Tenjo Tenge 4

Oh! great – Viz – 2011 – 22 volumes
this is an omnibus containing vols. 7-8

Oh, Shin Natsume. This omnibus contains Shin’s self-destruction, as well as the event that led to Mitsuomi becoming who he is today. And in a more fun turn of events, we also get to see part of one of the school tournaments, the ones that decide the new Student Council. The outcome should be fairly obvious, given the fact that Mitsuomi is the current president, but… the fact that him being president meant that things in the past had to go down as they did wasn’t something I had connected. Also, this early tournament isn’t nearly as fun as the one that comes up at the end of the series (mostly because Sugano’s fight in volume 17 is so fantastic), but it’s still pretty great to see the Juken Club handing defeats out to so many tough customers. And it’s fun to see Mitsuomi and Maya enjoying themselves, too.

If you’re tired of the flashback, don’t worry, because it ends at the beginning of volume eight. It was hard for me to get my bearings in the present again, simply because I had grown so attached to the characters in the flashback story. But a for-real duel between Aya and Maya brings things back in order pretty quickly, and the special training for the next big Student Council brawl starts after that. Nagi’s training in particular is something to look forward to, because his “full potential” hasn’t actually come up yet. That’s a story for the next volume, though.

There are two scenes in particular that are just… the best. One is a scene from the flashback where Mitsuomi shows up at the Natsume residence to beg Maya to let him help her keep Shin under control. As she considers taking Misuomi’s help, Shin appears behind Mitsuomi with a sword. Mitsuomi can’t see him. And Maya knows that she can’t get anyone else’s help without Shin killing them for taking her away from him. Oh! great lays the scene out perfectly. It’s very powerful. Wonderful, wonderful stuff.

The second scene is the whole, lengthy swordfight between the Natsume sisters. It takes turns being sad, happy, looking like a serious fight and just exercise, and even who is winning when. And again, Oh! great has a talent for laying out action scenes and emotional moments to give them the biggest impact… not to mention that both combatants this time are beautiful women, which is something he clearly loves to illustrate. But this, too is a very moving scene. It won out over Shin’s last fight as my favorite in this book, and Shin’s last fight was also pretty great.

Trying to explain this, it is difficult to get across that it’s more than just a fighting manga. Yes, they brawl a lot, and most of what they do here is preparation for or fights in the school tournament. But the flashback fights in particular are packed with character history, and it’s hard not to appreciate both fights between Shin and Mitsuomi as exactly what they are – a friend trying to stop another friend from turning into a violent monster. And Mitsuomi loses the last fight, in more ways than one (again, not a spoiler, since we know the status of both Shin and Mitsuomi in the present).

One thing that still doesn’t quite make sense to me… Mitsuomi’s power is just puzzling. Why did a punch from Shin make him the perfect warrior in short bursts? That’s slightly outside the realms of believability for this series. Then again, we see two of the fights with Fu Chien here, and he only gets more ridiculous every time he comes back for more, so what can I say?

It’s really, really worth checking out, though. If you enjoy fighting manga, this puts a lot of story behind all its brawls, and it’s hard not to like all the characters by this point in the series. Oh! great has a knack for being able to pack a lot of emotion into his story and really wrings all he can from the turning points in the plot. Plus, he’s a really, really great artist. I reviewed this content twice because I really, really think it’s worth picking up. Don’t miss the second chance, it’s got an especially nice package this time around!

Tenjo Tenge 3 (omnibus ed.)

Oh! great – Viz – 2011 – 22 volumes
this is an omnibus containing vols. 5-6

I know I’m breaking my own rules by covering material I’ve already covered. But Tenjo Tenge is so good, and I’m just so happy it’s getting a second chance in such a nice format.

It is still completely uncensored, which is obvious by the sex scene that starts off the volume, along with all the color images that are various stages of naughty. All of it is in there, though.

This is the meat of the flashback story arc, and this is a big part of what makes this series so good. As I said, I think it’s a lot better than most fighting manga. Instead of fighting for noble causes, or to perfect one’s self for some greater good, the characters simply fight because they admire strength, and there’s a kind of purity to that. All of them look up to someone, and in the past, we find out that the someone is Shin. But unfortunately, Shin is a carrier of a supernatural ability, the “Dragon Eyes,” and when he is using his ceremonial sword, he literally turns into a crazy psychopath that not even his friends or sister want to be around.

