Soichiro Nagi and Bob Makihara are a couple of street punks looking to conquer their high school – a plan which promptly fails as they get the crap beaten out of them. It turns out Todo High is a mess of inhumanly strong fighters and martial aritsts who don’t take kindly to having some newbies start causing a ruckus. Seeking refuge at the Juken Club, a dissident martial arts group populated with two female hotties and one male loser, they begin their training to fight back.
In short: Tenjo Tenge is so awesome it doesn’t really need a plot.
Tenjo Tenge is not to be confused with Tenjho Tenge though, oh no. The difference in removing that ‘h’ is indicative of this book being an entirely different beast to CMX’s previous ill-advised release of the same manga. Tenjo Tenge is all about the boobs and the blood and makes no apologies for it. So CMX choosing to edit out the worst parts (i.e. the selling points) seems like a pretty bizarre decision. Needless to say the hardcore fans went apeshit at the idea of a manga being censored, boycotting the entire company and demanding an uncut version.
With the event of CMX being unceremoniously (and somewhat unfairly) shut down, Viz jumped at the chance to give the series a proper go leaving in all the action in larg format double volumes editions and even inserting colour pages. Basically it’s everything that was asked for –I just hope the fans who moaned at CMX choose to back up their words with their wallets. As for the manga itself, it’s refreshingly OTT and thoroughly disgracefully stupid. If seeing muscle-bound freaks and scantily clad girls beating seven shades of shit out of each other I’d struggle to think of anything more earnest and relevant than this one.
