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It's another academic year at the Toudou academy and Souchirou
Nagi and Bob Makihara, two juvenile delinquents who spend
their time taking over school, start their new campaign of
violence in order to be the top dogs. But things do not go
to plan when they come up against the members of the Juuken
martial arts club...
So
another teen fight comedy that stays just this side of Hentai.
To be honest I wasn't expecting much from this genre given
how naff Battle Vixens was. Luckily, Tenjho Tenge
spends more time on the story and less on school girl panties.
The animation is good and in some places great, though the
character designs give away the fact that this has been produced
by Studio Madhouse, the character of Souchirou looks a little
too much like Vash from another of their shows Trigun.
The
sisters, Maya and Aya Natsume, form a double act. Maya is
the older wiser sister who has the unnerving habit of turning
from a Yoda like midget to an over buxom fighting hellcat.
Aya, plays the kooky light weight. When Aya falls in love
with Souchirou, it at first seems odd until you discover that
if a woman in her family exposes herself to a man then she
has to marry him. An accidental fall through the girls shower
room roof seals Souchirou's fate and brings much comic relief
to the show as he initially attempts to avoid Aya's attentions.
Episode
one, Sanctuary, introduces us to the characters. Not
much really happens in this episode as its main task is to
introduce the characters, their context and get the ball rolling
on the story. My first impressions of the show were not great
from this story, especially when Maya turns from Yoda to a
38DD girl for no real reason, except that she can. The show
was not a total disappointment, for one there was a character
called Bob; Bob is so much easier to spell than some of the
Japanese characters.
So on to episode two, Defeat, and thankfully there
is less cleavage and more story on show this time. Masataka
Takayanagi, friend of the girls and member of the Juuken,
and Souchirou are beating the living days out of each other.
Rather than reduce the show to displays of mindless violence
we actually start to find out just why Souchirou and Bob go
around picking fights. Picked on and abused by local thugs
and abandoned by his mother, as a child, Souchirou has a pathological
hatred of loosing. Bob... well he's just Bob and he likes
to hit people. Takes all sorts I guess. Souchirou and Bob
discover that the school has a darker side. The Student Executive
Council is on the boys' case, in order to punish freshmen
the Council employs executioners.
The
third and final episode on the DVD, Executioner, opens
with Bob's bike being firebombed as a first strike by the
Council. The boys catch up with Ryuzaki, the executioner.
With the boys seriously outmatched Aya rides out to help them,
arriving too late she attacks Ryuzaki only to be humiliated.
He warns the Juuken that the Council have decided that the
boys should go from the school and no limits have been placed
on the punishment required. Bob and Souchirou decide to join
the Juuken in order to become stronger.
Some
note must be made of the opening title sequence, Madhouse
do these very well. The grungy feel of Trigun has given
way to a particularly good heavy bass dance track, called
Bomb a Head! V by m.c.A.T, with some great animation. Unfortunately,
the level of animation does not match that of the show, but
hey it's a TV program, so what are you going to expect. The
closing title song is a bit pants (no pun intended), but hey
that's what the fast forward button is for.
The
extras are almost non-existent - though the textless opening
sequence is worth playing over again. Audio is Japanese or
English stereo.
So
a show that turn out to be much better than the usual panties
and fights fare. If you can put up with the very infrequent
gratuitous sexual act then this looks to be a show well worth
adding to your anime collection.
Charles
Packer
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