There’s also the dangerously close relationship between Maya and Shin. Oh! great is surprisingly low-key about this (given how unsubtle he is about most anything else), and much is implied between the two, but not shown. I did like that this was a terrible, dangerous thing, and that both Shin and Maya recognized the destructive behavior in each of themselves and tried to stop it. Maya is less dangerous than Shin, but Shin is in a better place by the end of the volume.

Two of the key characters in this flashback arc are Mitsuomi and Bunshichi. Both are true friends to Shin, but Shin… just can’t. He can’t seem to bring himself to treat them as such, but part of Shin’s behavior is explained away by the end of the volume. Mitsuomi is scared stiff after seeing Shin “vent” on a group of students, and that his fear stops him from being an effective fighter is a plot point throughout. Bunshichi, however, isn’t afraid, and it’s Bunshichi, an untrained fighter with no special powers, who is the only one that wants to face off against Shin to stop him.

Shin, Mitsuomi, and Bunshichi are all interesting characters, and the story takes its time to develop them quite well. It goes a little over-the-top with some self-destructive metaphors for Shin, but other than that, the slow and very deliberate character development in what is otherwise a brawling manga makes this very much one of my favorites. It’s hard not to like the three boys and Maya, and each volume only brings you into the fold that much more. And I also like how low-key the romances are in this series (again, which seems unlikely given how tasteless other aspects of the series are, but it’s true). One romance that seems overt winds up being a sham, and actually, the female character is shamming two of the males. One realizes it, and one doesn’t and gets his heart broken. There’s the subtle, but very intense relationship between Shin and Maya, and one that’s just getting started between Maya and Mitsuomi. Again, a lot of the romance seems to be based on admiration, and not actually on falling in love, which is something else I love about this series.

If you’ve read this far and still don’t like it, the series is probably not for you. But this is definitely some of the best storytelling the series has to offer, and this is what made me fall in love with it. Do give it a try, I promise it’s more than it seems.

Tenjo Tenge 2 (omnibus ed.)

Oh! great – Viz – 2011 – 22 volumes
this is an omnibus containing vols. 3-4

In this omnibus, all the important players are introduced, and you begin to see just what it is that makes this series special.

This covers a massive brawl that began at the end of volume two and runs all the way through volume three. The Student Council moves in on the Juken Club in a bowling alley to crush them before they can pose a threat. They are only marginally successful, and even then, it’s only because the president, Mitsuomi, is unstoppable. The fourth volume deals with the fallout from this fight, the attitudes of the freshmen Bob and Soichiro, and begins to tell the history of the Juken Club. That’s going to be going on for… a good long time to come. Buckle up.

And there’s a lot of fighting. And yes, a lot of clothes explode off bodies, both men and women. And yes, they’re only fighting for “a greater cause,” or perhaps “to better themselves” or “for what they believe in.” And it’s all kinds of hokey. But the thing I like best about this series, and the thing that I think makes it better than most fighting manga, are the character relationships. It picks up this volume, but it gets much better as it goes along. Oh! great spends a lot of time developing his characters, and they are all important to each other in some way or other. There’s a really understated love triangle going on through these volumes. I’m not entirely sure how he downplays it the way he does, because there are all sorts of terrible jokes about how Masataka is in love with Aya, and Aya makes no secret of her love for Soichiro. But Aya seems sure that Maya is falling for Soichiro, too. And Soichiro makes it known in the most heroic way possible that he is completely in love with Maya. The big, bad Mitsuomi is also in love with Maya. And maybe Maya is in love with Soichiro. Or maybe she still has feelings for Mitsuomi. Or maybe she can’t get out from behind her older brother.

All of this is part of the story. It’s not really romantic. But it is important, and I love that a lot of the cause and effect in this series is based on what you will or will not do for someone (regardless of the reason), and how striving to be the best often comes from admiration and emulation, rather than the need to protect. In a particularly memorable scene, rather than rushing in and protecting Maya as she was getting beat up, Shin and Mitsuomi stand by and let her take the beating, though they both want badly to intervene. It’s her fight, and it would be a blow to her pride to protect her. Soichiro seems to want to get strong because of Maya, because he admires her a great deal.

There will be more to talk about later, so I’ll leave it at that for now.

