Plot Summary of Tenjho Tenge
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This article is a summary of the main events of the anime/manga series Tenjho Tenge.
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[edit] Story Setup
Two new students, Bob Makihara and Souichiro Nagi, arrive at Todou Academy with plans to rule the school. They beat up everyone they come across, until they encounter Maya Natsume and Masataka Takayanagi. After being knocked out a window by Maya, Souichiro lands in the shower room with Maya’s younger sister, Aya Natsume. Much to Souichiro’s shock, Aya falls in love at first sight and insists he has to marry her. Souichiro rejects her and runs away; that doesn't stop Aya though, who continues to pursue him. Eventually Souchiro picks a fight with Masataka after escaping from Aya, he loses...badly. He swears he'll never lose again as a result.
The two new students' violent actions have also caught the attention of the Enforcement Group that controls the school. After the destruction of Bob's precious motorcycle, the assault (rape in the manga) of Bob's girlfriend Chiaki, and the two's defeat, all at the hands of Tsutomu Ryuuzaki, the two decide to join the Juuken Club. This group is opposed to the Enforcement Group because Maya has a long history with the Enforcement Group president, Masataka's brother, Mitsuomi Takayanagi. After the Juuken Club is attacked at a bowling alley, Souichiro and Bob realize they are now at the center of a conflict they know little about.
[edit] Flashback Arc
They pick a fight with Bunshichi Tawara, and after a beat down he takes them back to Bob's girlfriend and tells them the story of the past. The story progresses into a flashback that makes up the majority of the anime which concerns Maya's older brother Shin Natsume, and the events surrounding his death two years ago.
Shin possessed Dragon Eyes, allowing him to see anywhere in the past, present, possible futures, and even read thoughts. It even let him see and talk with the spirits of the dead. His power awakened 8 years before the main storyline while Shin was just a boy. His father was scared of his power, and knew if the other members of the 12 families knew Shin had dragon eyes they might think he couldn't control it and would go crazy. In an attempt to protect Shin and the rest of the family, he locked him in an underground dungeon. Not surprisingly locking a child up with no human contact except that of his sister and a series of ghosts doesn't help their sanity much. As a result Shin became VERY attached to Maya. When his father planned to move him away to a relative's, thus separating him from Maya he lost it. He used the family's heirloom, the evil ceremonidal Nodachi, Reiki, to murder his parents.
When Mitsuomi enters Todou, he is taken under Shin's wing, who at the time was a senior, the president of the Enforcement Group, and head of the gang Katana. The school life was soon thrown into turmoil when Shin's gang, begins falling under attack by an unknown assailant called the Katana Hunter. Life becomes crazier for Mitsuomi when Shin's girlfriend, Mana Kuzunoha starts to have an affair with him, and then openly spreads it around. When Mitsuomi finally asks her why, she responses by giving him a video to watch. He asks Bunshichi to watch the tape with him, since not only does he already know about the affair, he's taken pictures of it. The video starts out as nothing more than Shin and Mana's early relationship, some footage of Bunshichi and himself, but then dramatically shifts to Shin killing innocents just for a "distraction". Disturbed by this Mitsuomi is overwhelmed by fear. The Katana members push Bunshichi for information on the Katana hunter, despite the fact he knows he refuses to tell them. With new information, some of the members of Katana figure out the Katana Hunter's real identity is Maya and plot revenge; this is exactly why Bunshichi didn't tell them, Shin would never allow that. Subsequently they get beaten nearly to death by Shin. Bunshichi is Shin's best friend, and had seen enough of this erratic behavior. He goes to beat some sense into Shin. He discovers Shin's recent actions are being caused by Reiki. Bunshichi suffers massive injuries but in the end he comes out on top, and even damages Shin's eye causing him to wear an eyepatch temporarily. After Shin's defeat and the subsequent removal of Reiki from his position, Shin returns to normal (normal for Shin is still pretty crazy though).
Around this point Shin has a final meeting of Katana, Bunshichi is left out however. This meeting consisted of a motorcycle race between the only other remaining members Mitsuomi and Shin. Shin has seen visions of his death since childhood, he was slowly coming to the realization the person in those visions was Mitsuomi. Strangely enough he seems ok with that, and even encourages Mitsuomi to make it real. During this race Shin tells Mitsuomi to take him down if he ever loses control again.
