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Review: Tenjo Tenge, Vol. 1

Tenjo Tenge, Vol. 1 Tenjo Tenge, Vol. 1 by Oh! Great
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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I watched the anime of Tenjo Tenge back when I was a wee lady. I was recently feeling a combination of nostalgia, boredom, and procrastination so I decided to pick up the manga. I've been meaning to re-watch the anime anyway, so this is as good.

Holy shit. First thing I have to say: TIDDIES. The manga has fully exposed anime manga tiddies, fam! And like, a pretty good amount of them too, but it never felt too oversaturated like it did in Monster Musume. Also, they look really great unlike the weird plastic-looking ones in the aforementioned MonMusu manga.

Wow, how far I've come. I used to hate fanservice and panty-shots and all the things this manga is full of, but I really didn't mind those things here. I think maybe because it's in black-and-white book form that it feels more authentic and acceptable. That was something that bothered little fetus me when watching the anime (holy shit I should not have been allowed to have the free range of the internet that I did), how obnoxious and sexual the fan service was. But in the manga it honestly never even felt like fan service. Just some nice lookin anime tiddies. Also yeah, a shit ton of panty-shots.

Now that I've peaked to the height of my reviewing "career" by writing two paragraphs about cartoon boobs, it's time to move forward onto the downward spiral of my... Ahem, "career". Yep, it was weird writing that word twice.

The story is about a martial arts club at a high school, and what happens when two hotshot delinquents come and start smashing up the school. I think the characters are probably the strongest part of this manga, and the relationships between them, though I don't want to say too much. I will say that I was pleasantly surprised by some of the ecchi genre subversions this manga has. (view spoiler) That said, the characters aren't fantastically fleshed out or anything, they're just likable and easy to root for and get behind. And it has a couple kickass female leads that don't feel forced, which is always super fun.

Speaking of ass kicking, there is a lot, lot, LOT of it in this manga. It actually probably comprises the very grand majority of the content in this manga. Honestly with all the nudity and fighting this really does seem like a teenage boy's wet dream. Too bad I'm not a teenage boy.

I honestly never and have never really cared too much about fighting, from books to manga to anime to movies. That stuff just very rarely catches my fancy. Worst case scenario it just makes me extremely bored. Happily, the fighting never made me bored (maybe it was the tiddies that kept me going) but it did definitely come close to doing so. So this wasn't a super duper exhilarating read for me, because of this. Which actually sounds counterintuitive. But I still did find it enjoyable nonetheless.

Here's a quote about his manga by Paul O'Brian written in this article that I really liked:
Strictly speaking, it probably doesn't qualify as pornography. After all, it does have a plot. And the plot isn't about sex. It's about violence, which is much better.

Content warnings: Graphic nudity, rape, molestation, and violence. Later volumes in this series also have extremely graphic depictions of gore and death, and semi-graphic depictions of sex. For your enjoyment here is the amusing official VIZ Media content warning:
...Graphic violence, strong language, nudity, sexual situations, gratuitous panty shots, a ridiculous amount of ass-kicking, anatomically improbable cleavage, and people behaving really, really badly. If you're letting your kids read this, what's wrong with you? Pff I turned out fine....


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Click to read my other Tenjo Tenge Reviews:
Volumes:
1* (01-02) | 2 (03-04) | 3 (05-06) | 4 (07-08)
5  (09-10) | 6  (11-12) | 7  (13-14) | 8  (15-16)
9  (15-16) |

*Current review


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