Toy Review: Tenjho Tenge Gashapons

12/4/09

Tenjho Tenge Kaiyodo
Vol.2 Gashapon Set

Since I am a male (arguably), my taste in anime tends toward the “shonen” variety. While girls get boring cartoon dramas where guys and girls moan about their “feelings” and go about furthering “relationships” in “real world” situations, Japanese boys get some really kick-ass shit on TV. It’s like He-man and GI Joe, only with more pervasive violence, obvious sexual innuendo and hilarious physical comedy. Three Stooges, but with gainaxing.

While I never did watch Gurren Lagann, the cartoon where my Yoko (Movie Version) and Yoko (TV Version) figures originated, I did watch most of Tenjho Tenge. I’ve got the whole series and the OAVs on DVD somewhere and horrific subtitles be damned, I was able to plow through the entire run. This was mostly due to the aforementioned gainaxing, but there was the occasional super-powered kung-fu fight where one or more of the main female characters ended up with most of their clothing ripped off.

As you can imagine, I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what the names of the male characters in this series were. I can tell you about the FEMALE characters, but there’s really no need. If you’ve seen one of these super-sexy-martial-artist-kicks-high-school-butt shows, you’ve seen them all. It’s not unlike Ranma (but no where near as good of course) or Dragon Destiny or several dozen other shows that have been imported here. The ones featured in this set are the most prominent ones in the series though; sisters Maya and Aya Natsume, one of their enemies, red haired Emi Isuzu, one of their friends, Chiaki Kounoike, and the child form of Maya (don’t ask).

These weren’t my first Tenjho Tenge figure. That distinction belongs to the Bome Maya in my collection, which was also made by Kaiyodo. Kaiyodo has made many of the anime figures I like, including my set of articulated Dead Or Alive 3″ figures which I reviewed a few weeks ago. This here set is similar to that one in that they are both done in the anime style, are hyper-articulated, and are about 3″ in scale or so. They fit fairly well with GI Joe figures. However, the way the joints are set up on this particular set is rather odd. They make for some very dynamic poses, but if you want to pose them say, sitting normally… well that’s kind of hard.

For instance, most of the waist joints aren’t set parallel to the ground. They’re cut at an angle, to allow the figure to look as if it’s “bending” it’s back in a display of drool-worthy flexibility. It looks great if one of them is swinging a sword or something, but like I said, the angles means that they’re locked into a certain range of motion that isn’t good for standing at rest.

It’s also not really good for balance. Only two of the toys come with stands (at least of the 2 sets I’ve bought second hand, neither has more than that) that help increase their footprint. It’s definitely needed since they’ve got the tiniest feet I’ve ever seen on an action figure. Without the stand and with the unpredictable center of gravity that the funky joints give them, it’ll take you a few minutes to find that sweet spot to balance them. WITH the stand, there are some great poses you can put them in like some serious, upskirt high kicks and roundhouses.

Accessories wise, they’ve got a few swords. I’m not sure which really belongs to which character, but there are 3 of them that were included in the sets. 2 are versions of the nodachi that Maya carries, named “Reiki”. A nodachi is a two-handed Japanese field sword that is meant to chop off the legs of horses as they ride past foot soldiers. Nice. One of the Reikis is sheathed, while the other is naked. I prefer the sheathed one since I like to leave some things to the imagination. The last sword is a shorter katana that is supposed to go to Chiaki I guess.

The problem with these is the same thing as many of these gashapon figures that come in blind boxes. I’m not sure what the reasoning is behind trading figures and blind boxes, but it means that the figures have to break down and fit into boxes that are all the same size and shape. Since those packages obviously aren’t going to be big enough to fit a sword bigger than the figure, they broke it apart. You’re supposed to fit the two pieces together (there’s a tiny tab and socket system). Thing is, they break. Easily. It’s really frustrating.

Sculpt and paint - about what you’d expect. There’s some paint here and there, but since they’re mostly tiny parts with peg and hole joints, most of the figures are cast in color. What paint there is isn’t anything to write home about, but no glaring errors on the two sets I own. I prefer the leggy look of these figures to the DOA gashapons, but both are pretty fair examples of their class.

There are three Kaiyodo gashapon sets for Tenjho Tenge. The first set is basically just you’re classic gashapon; small, stationary, plastic display pieces. I own these as well, and while they are pretty good looking, their lack of articulation and presence on the shelf is the reason I’m not a fan. Volume 3 are near the same thing; small, plastic, busts of the characters. The only draw here is that about half the material used is basically dedicated to cup size. It’s really ridiculous.

If you have to choose, I’d recommend the Dead or Alive set. This one is pretty fair, but the annoying delicateness coupled with those weird joints really make them less playable.