Tenjho Tenge 18

Oh! great – CMX – 2009 – 20+ volumes

I reviewed this for the the weekly installment of Manga Minis over at Manga Recon so you can check out the review over there.  There were actually two installments this week, and the other one is worth checking out too, since it’s got both the goodness of Hikaru no Go and the badness of B.O.D.Y.

If I haven’t said it enough, I love this series.  I love almost everything about it.  I especially love that the plot has recovered from the incoherent mess of that flashback arc and seems to be shaping all that happened there into actual, applicable lessons that are surprisingly deep and remarkably coherent and connected to the story for something that started out as a fighting manga with a lot of gigantic breasts.

As per usual, I’m a little lost and need to re-read from the beginning, but even without my memories of the 5,000 characters in the families and what went on during that flashback, I can tell that all the themes that the story is reaching for right now aren’t the usual shallow BS that manga series usually try to pull out and use superficially without connecting them well to the story.  The themes of trying to break out of destiny and completing one’s life and final battles and all that usual garbage make a lot of sense in Tenjho Tenge since we have been sitting through nothing but flashbacks for 18 volumes waiting for the spring tournament to start.  I mean, most series try to pull this off with a flashback that lasts a chapter or two that outlines a tragic backstory.  Tenjho Tenge?  Epic flashbacks and lots and lots of hints that bad things will happen unless whatever is about to go down is stopped, so therefore we have to break out of all these things that have been setting themselves up for the past few years/centuries/whatever.  Makes sense to me.

I like Oh! great’s sense of humor a lot, too.  There’s still lots of goofiness to break up the fights and whatnot, and the jokes aren’t so bad.  They aren’t laugh-out-loud funny, but they are still much appreciated after a totally serious fight where someone forms armor out of dust particles.

Also, is it just that I’ve been away from the series for too long, or do the characters look more baby-faced in this volume?  I really am going to have to re-read this from the beginning.  I will take great pleasure in doing so, too.  Even with the baby faces, Oh! great’s art is still absolutely gorgeous, some of the best I’ve seen in a fighting manga.  Really.  He’s great.

I laughed really hard at a gag strip in the back where Oh! great meets Hirohiko Araki and mentions that he looks way young, and that the rumors about him putting on a vampire mask and becoming immortal must be true.  I also like that he admits in the fourth panel that the strip served no point except to brag.

Also, I think this is the beginning of the end.  Bunshichi drags Maya up to where the Executive Committee is gathered, and it looks like Masataka and Soichiro will follow shortly.  The rest of the Juken Club doesn’t matter so much (except for Aya), but I’m sure there’s reasons in the story that they’ll show up later, too.  I think this will be the final battle, and I am very much looking forward to it.

Also, Masataka is the strongest?  MASATAKA?!  I am more than ready for whatever that means.