And in case I don’t talk about this enough, I love Oh! great’s artwork. His faces are a little childish for my taste, but it kind of works in this series, where everyone is striving for maturity. The clothing for all the characters is well-chosen (except Mitsuomi, who wears godawful outfits), the fights and action scenes are always very dynamic, and all the characters have unique and very interesting designs. He also puts a lot of detail into just about everything, including the backgrounds. And I love all the color illustrations that get included in these omnibuses. It’s obvious he was once a porn artist, since he lavishes so much attention on certain parts of the female anatomy, and seems to sneak panty shots into every page, but that’s also part of its charm.

The uncensored edition is kind of shocking compared to the CMX edition. The CMX editions of volumes 3-4 were missing some of the color illustrations (especially the cover of volume 3, a color poster-style illustration of a topless Aya with her back to the camera, and an illustration of Maya wearing a fairly inflammatory shirt). Some of the chapter illustrations were altered, and… uh, Emi isn’t wearing a shirt in the first chapter. There’s plenty of other stuff. I was comparing the translations this time through as well, and both have their own flavor, I like different things about them. I like the more fatalistic tone of the CMX translation, but the slightly more innuendo-laden speech patterns in the Viz editions make more sense in the context of the series. Especially Bunshichi. He’s great.

I do love the Shin flashback we’re about to see. Shin’s a fun and very tragic character. This is my third read-through, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to catch more of what happened to him, because I’m not remembering his role very well. Also, I think next volume will introduce the other two members of the Juken Club, and we’ll also get to see more Bunshichi. All of these things are very important. Keep reading.

I really do hope more people are giving the series a try with these omnibuses. It’s worth it, and as of this volume, you’ll begin to see what makes this great.

Tenjo Tenge 1 (omnibus ed.)

Oh! great – Viz – 2011 – 22 volumes
this omnibus contains vols 1-2

I won’t lie: I love Tenjo Tenge to pieces, and I was super-excited to hear that Viz licensed it. It was in my top 5 series to be rescued from CMX. It’s got a terrible reputation for having rather graphic art and themes (which means that some only see it as fanbait manga) and being censored (which means that people who read fanbait manga won’t buy it), but it’s a really fantastic story with great art. I’ve read through my CMX volumes two or three times, and I almost never re-read series. It breaks my heart that more people didn’t read it when CMX published it.

The Viz edition of this series is really nice. An omnibus treatment is really the way to go, especially since the English edition was only 4 volumes from the end. This book contains volumes 1-2 of the original. The cover is that of volume two, and the art to volume one’s cover (which was the controversial due to the logo covering the panty shot on the CMX edition) is included in the plentiful color pages. Each volume of Tenjo Tenge in Japan comes with a double-sided poster, a double-page color title spread, an additional color page, and a color illustration on the table of contents. All of those color pages are included in the Viz edition, in front of volume one, then again in the middle of the book for the stuff included with volume two. The volume two poster isn’t a poster, but is included as a single page illustration for the Aya image, and a double-page illustration for the Maya image. Part of me thinks that Oh! great may insist that these color pages are included, since they were part of the CMX edition all the way to the end, and I can’t imagine that the series was making enough money to justify the extra cost. The book is manga-oversized, the trim size is consistent with the larger-size Viz Signature line.

And nothing is censored. At all. Fanboys, put your money where your mouth is.

The uncensored artwork… is what it is. Oh! great started his career by drawing porn manga, and it’s obvious in his style. All the girls have massive breasts, and there are several scenes that lapse into porn manga mode. Chiaki, Bob’s girlfriend, is raped in a despicable attempt to teach Bob and Soichiro a lesson about acting out in school. It’s a graphic scene, but nowhere near as graphic as it would be in a porn manga, to be fair. And also, to be fair, it was talked down a lot, with Chiaki swearing up and down that she wasn’t actually raped. It’s still a very graphic scene. Later, while talking to Aya in a hot spring during a training camp, Chiaki begins feeling Aya up, sucking on her nipple and giving her kisses. Within the first chapter, Soichiro crashes through the roof of the girls’ shower and lands on a naked Aya (directly in her crotch, actually), who begins making out with him. There are what feels like dozens of panty shots per chapter.