As the schools annual tournament approaches, which decides what group will make up the Enforcement Group, Shin decides that he wants to compete. As all of the Katana members but Shin, Mitsuomi and Bunshichi have quit, Shin forms the Juuken Club with the three as members. Five people are necessary to compete and there is a rush to find two more members before the tournament starts. Everyone is terrified of Shin, and no one wants to join as a result. Mitsuomi convinces Maya to join, confident that the 4 of them are more than enough to win Maya takes Kagesada Sugano (almost solely referred to as his nickname Asshat in the manga, scum in the anime), who has no fighting skills and forces him to be their fifth member.
As the finals approach Shin is pulled aside by Dōgen Takayanagi, Mitsuomi's father. Dōgen wants to create a true warrior in Mitsuomi and believes there must be an evil to overcome in order to do that. Dōgen wants Shin to be this evil and attempts to return Reiki to him at school in the hopes he'll slaughter a lot of people and Mitsuomi will be forced to bring him down. Shin refuses the sword, so Dōgen tries the dishonorable method. He orders Fu Chi'en (Mitsuomi's sensei) to attack Maya, Shin's precious sister to set him off anyway. As Shin arrives late for a fight, his opponent opens the door to reveal Maya beaten and barely clothed. Shin's dragon eyes activate Reiki (even though it's not in his possession) and he subsequently nearly kills his opponent and all of Fu Chi'en's men. Mana runs to get Mitsuomi, who she believes is the only one that could stop Shin in that state. Shin fights with Fu Chi'en, and rips off Fu Chi'en’s hands at the wrist. Afterwards, he starts to assault the innocent Emi Isuzu, but is stopped when Maya calls out to him returning him to normal. Almost at the same time Mitsuomi bursts in and rushes Shin, in order to stop Mitsuomi, Maya also calls out to him. This makes Shin jealous and angry; resulting in the dragon eyes activating again. Shin blasts Mitsuomi with a large quantity of Ki. Mitsuomi is taken to the hospital and appeared to be fine, but later he is returned to the hospital after coughing up blood.
At the finals for the Election tournament start, everyone is absent from the Juuken Club except Bunshichi and Kagesada. At the last second Mitsuomi shows up and takes on the entire other team alone. In three minutes he defeats five of the top fighters in the school. Afterward he grabs his chest and leaves. He meets Mana outside and collapses on her, and pukes blood. Mana, a member of the medical club, explains what has happened to his body. The large quantity of Ki fired into his heart by Shin has sped it up, far beyond anything drugs could mimic. As a result his body is becoming super oxygenated, vitalizing his muscles, improving his metabolism and even improving his brain functions. Essentially, he gets super human abilities for three minutes. If he fights longer than that his heart rate will surpass 200 beats per minute, and will rupture. Even if Mitsuomi does not fight he has 2-3 years of life left.
By this time Shin has become entirely insane. He decides to take over protection to the extreme and kill anyone who gets near Maya, friend or foe. Mitsuomi figures this out and plans to free Maya by defeating Shin, he swears he'll take Shin down in two months. Two months later, Shin insists on a group photo, strange behavior as he did not want anyone near Maya. He then challenges Mitsuomi to a fight to determine the Enforcement Group president. These actions indicate he knew he had lost it and wanted Mitsuomi to take him down like he asked. Mitsuomi dominates the fight; however, Shin refused to use his dragon eyes. He tries to take Mitsuomi out with him but fails. Mana stops the fight but then Reiki decides it doesn't want Shin to die. It activates his dragon eyes and Shin then blasts through Mana and hits Mitsuomi with the Takayanagi secret technique, the Forged Iron Needle attack. After pummeling Mitsuomi and knocking out almost everyone in the room, Shin returns to normal and has the dying Mana assist him in taking his own life.
This event changes Mitsuomi, he to removes his father from power in order for him to become the head of the Takayanagi family estate, with the help of Sōhaku Kago and the Chinese Mafia. As the Enforcement Group president, Mitsuomi restructures the group to better suppress the other power users in the school. His new power does not sit well with Maya, who blames Mitsuomi for her brother’s death. To oppose him, she becomes the new captain of the Juuken club. Originally there were many members that were with her, but they were all beat up by the Enforcement Group and quit school.
