Maya Natsume

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Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Maya Natsume (棗 真夜 Natsume Maya?) is a character in the manga and anime series Tenjho Tenge. She is the captain of the Juuken club.

Maya Natsume, in her true form, from the anime.
Maya Natsume, in her true form, from the anime.

Contents

[edit] Character outline

Maya Natsume is a beautiful, almost gratuitously well-endowed woman who has long silver hair (purple in the anime). She is the older sister of Aya Natsume, and the younger sister of Shin Natsume. She is the captain of the Juuken Club, and an upper level martial artist. Maya is not shy about her body, she usually wears revealing clothing and has no problem with her underwear showing.

She has a long standing relationship with Mitsuomi Takayanagi and may still be in love with him. Souichiro Nagi is in love with her, but her feelings towards him are unclear.

Maya tends to do things in an indirect way, such as starving Souichiro to move his power to his gut enabling him to learn reverse striking faster. When Aya and Souichiro go to Kyushu against her orders (she knew they would go anyway); she says she was kicking them out of the group. It was actually for the purpose of freeing them of their obligations so they could handle the issue there more effectively. She tends to do somewhat foolish things as well, such as trying to fight Tetsuhito Kagiroi despite Makiko Nagi telling her she could not beat him. Her actions are arguably to blame for the events of the past; Chiaki thinks it all happened because Maya was just being stubborn. Her "Katana hunting" may have contributed a great deal to Shin's mental break down, and was directly responsible for Shin nearly killing the members of his own gang. She has Bob Makihara doing intense physical training (mainly running) which, as Mitsuomi points out, is pointless as Bob is already one of the most physically strong people in the school.

She blames Mitsuomi for her brothers death and believes he has been corrupted by his power, she has set the Juuken Club in opposition to him as a result. So far her resistance has not been very effective, the vast majority of her club was beaten up and most subsequently left school all together.

[edit] Techniques & Abilities

[edit] The Looping Blue Wood Dragon

It is revealed that Maya's Dragon's Gate is associated with the element wood, allowing anything made of wood for become a weapon to her. She even uses this power to make her necktie into a wooden blade.

[edit] Techniques

Maya fights using a style invented by her family, Natsume Goushin Ryuu.

Natsume-Style Form Refinement,[1]
A body manipulation technique. It allows Maya to take the shape of an 8 year old girl to conserve her ki. Her ancient ancestor (with the same name as her sister), Aya Natsume used a similar technique to have the opposite effect of allowing her to appear as an adult despite only being 9 years old.
Natsume Goushin Ryuu, Radou Tenkou,[2]
A shoulder rush combined with the users ki, that sends the opponent flying backwards.
Hasshiki[3]
This move appears to be a combination of punches, followed by a shoulder rush, and a kick.
Iron Finger Technique
A killing technique where the finger is rammed through the muscle into a vital organs. Typically a direct blow to the liver.
Maya with the Reiki
Maya with the Reiki

[edit] Reiki

At a young age, Maya was entrusted by her father to guard Reiki, an evil ceremonial nodachi that is the family's heirloom. She was told by both of her parents to never allow anyone to touch it, particularly her older brother Shin. Because she lacks any special powers she was picked as Reiki's guardian since she can't activate it, or be driven insane by it.

Given that Maya can't activate it, Reiki is nothing more than a long katana for her. With the assistance of her sister she was able to activate it temporarily. As the casing over the blade has shattered, revealing it's "true blade", Reiki became an even more deadly weapon even though it was wielded by someone who can not activate it. Maya is fairly skilled in swordsmanship, although not as good as Madoka Mawari. Maya is still better than her sister, so she is definitely a formidable enemy with Reiki.

[edit] Synopsis

[edit] Anime and OVAs

[edit] Story Setup Arc

After Maya saves several students from Bob and Souichiro, and their subsequent defeat by Tsutomu Ryuuzaki. They show up and join the Juuken club in order to get revenge on the Enforcement Group. While playing at a bowling ally, the Enforcement Group mounts an attack on the Juuken Club, and Maya is forced to fight Emi Isuzu in the women's rest room. In the process of this fight Maya's hair gets cut short, and her shoulder is dislocated. After defeating Emi, Maya finds Souichiro and they go to find her younger sister, Aya together. The attack at the bowling alley inspires Bob and Souichiro to find out about the relationship between Maya and the Enforcement Group.

[edit] Flashback Arc

Maya visits Shin in the underground dungeon.
Maya visits Shin in the underground dungeon.

Maya was selected of to be the guardian of the Reiki by her father. Unfortunately she did not realize the seriousness of her duty and let Shin touch it. This caused Shin's power of the dragon eyes to awaken, which allowed him to see past, present, possible futures as well as hear the thoughts of the living and the dead. It was far to much for a young boy to handle so their father locked him in an underground dungeon. Slowly his power started to make Shin more and more insane. Maya was the only one who could keep him focused, so Shin became very attached to her. Even Shin's girlfriend Mana stated that Maya and Shin seemed more like lovers than siblings. When Shin learned that his father plan to send him away thus separating the two, Shin went crazy and killed their parents with Reiki.

