for the present storyline as the past one hogs up nearly half of the TV anime's runtime and results in present time events being left unresolved. Adding further issues to the series is the rather subpar animation and Tenjho Tenge not really offering much new that you may see from shounen action and ecchi anime. Still if ecchi-action titles grab your interest and you like to have some kind of solid plotting to them, suppose Tenjho Tenge would make a solid recommendation for you to check out.

Last updated Saturday, October 27 2018. Created Saturday, October 27 2018.
Rent 7 8 8 7 8 8 Dreamer [series:815#2279]
I was skeptical at first. Didn't want to pick this one up until I finally read enough reviews to persuade me otherwise. I'm glad I did.

Art, Animation & Character Designs
Artwork and animation was just average. It wasn't anything special really. Not sure if it was just the copy I got but the colors seemed bland and dull. Even the light effects seemed a bit washed out. Character designs were average as well. Althought there were a good amount of details in their expressions and figures.

Music
The OP was definitely not my flavor however, it's surprisingly refreshing and a welcomed change from the norm. It's a hiphop piece with male vocals. The soundtrack had some nice pianos here and there (especially in the first episode with the introduction of "Aya"). Other times we get some nice dramatic pieces with hard violins, pianos & drums for all the gazillion fight scenes. The ED was a pop piece with female vocals that just didn't fit... and didn't like it at all.

Series and Episode Story
I normally don't do "fighting" series such as this, but after watching and thoroughly enjoying AirMaster, and reading all the good reviews on this one, I decided to give it a try and boy was it worth it. First off, characters here were great. Nearly every one of the countless characters were unique and fun to watch. Of course, our protagonist(s) Maya and Aya were the best.

The fight scenes were pretty good although a bit overdone. I think the fight scenes from AirMaster were far better. But here, we do get plenty of character development... at least with the more important character roles. And nearly half the series was devoted to backstories... rather, events that occurred in the past. It fit well since it added depth to the series and the overall plot. As for fanservice, we have plenty of that. But at least it wasn't in-your-face and obnoxious.

Overall, it was a well entertaining series with a ton of characters, nice plot development and cool fight scenes. Unfortunately, it doesn't wrap up too well in the end so there was a bit of disappointment. Regardless, it's well worth watching and if you're a fighting series fan, you'll love it for sure.

Last updated Saturday, January 08 2011. Created Saturday, January 08 2011.
Watch 10 10 9 9 6 Tad [series:815#3076]
Watch it on Crunchyroll, Youtube, or even borrow it from a friend. But for the sake of your hard earned money, avoid buying this anime. The series has incredible fan service. Women are voluptuous and sexy, the action is quite awesome, and the characters are very interesting. But sadly the anime takes after the manga, and thus more than half of the episodes consist of history/flashback episodes. You'll learn about characters you mostly don't want to know nothing about, and perhaps most disappointing, there is no 2nd season to make up for it.

If you like beautiful women and animation though, you'll be quite pleased with this anime. Story wise and character depth are incredibly lacking, and for that reason it's best to simply watch the show for yourself to see if it's worthy of your time.

Last updated Saturday, January 17 2009. Created Saturday, January 17 2009.
Buy 10 8 8 8 7 6 Anonymous #2746 [series:815#2746]
I really liked the way Tenjo Tenge (TT) was drawn so i gave it a 10 for art...

WHat i don't like...and the reason i gave it a 6 & 7 on the story is that it has too much flashbacks... one to three episodes for a flashback is okay...but to have the last episodes as flashbacks is just a big turn off...

I liked the action/fighting scenes... and of course the "censored" parts... (trust me this isn't one of your Disney movies)... I also liked the love triangles and the twist and turns of the plot... Sister rivalry... Power plays by two cute guys... all the shiny, bulging muscles, the sexy bods...

Ah heck! You can watch this without listening to the plot! That's how great the art is...

I, myself, did that when they started developing the Maya/souichiro tandem in the latter part of the series... (I HATED THAT...)