[edit] Aya and the Reiki Arc
Now informed of the past conflicts, Bob and Souichiro plan to train and take down Mitsuomi’s Enforcement Group. The story line soon turns when Maya discovers Reiki is missing. When it is discovered Aya had taken it, this causes quite the uproar because she has dragon eyes like Shin. Everyone starts to fear she will end up like Shin and Maya sets out to take it away from her. Mitsuomi finds out, and not wanting to see a repeat of the past, assists Maya in finding Aya and taking it back. Little do they know she is being sheltered by Masataka who has no idea what is going on. Maya eventually tracks down her sister and takes Reiki back, resulting in a fight between the two over Souichiro. Aya loves him, but he loves Maya, Maya's feelings are uknown. Aya blames her sister for Souichiro's lack of interest in her and wants to "take him back". Aya loses but at least gets back in good spirits again. At the end of it all Mitsuomi agrees to put off his aggression against the Juuken Club until the annual Election tournament.
[edit] F Arc
Maya then plans to train Bob and Souichiro to take down Mitsuomi. In the process Souchiro awakens his family’s powers of the Demon Exorcist. It is discovered the original 12 founding families that supported the Takayanagi family are split into red feathers and white feathers on the family crest (a phoenix). Each red feather family has their own unique powers, such as the Natsume dragon eyes and the Nagi's dragon fist. The anime and OVAs end there but the Manga goes much farther.
When Mitsuomi took over, the heads of these other families were removed from power at the same time, and a new alliance of the original heads children was formed under Mitsuomi called 'F'. Despite the order to wait for the next tournament, F attacks the Juuken Club anyway. Soon it is discovered F does not follow Mitsuomi at all and is acting on the orders of the man who not only formed F, but helped Mitsuomi remove his father from power, Sōhaku Kago. It is revealed Sōhaku happens to be Souichiro's estranged father. Tessen Ishiyumi is the only member of F that does support Mitsuomi, Ishiyumi attacks Souichiro because he believes it is for the good of Mitsuomi, even if it's not what he wanted.
Soon after this the vice-captain of the Juuken club shows up, a small (very small though he's the same age as Maya) boy who at first is mistaken for a large-eyed alien, Shinichirō Kurei. The surprisingly good with the ladies, Kagesada Sugano "Asshat", who is one of the original Juuken members also returns. Kagesada decided to train with the Juuken club (despite his usually cowardly behavior) and help them in the Election tournament after Nagi and Bob beat him in a "fight" (even though it primarily consisted of throwing naked women at them to test their focus). Up until now Asshat thought it was a waste of time to oppose Mitsuomi and hadn't done anything since Shin died.
Next Mataza, another member of "F" leading his fathers former soldiers completely wipes out the Enmi family, one of the 36 branch families of the red feathers (a branch of the Natsume family in this case), who use the Dragon Pupil (a variation of the Dragon Eye) to make people see illusions with the help of moths. The only survivors are Mouki, a small boy and the current heir of the family, and Enma, a temple priestess Mataza kept alive to torture (brutally) for information. Souichiro's mom, Makiko Nagi leaves for Kyushu when she hears what happens. About the same time, Mouki turns up at the Natsume house for protection.
The Hayabusa Brothers, Mataza's armored infantry division, show up at the Natsume residence and take Mouki. However Aya's Dragon Eye (Her proximity to Mouki, someone with a similar power, is causing "resonance" making her powers easier to use) starts working for her. She and Souichiro are able to track the Hayabusa down on a scooter (using Aya's dragon eyes to find the shortcuts through town), defeat them and get Mouki back.
Defying the direct orders of Maya, Aya and Souichiro take Mouki back to Kyushu, with Shinichirō stowing away in Aya's backpack (Maya sent him to keep an eye on them because she knew they'd go anyway). At the destroyed temple at the Enma home they meet up with Yorihira Tsumuji, the ousted former leader of the Tsumuji family and father of F's Mataza. He reveals the reason the family was attacked and what Mataza and F is after is the family's sacred scroll. When Aya helps him find it, it turns out that it was really a microchip hidden in the scroll F was after. Yorihira takes it and then ditches Aya and Souichiro telling them not to get involved.
Yorihira confronts Mataza soon after and has the microchip taken away from him in a quick scuffle. Mataza, showing his hatred for even his own father douses him in gasoline and lights him aflame. To his surprise Yorihira charges, but is stopped by Souichiro and Aya as they enter the battle and put out Mataza's flames. Souichiro's attack on Mataza strips him of the clothing on his upper half, revealing an attachment on Mataza 's back with eight separate robotic appendages, each equipped with a hand that holds identical pole arms.