It’s more graphic than a shounen/seinen manga (it straddles the two, in my opinion), but nowhere near as graphic as real porn manga. I’ve read Oh! great’s porn manga, simply because I liked Tenjo Tenge so much, and I was curious. There’s stuff in there that still gives me nightmares.

I know that doesn’t sound like the makings of the fantastic series I promised, but the fanservice mostly disappears (really!) after a few volumes, as if one Oh! great proved the story could stand on its own, he was allowed to stop doing it. Once you aren’t distracted by girls getting their panties ripped off, you can see that Oh! great’s attention to his female character’s appearance works really well in a series like this. All the girls are beautiful, the characters (male and female) all have a distinctive look and much attention is paid to the clothing they wear. The settings are also detailed and nice-looking. About the only failing I see in this first volume is that, occasionally, when someone lands a punch or strike during a fight, there’s a panel where it’s hard to tell just what is happening, but it doesn’t bother me that much since, really, someone is just being hit very hard. Otherwise, his fight scenes are also really well-drawn, with lithe characters jumping around and landing the occasional powerful punch. You can tell he plays a lot of fighting games.

The story? It takes awhile to get going. Compared to what I love about the series, the first two volumes are simply exposition, and it does get much better when the lengthy flashbacks start. We meet newcomers to Todo Academy, Bob and Soichiro, and we learn that they love to fight. Fortunately, Todo Academy is a school founded on fighting, and they see plenty of action. On their first day, after all their cocky challenges, they are beaten soundly by Maya Natsume, the president of the tiny Juken Club. Meanwhile, her sister, Aya, falls in love with Soichiro at first sight. Unfortunately, Masataka, another Juken Club member, falls in love with Aya at first sight and begins sulking over her crush on Soichiro. Soichiro wants nothing to do with Aya, but Masataka beats him up out of jealousy later when Soichiro provokes him into fighting. All the fighting gets the attention of the Student Executive Council, who punishes Soichiro and Bob by burning Bob’s bike, raping his girlfriend, then beating the crap out of Soichiro and Bob. Maya gets revenge for them, but sobered by the sound beating and enraged by the line that was crossed, Bob and Soichiro join the Juken Club and begin training to beat the Executive Council. The second volume is mostly training and, later, a full-out brawl in a bowling alley between members of the Executive Council and Juken Club.

It sounds like just a shallow fighting manga, and right now, it is. But there are several nice touches even in the first couple volumes. There is some romance mixed into the story, and I love that the characters tend to fall in love out of a sense of admiration. Masataka falls for Aya as soon as he sees her, not because she’s beautiful, but because she’s fantastic at the sword exercises he sees her doing (and I suppose being beautiful helps). Soichiro slowly begins to fall in love with Maya Natsume, but again, it’s less because she’s beautiful and more because she’s a genuine martial arts master with a lot to teach. Love out of admiration fits the series well, since all the characters are constantly striving for a personal best. This is completely overshadowed by the ridiculous relationship between Aya and Soichiro, however, which is far less understated than the others. Aya falls in love with Soichiro because of an old family rule that states the first man to see the flesh of a Natsume woman is their intended, and of course this triggers when Soichiro falls through the roof of the shower and sees Aya naked. Aya also constantly forces herself on Soichiro, talking and thinking of little else. Bah. It took me a long time to warm up to Aya Natsume after these first couple volumes.

After the initial set-up, we begin flashbacks that develop the characters and the history between the Executive Council and the Juken Club. That’s when things really start to get good, I promise. These first couple volumes are still necessary reading, and a pretty decent fighting/action manga in the meantime. But it gets much better and slightly less skeevy in the future.

Also, there’s some asides that point to Soichiro as the main character of the series. Maya and Aya dominate much of the story, but I think the real main character is Masataka. It takes a long time for that to become more obvious, though. Bear with me.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.

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.

Tenjho Tenge 17

Has it been a year since the last time I read Tenjho Tenge?  I think it has.  I’m pretty sure we’re basically caught up to Japan, and a new volume only comes out once or twice a year there.  It’s kind of a bummer, because it feels like things are escalating towards the finale, and I’d hate for it to be stretched out over six volumes that come out infrequently.  But I guess that’s something I’m going to have to deal with.

