Tenjho Tenge Volume 1 DVD Review

By Dansolo Published: March 24, 2006

PACKAGING AND MENU

9 / 10

Tenjho Tenge comes in clear DVD cases with artwork on both sides of the insert. In volume 1, the insert is mostly pink. The front contains an image of Maya in the foreground and Aya in the background. The back is mostly textured grey with some red. I’m not a fan of the pink, but even still, it looks decent.

You also have the option of a box (with some extras), which is a sturdy chipboard box with Aya and Maya on the back and Tenjho Tenge written on both sides. It looks fairly good on a shelf.

The menu for this volume, like the case insert, is mostly pink. There is a bit of animation, which is and not long or annoying. The menus are quick and easy to navigate.

There is no real inside insert for the DVD, but there is a pencil board (shitajiki), a preview of the manga from CMX (while supplies last), and a slip with the tentative release dates of each volume. While I’d liked to have seen some sort of insert with information, I don’t think it was an absolute requirement.

FEATURES

7 / 10

If you get the limited edition, your extras include the box and pencil board, as mentioned earlier, and a jigsaw puzzle in a can. I’m not really into that stuff, but I do like boxes, so that’s what I got and thus recommend.

As far as extras on the disc, things are rather skimpy. All we have are a non-credit opening, previews, and credits.

The score above reflects the limited edition. If you go for the regular edition, the score is a mere 2/10. This isn’t something important to me, though.

VIDEO

8.5 / 10

The video is presented in an interlaced format, which makes it unable to receive full points. There is also a bit of edge enhancement (you can see glowing or halos around some lines), but not extremely bad. Other than that, I noticed no issues. Noise and blocking are practically non-existent, detail is good, and there is no dot crawl. A job well done.

AUDIO

8 / 10

Both the Japanese and English tracks are presented in stereo. Directionality is decent in both cases. The dub is so-so. The only major problem I have is with Maya. She loses much of the spirit of the character and she’s quite bad at Japanese pronunciation. Takayanagi and Souichiro are probably the better two voices in the dub. The dub stays fairly true to the original script, though it does have some deviation. Honorifics are kept, which I like. Overall, while I highly recommend the Japanese track over the English track (as usual), the dub doesn’t kill the show.

CONTENT

8 / 10

Souichiro and Bob transfer to Todo Academy, a martial arts school. Their plan is to take over the school by beating up a bunch of people. But, being a martial arts school, that’s not such an easy task, and they fail miserably. Will they be able to rise to the challenge? And what is the Executive Council that wants them punished?

Much of Tenjho Tenge is a typical school-based martial arts show, which I am not usually a big fan of. However, Tenjho Tenge had me interested right from the beginning. With excellent character designs, good animation, and a good cast of seiyuu, I’m hooked. There’s even the occasional bit of humor mixed in.

There is much character development right from the start. The plot is not exactly straightforward, but I don’t consider it as having much of a twist, either. The main progression is easy to see, while some stuff that happens on the side might not be.

OVERALL

8.5 / 10

While this release is not perfect, I must say I am quite impressed. The show has me hooked already, the quality of the DVD is quite decent, and even the English dub is not too bad. If the show sounds good to you, I say run out to the store and buy this one as soon as possible.