Surrounded by Mataza’s henchmen, Souichiro tries to inch forward to use the Forged Iron Needle attack on Mataza. Mataza already knows the effective distance of the attack as well as Souichiro’s total biography. Souichiro is also told that Tessen Ishiyumi and the members of "F" except Mataza had considered inviting him into "F". Aya breaks up the conversation by, using Maya's sword, Kotetsu to slice the guns of the henchmen into pieces, and gives Yorihira a spear to fight. As he proceeds to take care of the men equipped with "stun rapiers", Mataza's Iron Armored Cavalry returns on modified bikes only to be once again defeated by Aya.
Soon, the three are surrounded with no way out. Shinichirō appears, using "the Solar Fist Technique", a mock of Dragonball Z's famed Solar Flare technique. Actually Shinichirō was only standing in front of a car with its high beams on (the creator likes mocking DBZ). After watching Souichiro, Aya, Yorihira, Shinichirō, and Mouki retreat into the forest, Mataza instructs one of his men to burn the forest down after three minutes, and heads in after them.
Mataza catches up to the five and in an instant disembowels Shinichirō, Yorihira, and Mouki, as well as shattering the sword Kotetsu. However, Shinichirō, Yorihira, and Mouki are shown sneaking into a trailer to free Enma, as well as shut down the server that is linked to the eight armed appendage on Mataza’s back, stopping the arms from killing Aya and Souichiro. The three disemboweled bodies are revealed to be one of Mouki's illusions. Souchiro enters his demon exorcist form and he instantly destroys the eight arms attached to Mataza.
Yorihira confronts the Mataza’s troops outside of the trailer and apologizes to them for the things his son has done, going so far as to let them stab him in the eye to atone. As he prepares take the other eye, Enma steps in with Mouki claiming that the Enmi family will never forgive the Tsumuji family, but that they won't condemn him for his actions.
Through a flashback to 8 years ago, Mataza is revealed to be the second son of Yorihira, born out of wedlock, and was hated by his half-brother Yorimasa. Mataza was driven to the point that he attempted to kill him, but was only stopped by Yorihira. The broken spear shards went through his eye and as stated by Dōgen, may have gone as far as into his brain, which in rare cases, awakens hidden power. Using the power of the red feather family resonance as Souichiro did to release his Dragon Fist, Mataza releases his Dragon Claws and challenges Souichiro to another battle. The fight is to fast paced and dangerous for Aya to intervene, even with her dragon eyes. None the less Souichiro comes out on top, however, he starts to lose control of himself. His mother arrives just in time to stop him, but loses her one remaining arm in the process nearly killing her.
[edit] Sōhaku Arc
Later in the hospital Sohaku comes and kidnaps Souichiro, where he is forced to fight members of the 36 branch families so he can steal their power with his Dragon Fist. Aya returns without him and tells the others what happened. About the same time a power struggle starts in the Takayanagi family. Souhaku wants Mitsuomi as a puppet ruler, and Mitsuomi doesn't agree. Eventually they threaten to take Mitsuomi out and put his brother Masataka in his place, resulting in Mitsuomi punching Noriko Shindayuu Inue in the face. He eventually teams with Maya to rescue Souichiro and kill Sohaku.
They resuce Souichiro and head for Souhaku. Maya gets in a fight with Tetsuhito Kagiroi and tells the others to proceed without her. Turns out Sohaku has a plan to create the ultimate warrior like Dougen did but his method is much different. He took the eye out of Souichiro's mother and implanted it in Tetsuhito, giving him the Dragon Fist power and all the powers Souichiro's mother had stolen as well. With all but one of the dragons gates, plus a unique family trait that makes his body like iron, Souhaku believes he is the ultimate warrior. Souichiro's mother informed Maya of this, and his weak points...the marks on his body reveal what power he is about to use when he is in the dark. Despite this Tetsuhito nearly kills Maya anyway, until Aya projects herself outside her body and activates Reiki for her sister. Still unable to cut Tetsuhito's iron body the swords casing breaks revealing its "true blade". With the true blade of Reiki revealed she cuts Tetsuhito with ease, killing him. None the less Maya is almost dead at the end of this fight.
Meanwhile, Souichiro and Madoka Mawari attack Sohaku but are hesitant to kill him. Mitsuomi doesn't care, runs up and beheads Souhaku. He then goes outside to assist Maya, Souichiro remains in the room alone.
