Based on a popular manga from the Ultra Jump publication, Tenjho Tenge has finally seen release here in the states after some slight delay. The anime version of the violent manga has been toned down a tad, but that doesn't mean this release is a push over. Fans will still revel in the crunching bones, spraying blood and sexual innuendos provided here, there is just arguably less of each compared to the manga.

The show focuses on a faction of the Todo Academy named the Juken Club who's martial arts is arguably the best. Souichiro and Bob who were newcomers to the school have joined forces with Takayanagi, Aya and Maya to train and grow stronger. Unfortunately this alliance has caught the attention of the school's executive council and all sorts of fights ensue.

There is a lot of fan service with this show, so be prepared to see an ample amount of cleavage, panty shots and magical girl transformations. While it's a martial arts show the real focus here is on the magical powers of chi, so everyone has special abilities. Aya is arguably one of the more powerful with her budding technique called the Dragon Eye, but Souichiro isn't going to be too far behind when his training is complete.

In the last volume we saw Aya fall madly in love with Souichiro and all of the jealous fallout that came about because of that. The executive council issued orders for an executioner and the Juken Club took on a warrior with flaming chi. Unfortunately where as the first volume of the show had four episodes, the second installment only has three.

The same theme runs through each of these episodes and overall the disc goes by pretty quickly because it's nothing but straight action from the first scene to the last. Maya figured it would be a good idea to take the group on a retreat from the training camp to the bowling alley, but she wasn't expecting the executioners to show up in full force. That's right; the entire executive council has appeared to eliminate the Juken Club once and for all.

Souichiro squares off against the pro wrestler, Maya takes on Isuzu in the ladies room and Aya tackles Tagami and his super long staff. In the meantime Takayanagi and Bob fight 70-80 guys in the main room of the bowling alley. There are a lot of great moments during the fight scenes and watching the characters pull off their chi moves is pretty cool, though sometimes it can be a little ridiculous. Kind of like Isuzu using the power of chi to conceal her obesity in the form of a hot chicks body. You have to take some of what happens here with a grain of salt and just accept that these characters have some magical powers.

Since it's mostly all fighting in this volume there isn't a lot of character development, which the first volume lacked as well. There are a few snippets that resemble some slight expansion of their personalities, but overall the material here is one fight scene after another. We do see Aya use the power of the Dragon's Eye as she takes a look into Souichiro's past and Maya looks at the responsibilities she holds as a leader. Overall, this volume is a decent continuation of the story, but the fact that there are only three episodes here and not much character or plot development puts a bit of a damper on things.

Tenjho Tenge is in 1.33:1 ratio full screen as is the case with many TV to DVD series. I really enjoyed the art direction of this show and the animation is top notch, you can tell that extra attention to detail was put into the fight scenes and it transfers beautifully to DVD format. Since there is a lot of fighting in the second volume though there are some shortcuts used in the animation process. Still character shots and repeat animations are used sparingly, but for the most part the show continues it's great artistic style.

The images are very crisp and clean with only a couple minor snippets of pixilation that popped up on dark backgrounds. The colors are very vivid and each character seems to have their own palette. Overall this is a very nice and clean transfer with little to complain about.

Tenjho Tenge features two audio tracks: 2.0 English and 2.0 Japanese. While I am a fan of original language tracks with subtitles, the English Dubbing here was pretty good. The Japanese track feature comparable audio quality with accurately translated subtitles as far as I could tell after having watched the show with both tracks.

If you happen to be fluent in Japanese you'll be happy to know that you can shut the subtitles off, even though they start automatically with the language. I was a little disappointed that there was no 5.1 audio included, but even still the sound from this disc was good quality.

Uh oh! You know you're in for it when the only feature listed on the back of the packaging is "DVD BONUS: Non-Credit Opening". Unfortunately that's about all that is available on this disc aside from previews of Fafner, Girls Bravo and Gungrave. The "non-credit opening" is exactly as it sounds with the opening montage and theme song just without the credits getting in the way. This is about as barebones as it gets folks.

The show may have started out with a decent first volume that set up the characters and story for a good amount of development. Unfortunately the second volume doesn't follow suit and even so there are only three episodes on the disc. I like the characters and the fight scenes are fun to watch, but I'm not convinced that the show is going to go in a positive direction at this point. The video and audio offer some pretty good quality, but this installment (like the first) gets a pretty barebones treatment. Rent it

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