Last updated Saturday, October 13 2007. Created Saturday, October 13 2007.
Watch 7 8 8 8 8 6 KBanger1 [series:815#1694]
After watching the first volume, it left me with an empty feeling. The english dubbing isn't as bad, but certainly the Natsume sisters were completely annoying. Even though Wendee Lee (Maya) is a favorite of mine, she really isn't suited for that role. As for the art and animation, it's not that spectacular, although the fight scenes were really tight. There's enough fan service to make those who like that satisfied. Storywise, it's pretty much "cut and dry". Honestly, I would tell you to watch it first (even though I think you should buy it.) Quite frankly, I do enjoy the opening sequence. That's what got me hooked!
Updated: Apr. 12, 2006
I'm about to watch disc 6 so I want to at least give more into this series. Apparently, the story gets deeper along the way and sheds light about what's going on. However, it does seem to drag out more than what the series can offer. What I mean is that there are so many holes in the present story that it's necessary to have the series drag out instead of shortening the entire series (which may be a good thing). If the story wasn't so long, I would have kept the 9's for the series and episodes. Due to the length and the lack of a good ongoing story, I dropped the episodes to a 6. I got too caught up in the hype (if there was any) and it really screwed me over on the first review. *After finishing the 6th disc, the story goes still further back in the past. Although, it cracked me up a bit, it's still a long dragged out story. It makes more reference to the past in the last few episodes. These sub-plots can get pretty boring, especially if you're the type of person who wants to get into the action. For now, I'm sticking with Watch because I want to complete this series.
Updated: July 6, 2006
I've finished disc 7 and I'm seriously wondering why I bought the series. It still has a deep storyline, but, it's more of a "catch-up" tale. What I mean is that the entire reason the first episodes existed was because of the later episodes. Almost like Berserk where the series was more of a flashback than having a present story involved. TT did start in the past as well, but not as far as the rest of the episodes go. That to me is complete waste of a series. To have past story is fine, but, to have that in the later series and in most of the episodes, to me it was a lack of effort. Geneon could have taken more time to develop the story instead of plugging in past filler episodes. In reality, the series (without the flashback episodes) would last at least 8 episodes. If I had an opportunity to change it, I'd take the flashbacks, make that into a series, then save the last few episodes that are in the present into another series.
Now I stand in a position where I have to choose what's important. Story or continuity. Both are important, but, when you decide to drop one or the other, the series suffers. In the case of Tenjho Tenge, continuity was dropped in order to explain the present story. I rest my case as far as rank goes. In cases like this, it's R, B, & R. That's only for the ones who know what I'm talking about.

Last updated Thursday, July 06 2006. Created Sunday, June 26 2005.
Rent 9 9 8 7 7 6 manganime [series:815#1633]
I actually thought this started off great and the storyline was really developing, but the series began to drag during like the flashback episodes and they didn't end up completeting the story, even the OVA doesn't end properly.

There are some great fights, my personal favourite being the first fight between Souichiro and Mitsuomi's younger brother. I think they could have developed the brother more.

Last updated Friday, June 17 2005. Created Friday, June 17 2005.
Watch 8 9 5 8 5 7 Devil Doll [series:815#752]
[Score: 68% = Watch]
As both Forbin and Jan-Chan described it as a better Ikki Tousen, I gave it a try.
And in fact it is better in a number of aspects. Most notably it is funnier - yes, besides the brutal butchering there are genuinely nice and happy scenes now and then. The music is remarkably good in certain scenes, much better than I'm used from other comedies. Visual presentation doesn't leave much to be desired. And the lead characters aren't that embarrasingly stupid here as the lead in Ikki Tousen. (Then again, Maya kills her dream in one little moment of carelessness at the end of episode 6 when it was all too obvious what would happen next.) Another thing I like better here is the character relations, including the love triangles - there's a lot of inherent conflict within the teams, making the story much less one-dimensional. This way all the lead characters are more or less interesting, if only as for their relation to other characters.
The story is the part where I like Ikki Tousen better. Sure, the characters are chess pawns in both series, but in Ikki Tousen they are aware of it and try to do something about it, whereas in Tenjou Tenge they're unable doing so. And the reason why they're fighting is so very different in both series: Ikki Tousen is about loyalty, Tenjou Tenge is a mess of the lowermost attitudes. ("Almost like animals" - a quote from episode 17.) Kuzunoha Mana is the one character whom I can really accept the way she is. And I still don't get why exactly Mitsuomi became the character he is now, even though I understand what Shin did to him.
Five subsequent episodes filled by one fight that took no more than 30 minutes of time in this world - no, this is no replacement for storyline content, thus my low ratings for "story". And then the long flashbacks begin... more than half of the series is flashback, thus the current characters are almost insignificant. Too many characters of which I it is hard to see how important they will become at this point; Ikki Tousen was simple compared to Tenjou Tenge - you knew quite soon who the important characters were, so you could focus more on their development. Both Soichiro and Aya originally appeared to be the lead characters but are both completely irrelevant during the second half of the series.
Fighting is a lot more brutal and less technical than in Ikki Tousen (despite the many "technical terms" being in use); the ecchiness is different (fewer situations but more vulgar, even disgusting at times - I significantly downgraded "Characters" because of this), and the supernatural backstory is about as silly. The German fansub I'm watching happens to be quite decent (and the language is very much in line with the characters) which sure is a plus.
As for the ending... I think it's okay this way. Episode 23 was great; episode 24 did what it was meant to be, provided an OVA was going to follow - so if you want to have the focus back on Souchiro and Aya then go and watch Tenjou Tenge: Ultimate Fight which is actually episodes 25 and 26 of the series. Still - this isn't enough for a "Rent" rating from my side, as the brutality and lewdness is way over the top, and the fun and storyline don't fully make up for that.

