"Slight Rant so be aware of aggressive language"
I found Tenjo Tenge on an anime site once over 10 years ago when I first started binging anime. It was only 24 episodes so I watched over two nights. I fell in love with it.I thought the animation was cool fr its time. The fighting was dope, I loved the characters, the way the anime was produced was cool and the soundtrack was amazing. I wanted more but sadly, the series manga was ongoing and a monthly so the anime was never coming back. Fast forward to 2016, I stared buying the Omnibus edition manga volumes that Viz Media were releasing. I reviewed a couple of the volumes but fell off before I even got to the middle of the story. Its 2020, I just finished reading the last volume, I have a lot to say.
This may be top 5 worst manga I've ever read. The story gets so intertwined with other factors hat I eventually lost track of what was happening. In the beginning it is very simple. Young Nagi Soichiro and Bob Makihara start their high school life at Todo Academy. The school is designed for fighter and all types of martial artist. The Juken Club is lead by Maya and its members before Bob and Nagi join are Masataka Takayanagi and Maya's little sister Aya. Their main goal is to take down the Student Council lead by Mitsuomi Takayanagi. 2 years prior Mitsuomi was apart of the Juken club and killed its former leader Shin, Maya's older brother.
Now the story is very simple. Revenge. Who doesn't love a good revenge story? Especially once we get the full back story of Maya, Mitsuomi, Sugano, Bunshichi, and Shin were such a close unit but were driven apart due to the martial arts world. Now, after 2 years, things will be settles in the 107th Imperial Arts Tournament. AS the Juken club trains for the tournament, everything goes wrong for them as well as the reader. Long story short, nearly half the cast are descendants of warriors from 200,000 years ago. They're all wrapped in a war that's been raging for eternity. That's simple but the story gets so convoluted that its hard to keep up. The story in general is 70% flashbacks.
The story built up the main cast just fro them to be useless for 70% of the manga. Not only this but the cast that is important never has story arcs that progress.The characters are constantly getting stronger to just to lose to the next new character. Overall the story progression gets boring an uninteresting. The last 8 volumes I was only reading because I had bought all of the volumes and I was still being promised an epic fight. In the end that never happened. I honestly due not like any of the characters by the end of the series and I really don't know what happened or why it happened. I don't understand how such a simple premise could be turned into a confusing battle that still makes no sense. I didn't know who to root for, the Juken Club with the main characters, the Student Council with the first antagonist or the second antagonist "F" organization. Still, I don't like any of these people by the end of the manga. There was so much wasted potential that I just stopped caring.
On top of this, there are more female characters than males in this series. The female characters are naked 70% of the time their on screen. There are times when they're naked just to be naked. At one point during the final battle with Mitsuomi, Maya was given clothes just for her to be naked two chapters later. What was the point? There is more nudity and sex then they're are fights and connected plot points. Another problem I have is, every single character has to dish out a monologue about power and destiny at least 3 times a chapter. It got so annoying that I popped when Bunshichi said (in paraphrasing) "Just a bunch of assholes who think their the main characters in some fantasy". I wanted them to shut the fuck up so bad.
The only redeeming part of the series is the art. The art is amazing. The color pages are so beautiful. That's it. I do not recommend this series unless you take your can take your brain out of our head when reading.
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Just finished... It becomes so messy with all those powers and dragons... I should have stopped with the anime
ReplyDeleteI just finished this manga in print, I spent a lot of the time saying "but why are they doing this?" the scenes do not make sense in the first volumes have the impression of seeing a fan service succession, I appreciated more from the feudal arch. What I hated the most is this feeling of love Aya has for soichiro, it is completely stupid, there is no reason for her to be in love with a guy like him, he is beat every time and is not the one who saves everyone, he did not deserve her, but Mazataka yes, I thought she would have changed at this level because we see a complicity between them but no. Unfair
ReplyDeletethanks this is helpful
ReplyDeleteIf they cut out every flaskback and just focused on what was happening to Nagi it would have been good. Sadly it was one of the worst manga I have ever read.
ReplyDeleteI always wanted to know what happened because I never understood anything after like 5-10 chapters. But this review, the comments and my past experience just shut this series off for me again. Nostalgia made me Google and try to find something or some reason to read it but reality tells me to stop wasting time.
ReplyDeleteI started the manga and got lost. Put on hold. Anime came out. I watched it but got confused. My teenager brain wasn't developed, maybe. I went back to the manga and anime back and forth. I even skipped parts hoping the stuff later would be better, but nope, just confused the shit out of me.
Oh, and all the sex innuendo doesn't help either. I think there are implications of rape or some crap? Idk man. It just didn't feel good.
While I'm still curious on the whole plot, I don't think I'll ever find an answer. I don't support anyone spending the time to write a full summary or explanation.