By high school, Maya was starting to be annoyed by her brothers constant interference in her fights, so she started to take away his "power" by taking out the members of Shin's gang, Katana. As more and more worry about the "Katana hunter" grew, Shin grew increasingly violent; he even attacked his own friends. Maya also started to develop a relationship with Mitsuomi, a member of Katana, Shin wasn't pleased with this. Mitsuomi's father purposely let Shin's insanity continue so Mitsuomi would have an evil to fight, thus helping Mitsuomi become the perfect warrior. He even had Fu Chi'en attack Maya to drive Shin over the edge, when Shin refused to take back the Reiki. Maya called out to Shin reverting him to normal,just then Mitsuomi rushed in to help, Maya also called out to him to stop. Jealous, Shin lost it again and blasted Mitsuomi with a large quantity of ki. As a result of this, Mitsuomi's heart received a lot of power, his heart beats at a rate beyond what any drug could do. With the oxygen flow in his body improved, Mitsuomi gained: a better metabolism, more vitalized muscles and improved brain function. The catch is that fighting causes his heart rate to rise to 200 beats per minute, if he fights for longer than 3 minutes his heart could rupture killing him. Regardless it shortened Mitsuomi's life span dramatically. As Shin's insanity grew, he planned to kill anyone close to Maya. Over-protection to the extreme, Shin used his dragon eyes to predict who could be even a minor threat to Maya and killed them. Mitsuomi planned to end this insanity, eventually challenging Shin and nearly killing him. Saved by his dragon eyes, Shin mounts a comeback and later kills himself with his girlfriend Mana.

Maya blames Mitsuomi for her brother's death. When Mitsuomi becomes the head of the Enforcement Group at Todou Academy, Maya opposes him even though she still has feelings for him.

[edit] Aya and the Reiki Arc

Soon afterwards, Maya discovers Reiki has gone missing, and realizes that Aya must have taken it. Fearing Aya will end up like Shin, because she too has dragon eyes, she goes after her. News gets around and Mitsuomi finds out. He then assists Maya in locating Aya to prevent a repeat of the incidents with Shin. Aya and Maya get into a fight because Aya is in love with Souichiro and plans to marry him; Souichiro, however, doesn't reciprocate this feeling. Souichiro has fallen in love with Maya, but Maya's feelings for Souichiro are unknown. Aya is very jealous and is determined to take Souichiro back, as she blames Maya for Souichiro not liking her. In the end, Aya is no match for her older sister in a fight, but does gets some encouragement from Souichiro. Maya takes back Reiki, and Aya is now more determined than ever to gain Souichiro's love.

At the end of this event, Maya, Souichiro, and Mitsuomi agree to put their fights off until the School's Election tournament, as it would be a better stage for the final showdown between the two groups.

[edit] Manga

The manga is far more graphic than the anime, although this is edited out of the CMX version. The manga has a large quantity of nudity and sex related material, not present in the anime. It is also contains more blood, and shows more graphic techniques than the anime. The manga has proceed much farther than the anime or OVAs.

There are 12 families that have historically supported the Takayangi family, as represented in the family crest the Rising Pheonix. The 12 consist of Red Feathers (which are families with supernatural powers), and White Feathers (families with ties to established martial arts). Natsume is one of the Red Feather Families, and after her brother's death Maya became the head of the family. A new alliance of the heads of the white feather families formed supposedly under Mitsuomi and call themselves 'F'.

[edit] Sohaku Arc

Despite Mitsuomi's order to wait for the tournament, F attacks the Juuken club anyway. It is later revealed they don't follow Mitsuomi, but Souichiro's estranged father, Sōhaku Kago. Sōhaku did help Mitsuomi in his coup to take over his family but after he reveals he knows Sōhaku is trying to manipulate him and is behind F. Mitsuomi agrees to team with Maya to rescue Nagi who has been kidnapped by his father, and kill Sōhaku. On their way to fight Sōhaku, Maya fights Tetsuhito. She nearly dies in this fight, but Aya was projecting herself outside her body and activates Reiki for her, as Maya doesn't have any special powers. Despite this she still can't cut Tetsuhito who's body is like iron. The outer shell of Reiki shatters revealing its true power. Maya then easily cuts Tetsuhito and kills him. Right after Maya appears dead, but does get up. Mitsuomi assists her after beheading Sōhaku, but she still doesn't seem to be in good condition. She is later seen being treated in the hospital. She seems to be in really bad shape, since she has not returned for the start of the Election Tournament.

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Tenjho Tenge" Manga; volume 1 tankōbon (Chapter 1, Page 15).
  2. ^ "Tenjho Tenge" Manga; (Chapter 84, Page 6).
  3. ^ "Tenjho Tenge" Manga; volume 2 tankōbon (Chapter 12, Page 174-175).
 v  d  e Characters in Tenjho Tenge
Juuken Club: Shin NatsumeMaya NatsumeShinichirō KureiKagesada Sugano (asshat)Masataka TakayanagiAya NatsumeSouichiro NagiBob Makihara
Enforcement Group: Mitsuomi TakayanagiEmi IsuzuBunshichi TawaraShirō TagamiShinobu KagurazakaKōji Sagara (Saga Mask)Tsutomu Ryuuzaki
'F': Sōhaku KagoNoriko Shindayuu InueTetsuhito KagiroiKatsumi KabutoJushi Mataza TsumujiTessen IshiyumiMadoka Mawari
Supporting Characters: ReikiDōgen TakayanagiMakiko NagiFu Chi'enMana Kuzunoha