Sunday, June 5, 2016

Stir and Repeat: Tenkousei


So here is Tenkousei, a four episode softcore h-anime from 1997. Tenkousei has almost exactly the same plot and stock characters as Doukyuusei and Kakyuusei, except that the girls in the hero's harem are mostly transfer students rather than classmates or first-years. The hero is an "ordinary student," Tsukui Shinichi, now in his senior year. A long-lost childhood friend, Ayase Aoi, moves in next-door and transfers into his school. Shinichi can't quite remember Aoi, which upsets her quite a bit. Her good looks attract the attention of Shinichi's comic sidekick, Yamashita Satoshi, and the school playboy, Kanzaki Kotoro. While Shinichi and Aoi spar over a potential relationship, Shinichi crosses paths with and then beds other students, including a clumsy genki girl, Fujiro Mami; an aggressive vamp, Ebina Mika; and the president of the Flower Arrangement Club, Hayama Reiko, before finally ending up in the arms of his destined True Love. Only Ayase Aoi and Ebina Mika are actually transfer students, although Hayama Reiko transfers out at the end of her episode, conveniently clearing the decks for the next girl. It would have strained even the elastic framework of an eroge to have four transfer students show up more or less at once.

Tenkousei really has nothing much to recommend it. The sex scenes at the end of each episode are tasteful and tame; the show isn't hentai in any real sense of the word. The animation is crude, mostly 8fps, and the male character designs tend to the comic. (Shinichi's ears remind me of Mighty Mouse.) The music is functional, and the ending song doesn't really stand out. Perhaps the franchise was petering out from creative fatigue.
 
The actor who played Shinichi, Ueda Yuji, has had quite a long career in anime, playing the lead role in Love, Hina, as well as a recurring role in all the Pokemon properties. Sango Minako, who played Aoi, has a shorter resume, including featured role in Futakoi and (non-h) Kakyuusei, as well as other h-anime including Koihime and Welcome to Pia Carrot. The other voice credits have not made it into the standard databases.

The translation is by an anonymous contributor. convexity translated the ending song, Yogicat timed, I edited and typeset, and Calyrica did QC. (As you can see, Orphan is  short-staffed, particularly on QC these days.) The raws are from pornolab.
With the release of Tenkousei, the only unsubbed series in the franchise is the non-h version of Kakyuusei, from 1999. C1 hasn't released an episode in more than six months. Perhaps the show is now an orphan?