Last updated Saturday, June 14 2008. Created Tuesday, June 14 2005.
Rent 9 9 8 9 7 Alexander [series:815#416]
overall I would give it a 8
having seen esp. 1-9, the overall story is going quite good. blah blah ..
just rent it before you try it, its licensed now, so you should be able to rent at some anime rental stores.

Last updated Wednesday, January 19 2005. Created Wednesday, January 19 2005.
Rent Forbin [series:815#1573]
Drama : Low / Med
Action : High
Comedy : High
Scifi : Low
Ecchi : Med / High

13 Episodes Watched
After giving Ikki Tousen a Buy rating someone pointed out that I should see Tenjo Tenge to see what a real good Comedy / Fanservice / Martial Art anime really is. And they were RIGHT.
So far, this is the Maburaho of Samurai. More when and IF I can get other episodes.
In fact this is going to make me lower Ikki's rating. This is truly a buy!


Damn it takes way too long for the R1s to come out. It's been Months and only 4 disks are out with 13 episodes.

Finally saw all episodes. While it was good, the Past chapter went on too long and was too depressing. So I lowered my rating to rent.

My favorite line from Eps 1 : 'Bob, when your opponent turns into a beautiful woman, what do you do?'

Last updated Tuesday, September 05 2006. Created Wednesday, January 19 2005.
Rent 9 9 8 8 7 Jan-Chan [series:815#967]
(review Oct 2004)

At first, I thought that series would be a clone of Ikkitousen (which is just a teen-boy series, with lots of fanservice and fight scenes, but seriously missing a plot), but I happy to say that I am wrong.

Yes, there is still fan-service, and lots of bloody fight scenes in this series, but there is also a fairly interesting plot. There is a bit of romance, a lot of martial arts magic, and a bunch of really interesting characters to keep the story going. Both the animation and music are very good. And if you can just accept that the fact that the main character can be beaten to a bloody pulp one moment, only reappear unharmed (and well...hummm, he is wearing a few band aids) in the next scene, then you might be able to enjoy this series.

Souichirou and Bob, his high school comrade have just been transferred to a new high school, and they are looking forward to 'taking over their hundredth school'. As is their style, they proceed to go a third year class room, introduce themselves very loudly and proceed to beat the cr*p out of the thirty or so students who put up a fight. Some of the less injured students go to the dojo next door and ask for the assistance of the 3rd year club master, a young girl name Natsume Maya. With only a curt warning, which they ignore, Maya proceeds to thump Souichirou senseless with first few blows and knocks him through a 4th floor window, into the Dojos shower room, where Souichirou meets Maya's sister, Aya. While Bob and Souichirou might first come across as course thuggish street brawlers, they are very serious about their martial arts abilities, but when they realize that their antics has put them on a hit list by the 'enforcement' arm of the secretive student council, they decide to join Maya's dojo, both for training and protection, unaware that Maya and the current student council president are seriously involved in a long running feud based on events that occurred two years previously and which involved the death of Maya's brother.

Just when I was getting into both the story and the characters, the series goes into retro-mode, switching to tell the events of two years earlier. So from about episode 14 to 24, a different story is told, with (mostly) a different set of main characters. I keep wanting to the story to go back to Souichirou and Aya (or is it Maya?). It is only in the last episode does the story come back to the present time, (along with a big fight scene, of course). I found myself being a bit irked by this story line change. And the series ended in an opened end manner that suggests that there may be a second season in the works, (actually an OVA called Tenjou Tenge:Ultimate Fight).

If you enjoy this series, then you might want check out Airmaster, which while not being as good, does have a lot in common with this series and has alot more humor!.

And also check out the AIKI manga series at MangaFox. Similar story line, but a better tale with more interesting characters ....

Last updated Thursday, August 13 2009. Created Wednesday, July 07 2004.

Other Sites
NameURL
Tenjho Tenge http://www.tenjhotenge.com/
Official Tenjho Tenge Website (Geneon)

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