Foulups review has a lot of conjecture about the anime. He/she seems to have overanalyzed the story without any real facts. Tenjho Tenge is an anime based on a long running manga (as many anime are). It was created with the soul purpose to only be a season long. It's manga runs on far longer. The anime very closely follows the story of the manga as well. The author is the same author of the anime Air Gear, and he did the same one season anime with Air Gear as well. This was done with both anime in order to get anime watchers interested in the manga.

Having said all that, as far as the actual review goes, the anime is fantastic! A lot of really fun and detailed fighting, tons of great characters, and a very interesting story told in a different way.

One of the things I love about this anime is that it has a lot of emotions. You see a lot of humor, anger, and sadness. Each episode can feel completely different from the last, and at the end of the anime you really want more (Which thankfully you can then go to the manga and finish the rather long story xD) (show less)

I was really impressed with this anime. It had all the markings of a great success. The only problem was that it dragged for a while on the story of Natsume Maya, her brother Shin and Mitsoumi to the point of the story losing its focus (which was not supposed to be on Maya or her past but on Souichiro Nagi as we come to see in the OVAs). Another disappointing factor is that after all was said and done the anime lost too much of its scope to follow through hence it only survived one season. The manga is far better (and although some people claim it is confusing I have yet to find it confusing myself). There are some really good characters like Takayanagi Masataka and Natsume Aya that are made to seem like redundant characters (or background characters) when in fact Aya is an important character in Nagi's life. The love triangles were potentially good but looking back on it now it seems almost sad and pathetic. The anime reaches a point where it cannot decide which way to progress since the history of Maya's life was introduced too early in the anime. It would be nice if they could do a remake of this anime - not only giving it a better structure but also improving the storyline while at the same time remain true to the content of the manga itself. I gave this a 4/5 simply because I love the character design and the animation is really good, the dialogue and storyline could use some work but it does not detract from how entertaining this anime is. It is a good watch for those of you who like bad ass fighting and silly love triangles that never come to fruition. (show less)

this is a great fighting anime
it has comedy as well as deep moments, the characters really take into account things that they would do to become greater, and try their hardest to achieve these goals
i like the styles of fighting, its not just one type,
it is a pity that it ended so quickly, i would have loved to see a proper tournament battle. but knowing how the main character develops in the OVAs really makes you pleased with the effort he put into to get there, even though its on his blood

watch this if you like fighting, comedic romance and just plain funny characters who have a deep side to them! (show less)

Tenjho Tenge is not your typical high school fighting anime, although that is what it appears to be at the start.

You start off with two of the main characters, Suichiro Nagi and Bob Makihara, a couple of street thugs who call themselves the knuckle bombs. They enter a school called Todo Academy, which is basically the only surviving martial arts high school in the world. They go there with the idea that they will quickly rule the school, and find out soon enough that this schools students are anything but weak and ordinary.

As the story continues, these two team up with one of the schools clubs called the Juken Club, in order to become stronger and protect themselves and each other from the student council who is out to silence them.. The characters all start to develop drastically in both fighting skill and personality. No static characters here.

Throughout the story you see many awesome fight scenes, many of which are the best I've seen in any anime.

Part way through the anime, you get to a long flash back sequence that is completely necessary for the story. It lasts for about half the anime, however it is by far the most excellent bit of story telling you'll see in the series (The manga continues on far beyond the anime and continues that kind of storytelling)

The story begins to resemble many Shakespearean plays with many of the common elements such as suicide, murder, betrayal of friends, and lovers dying at the hand of lovers. It is done in such a beautiful and almost poetic way which really helps you understand what the characters went through in their past and why they are doing the things they are doing now.

On the surface this animes story may appear simple, however it is not. Definitely worth a try for those that love high school fighting animes and/or Shakespear. (show less)