[edit] Feudal Japan Arc
Reiki makes a projected form of itself for Aya to see (a naked woman in this case) and talks to Aya through her dragon eyes. It takes her into the past and shows her scenes of her ancestor, and ancestors of some of the other 12 families as they attempt to kill Sohaku. Sohaku at the time was controlling a chuck of the country, though some method of brainwashing or mental control on Ieyasu Tokugawa. He plans to use, Ieyasu's grand-daughter, Senihime's Amaterasu's dragons gate ability for amplification as opposed to its normal neutralization power. He wants to use the Red Wing Resonance Effect to awaken powers in people world wide. They Reveal Sohaku is hundreds of years old, and has the power to control death.
Ichiyo Nagi (Souichiro's ancestor), Aya Natsume (Aya's ancestor), Tokuan Shojo, and Myouun Kabane work together to infiltrate Osaka Castle through Tokuan's shapeshifting powers (he pretends to be Tadaaki Jiroemon Ono, after he kills him in the red-light district). The plan takes a downturn as Myouun is ambushed and killed. Using Senihime's neutralization powers to their advantage Ichiyo stages a plan where Aya will attack Sohaku when he is with range of Senihime's power, thus making the immortal Sohaku killable. The plan succeeds for the most part, although Sohaku takes Aya out with him.
As Sohaku has an important role in the government Tokuan takes his form and assumes his role. Little do they know, Sohaku has a second ability: he can store his conciousness in his right eye and when they eye is implanted in others he can take over their body. With the assitance of Senihime's dog Sohaku's eye is removed from his body and Noriko Shindayuu Inue implants it in Tokuan's body. As Tokuan was impersonating Sohaku he looks just as he did in the past, given his position and Tetsuhito Kagiroi killing Ieyasu, if Sohaku died so would Japan (it would fall into civil war etc.). Through these means he pins Ichiyo into a corner where despite his hate for Sohaku he can do nothing to stop him.
In the Present; Noriko carring Sohaku's severed head, enters the room with Souichiro and pokes out his right eye, and its implied she puts Sohaku's in its place. Souchiro starts wearing an eyepatch and can't remember so its not clear, what exactly happened.
[edit] Tournament Arc
As the tournament finally starts Souichiro and Bob have cut their hair off and Souichiro wears an eyepatch. Aya too has cut some of her hair off, but doesn't say why. As the tournament starts the Juuken Club gets pinned down by their first round opponents, the Archery Club. Masataka slept in on accident and on his way to the fight encounters Shirō Tagami, a member of the Executive Council. Tagami shows Masataka a shortcut to the Archery Club's position, where Masataka crushes the leaders crossbow and wins the round for the team.
Souichiro defeats their 2nd round competitors by scaling a wall and hitting them all with the Forged Iron Needle Attack. Afterward he has no idea how he got up there.
The Juuken Club spends a good chunk of time trying to hunt down Kagesada (Asshat), as he is hiding to avoid fighting. He feels something is wrong, and it reminds him way to much of when Shin was in school. Two clubs were defeated by people who should not have been able to beat them and it freaks Kagesada out. He encounters a strange girl, who he deduces is doing something to people to give them special powers and seemingly brainwash them. She references the fact there are 3 people in his club with powers. He knows Aya, and Souichiro have powers but can't figure out the third person, initially thinking it was Masataka. After some "encouragement" so to speak form Bunshichi he decides the third person is him and he is going to play the role of "hero". In the second round they fight the Jujutsu Club, the Juuken Club having given up on Kagesada, is watching their next opponent's fight. At the end of the round they ask the Juuken Club if they can just start the next round right now. The Juuken Club accepts.
As Souichiro steps up to play the role of "advance guard", Kagesada runs in and says he will take that role. Souichiro tries to stop him but Masataka holds him back, having faith in Kagesada. As Kagesada gets his face rubbed on the mat in humiliation, Shinichirō starts to comment that this was a mistake and it takes more than passion to win a match. Mastaka cuts him off and points out Kagesada has been with the captian longer than anyone, then it's revealed Kagesada actually has had the upperhand the whole time. While he appeared to be tying on sparring pads right before the fight started, he was actually untying them. He wrapped the cords around his opponents neck while his opponent rubbed his face on the mat. He's been choking him out the whole time, and Kagesada wins the match.
Kagesada, to the shock of his team mates, subsequently defeats the remaining members of the Jujutsu Club. It turns out he has been doing some very significant training over the years, now he takes and delivers hits very well. The newly brainwashed and enhanced captain of the Jujutsu Club arrives; Kagesada fights her as well. Kagesada struggles at first given the captain's enhanced abilities, but starts to mount a comeback. It is short lived however, as the captain catches Kagesada's arm and breaks it.