Things have finally moved away from feudual Japan and towards something I can understand: people beating the shit out of each other for social rank.  That’s right, not only is this the first volume of the year, the spring tournament to decide the executive committee is under way officially now.  You remember that?  They were talking about it in the first volume, before the story was interrupted by around a dozen flashback volumes.  With Maya out of it, the Juken Club is left with Bob, Souichiro, Aya, Kurei, Masataka, and Sugano.  The executive committee is basically laying off for the time being, so there’s some pretty entertaining stuff for the first part of the tournament.  As you can imagine, most people either aren’t a match for the Juken Club, or put the Juken Club at a hilarious disadvantage that they overcome in bizarre ways.  Tenjho Tenge’s sense of humor isn’t the absolute best, but there’s still some pretty funny stuff mixed in, which comes as a relief after all that Feudal Japan stuff.

A plot thread is revealed by the end of the volume, and apparently a “witch,” a girl with red wing powers, is controlling some of the fighters in order to siphon energy.  Sugano is, amazingly, the first to pick up on this, and he recognizes it as something that happened the year Shin died.  Since the witch getting her hands on any of the real members of the Juken Club would be the last thing anybody would want, Sugano decides to fight one of her altered beasts himself.

It is seriously one of the best fights in the series.  He doesn’t have special powers or anything.  He just boxes, and he’s extremely good at it, sort of like Bunshichi.  He pays the penalty, but in the end, he gets what he wants.  It really is an amazing good match, and I’m glad Kagesada was on the cover for a reason.  Actually, Bunshichi puts in an appearance just before Sugano’s fight.  He’s using one of those floor-toilets that I’m not going to bother looking up the name for right now.  I’ve seen them plenty of times, but it took Tenjho Tenge to go to the extreme length of showing someone actually using one.

All I can say, really, is tournament tournament tournament.  It’s seriously about time, and so far the wait is paying off.  I hope Sugano’s fight is just the first in a long line of awesome matches.  I also hope Maya won’t be out of things for much longer.  It seems like she will be, but I’d like to think she’ll put in another spectacular appearance before the end.

Tenjho Tenge 16

Unfortunately, this volume puts us about even with the Japanese release. Volume 17 came out in July in Japan, but I suspect we won’t see 17 in English soon, and volume 18 hasn’t been scheduled for release in Japan yet either. Sad.

The story cleared the historical flashback about halfway through the volume, but not before losing me completely. I had trouble keeping some of the characters and alignments straight before, but remembering that anyone with a special power was a red wing, while anyone who was just strong was a white wing wasn’t hard, and it was also pretty easy to tell who was for and against the Juken Club by whether or not they attacked the main characters. This is not an ideal solution to my problem, but it was my way of keeping order, and it didn’t seem too important that I know much else about some of the side characters. The historical arc jumps around in time, and there’s at least one character who can shift his appearance, along with the characters aging. I could not keep the names or characters straight at all for this stretch. It was hard for me when things snapped back to present time too, because new characters appear who have ancestors that fought in the flashback we just saw. They were with Aya in the past, but are they with her now? I think they are. But they’re in the car with Mitsuomi. Maybe he’s actually with them now, and they’re fighting the common enemy of Sohaku, who may not be dead because he can manipulate life force? But maybe Soichiro is the new Sohaku?  Reading a summary helped me get a bit more of what was going on, but it was pretty clear reading it that Sohaku totally dominated everything that went down in Feudal Japan, and that there was something involving his eyeball and a woman who appeared a few volumes ago (who is apparently very old, and also had her teeth punched out by Mitsuomi) that affected the present.  I suppose that’s all I need to know for right now, and things will make themselves clear as need be.

Putting all that aside, I’m pretty pumped, because the second half of the volume started the fighting tournament at Todo. That’s all I need to know. Tenjho Tenge has some of the most beautiful and well-choreographed action sequences of any manga, and I’m really looking forward to this tournament. I can understand what happens as people win and lose and someone takes control of the school. That’s easy. I am slightly bummed that Maya seems to be out of action for the time being, though. Here’s hoping the Hotaru family has her back on her feet before the end of the tournament.

Tenjho Tenge 15

Ugh. This is probably the closest to filler we’re going to get in this series. It feels exactly like Oh! great describes it, which is that he’s a history buff and he felt like including it as part of the story. Tenjho Tenge definitely feels well-suited to this kind of historical fiction-esque storyline, but since it mostly involves my least favorite character and a story which is filling in the “destiny” part of the fighting that’s been going on (and really, anything deeper than revenge as a motive in this series is flying right over my head, so the destiny stuff doesn’t work out well for me either), this volume kind of failed me. Sorry, Aya.

