Review - Tenjho Tenge Round 4
Reviewed by Richard Brownell on 9.30.2009.
Score: 5/10
At the tail end of volume three of Tenjho Tenge, the story shifted from the battle between the leading cast and the Executive Council of Todo Academy to a few years prior, telling the back story of characters like Maya and Mitsuomi. The shift didn't seem too drastic when it first started, but watching this volume, especially after the break I took, is awkward and required some re-watching of earlier episodes.
Volume four continues the story that is meant to end with a grand fight between Mitsuomi and Maya's older brother Shin, now deceased. Maya is considered weak by Shin and though he's fine letting her get beat up a little by other students, he gets brutal and vicious when he perceives her to be at risk. This brutality is only amplified by the Dragon's Eye powers that he has. His character is a bit hard to follow emotionally in this volume. In some cases, he's carefree. In others, he is calm and collected. But when the Dragon's Eye is active, he's a ruthless killing machine. Add in the magical sword he carries and no opponent has a chance.
The story going on in the past is basically a grand conspiracy. The Mitsuomi of the past is a gifted martial artist who just wants to live life and continue his training. But it seems everything going on around him is preventing his life from being that simple. He's in a family that wants to find or create the greatest martial artist of all time and he is one potential candidate to be that person. Maya is interested in him romantically, but he instead chooses to fool around with Shin's girlfriend, Kuzunoha, which may not be the smartest move to make.
But it isn't just Mitsuomi who we see in the past. We also get a good look at the weird pink-haired assassin chick, Emi, who is Kuzunoha's close friend. She has a major run-in with perhaps the most interesting character in these flashbacks, Bunshichi, one of the members of the Katana gang. Bunshichi, another character we've seen in the present, is trying to find out who is taking out members of the Katana gang while at the same time figuring out what kind of person Shin really is.
Unfortunately, all the twisting story lines going throughout this past story doesn't enhance the story. It holds it back. Tenjho Tenge is a fighting show first and foremost. With much of the sexuality of the manga ripped out already, if several episodes have almost no fighting, the show isn't very exciting. Its characters aren't interesting enough to go for a long time without kicking each other's asses. But this is all amplified when it's a story going on in the past. Just when we were getting to like characters like Aya, Souchiro, and several others, the show does a major switch and we have to learn a whole new cast and cope with the differences in major characters like Maya and Mitsuomi.
At the end of this volume, we've gotten a full four episodes of convoluted past storyline and it's getting tiring. No matter what direction the past story goes, we know it's all just going to lead up to the characters in the present beating each other up some more. So at the least, there should be a lot more fighting in the past and a lot less fighting and killing off screen. Considering the visual quality of the show has its up and downs, it might be the case that the production company simply couldn't fund more on screen fighting. Given that Tenjho Tenge is a fighting show, this would be quite sad.
Even though Tenjho Tenge is taking a trip down humdrum lane, the conspiracy that is set up in the past is still somewhat intriguing, at least in the sense that we're going to finally found out what happened between Mitsuomi and Maya. And if we can see more Bunshichi fighting along the way, all the better.
Special Features
· Contains Episodes #11-13 (Approx. 75 minutes)
· 2.0 Dolby Digital English & Japanese Audio
· Two English Subtitle Streams (Dialogue translation & Signs Only translation)
