Tenjho Tenge Gashapon Part 1

Product Information/Specifications

Introduction

Kaiyodo & avex mode teamed up to make a long product line for the Tenjho Tenge Gashapon series.  Each series was released a month at a time.  There are a total of three parts & each of them are different.  This is part 1 of the gashapon lineup.  This set contains five figurines.  The design for this lineup is the traditional static figure poses.

Some of the pictures aren't clear & good.  If I have time, I'll redo the bad ones & repost them.

The Review

Tenjho Tenge Part 1 Figure Paper

The set contains of Maya Nastume, Chibi Maya, Mana Kusunoha, Aya Natsume, & Emi Isuzu.  For ¥300 a piece, you would expect above average gashapons; especially from Kaiyodo.  However, that wasn't the case.  Just looking at the figure paper alone, the figurines aren't that good.

Tenjho Tenge Part 1 gashapon set

The assembly work on these figurines were a bit of a pain in the rear.  Some of the piece didn't fit in snuggly.  The biggest pain was from Aya.  It had a lot of pieces for that staff she's holding.  Building it was so complicated that Kaiyodo actually gives you a piece of paper telling you how to assemble it & which parts go first.  Let's examine the staff.  Before that, not in the pic is Mana's glasses.  Mana's glasses are small & goes in her right hand.  I had problems putting it in & making it stay there, so I give up & put it in a safe place to avoid losing it.  I should comment that the glasses isn't molded into shape well.

All that cloth is a really pain to put together, but the results pay off.  The flow is it looks good, but unnatural to me.  In other words, I can't tell how the staff was swung to get the cloth to move like that.  I should mention though, it's quite long.  I think the length of this figurine is about 15cm.  Aside from the cloth, the tip of the staff was well designed & painted.  Hardly any sight of unevenness & bleeding from the chrome blue & gray colours.  Now for the other details.

The design on Aya's dress is good.  It's most likely that was etched in, regardless of its size.  Also etched in is Isuzu's T-shirt.

The heart & "Scorpions" word is etched in beautifully.  Very precise  Also, the red lining of Isuzu's shirt is painted well.  Very little bleeding, but some parts aren't even as you can see in the left side of her shirt where the groove mark is.  Now for her daggers.  The daggers are painted fairly well.  Some unevenness & bleeding, but it's expected from gashapon figures.  As you can see from her hands, the daggers are bent.  This can be fixed by using hot water to bend it back into shape.  I could do it, but I'm a bit lazy to do it.  The details on the other girls' clothing don't need to be mention much since it's pretty much 1 solid colour on each piece of clothing with very little or no design at all.  Now for the faces.

The Female Faces of TenTen

When I first saw their faces, I thought it was bad.  I didn't except much from it since figure's faces on gashapon are really good anyways.  Over time, I got used to it & thought to myself that they don't look as bad as I thought.  However, they do need some work a bit; especially Isuzu.  I found Isuzu's face to be the worse as it didn't really match her drawings at all.  Although all of the figurines don't match their drawing faces, Isuzu was the worse.  However, credit should be given for the faces of Maya.  Although the teenage & chibi faces of Maya are pretty much the same, the eyes makes some difference.  The big eyes on Chibi really makes it look like a child's face.  The teenage face could use some work to make her sexier in my opinion.

Overall Conclusion

I felt Tenjho Tenge Part 1 was a pretty bad start for Kaiyodo & avex mode.  I felt they should have delayed the release to work on it some more.  I really didn't want this set.  But since I like parts 2 & 3, I figured that I might as well get this part to complete the series.  However, the later parts were better than this.  I had them in a display case with parts 2 & 3 together.  But I threw them away when I tried to sell them away & ended up breaking some of the figurines due to some joints being stuck together for a long time.

Out of ten, I rate this set a 6.5.  I really felt Part 1 needed a lot of work.  Except for Aya's & maybe Isuzu's poses, the figurines didn't have much to show.  Aya was the only figurine I liked out of the set & that was almost the only reason I gave this set some points; aside from the good paint & detail work.

If you want to get TenTen Part 1, chances of finding it can be slim.  I have seen some Hong Kong sellers selling this set for a low price, but beware.  Some, or else most, of them are bootlegs.  I'm not sure how the quality is for those, but I would advise you to stay away from them regardless of how cheap they are.

Photos were taken using Sony DSC-F828 digital still camera & HP scanjet 4470c scanner.

Last updated on May 27, 2008