So the Reiki takes Aya’s soul back to the past to show her one of her great-grandparents and really, what’s been going on with Sohaku. It hints that maybe there’s a good reason he does what he does, but… he’s still a pretty evil dude. The one thing that kept my interest this volume was that Aya’s historic doppelganger was basically a prostitute, but of course she wasn’t going to have intercourse with just ANYone, so her body periodically dissolves into cockroaches while in the middle of sex (and other things), which is just the coolest. We also get to see little kid Aya, since this historic version is using her ki in the opposite of Maya, to make herself look older.

I don’t know. I know it’ll get awesome again in the next volume, and really, I’ve gotten plenty enough enjoyment out of this series to forgive a volume which sets things up but doesn’t really do it for me.

EDIT: awesome! the cover of volume 17 has a guy with a gigantic boxing glove posing with an American flag draped over his shoulder.  I can’t see who it is very clearly, but I’m good with it not being in context.

Tenjho Tenge 14

http://www.librarything.com is an extremely useful service.  Aside from me using it as a glorified spreadsheet, you can see how popular certain volumes are by checking to see who else owns them and what they may have rated them or said about them.  Obviously, these statistics are arbitrary and based only on people who use Librarything and also read manga (and have everything matched right, which is hard to explain), but it’s a cool feature anyway.  It hurts when certain things are neglected, though.  I’m not talking about things like Baoh, where there’s little doubt no one but me and a museum in New York owns it, but I’m seriously the only one following Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, which is some sort of sin.  Same with Tenjho Tenge.  Of the thousands of people who list manga there, there are only THREE PEOPLE who read past volume two, me and the aforementioned museum being two of the three.  What the hell.

Random advertisment and bloggish part aside, is this series really not that popular?  It’s impossible for me to believe anyone who’s read it (and didn’t decide to snub it) hasn’t enjoyed it at least a little bit.  It gets in over its head when it starts spouting philosophy and power ramblings and the histories of the families and stuff, but otherwise, it’s just so fucking cool in every way imaginable.  The battles, the character designs, the personalities of the characters, the fighting styles, and even most of the plot is cool to a fault.  It’s manufactured cool.  It’s been made with what you would like to read in mind.

For instance, this volume is almost entirely dedicated to a full-out fight between Maya Natsume and some sort of perfected iron man on the side of Soichiro’s dad.  You realize that fights with Maya Natsume are few and far between when you see her go up against this guy, who totally wipes her out.  The battle is about the most badass in the series so far, which says something since every volume tries to have at least one badass fight.  She manages to activate her sword too, which is totally awesome but involves a weird situation with Aya that I didn’t really like.  The best scene in this volume hands down was where the opponent was walking away after “killing” Maya, and she suddenly sits up in the water, totally demonic-looking, and says ”The River Styx was dried up, so my brother threw me back.”  Cool to a fault, you see.

Seriously, you guys.  Why isn’t anyone reading this series?  I thought it was more popular than this.  Or maybe it is, just not among the people who use librarything.

Tenjho Tenge 13

Bob noooooo… he cut his hair!  Long hair screams when you do that.  It’s true.  It hurt even when Maya got her hair cut early on.  I’m kinda glad she did though, because I don’t think I could’ve dealt with both Natsume sisters having long hair like that.

Many things happened in this volume.  Many awesome things.  We get to see people being fed to Soichiro’s dragons so he can steal their power, one of them having something like deer legs, and she seems like kind of a cool character who may be sticking around.  We get to see a total bitch with the ability to control people through ki get punched in the face like she deserves, and we get to see Takayanagi being protective of his little brother, which is odd and also cool.

One of the best scenes in the series thus far, hands down, happened at the end of this volume though.  The reunion between Maya and Soichiro was so touching that I fell in love with this series all over again… and I was already pretty in love with it.

I know I mentioned something about the series being tightly plotted before… but I think starting next volume we get another flashback, way into the past, where Aya may or may not be caught.  This may have something to do with the 100-year-war people keep talking about as of this volume… and I have my doubts about this part being necessary, but maybe I’ll be totally shocked.  We’ll see, I probably will be.  I need more Maya and Soichiro moments, though.