Line #43 WesternAnimation/TenkoAndTheGuardiansOfTheMagic


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10	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tenkoatgom.png]]
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12	''Tenko and the Guardians of the Magic'' was an ephemeral 1995 animated show by Creator/SabanEntertainment, kicked off by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=876383KDYks&list=PL7iHDx18sVFFN_gDCu6SjoTct6Pp_ZfzR&index=2 a sneak preview]] hosted by Creator/AmyJoJohnson.
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14	The story is about a young teenage girl who was discovered by an old magician, Hikita, while she was performing at a circus. He told her she could do more magic than just magic tricks if she got the proper training and she agreed to come with him. She goes to the school to train with five (six if Shonti is counted) other students and soon becomes best in the class. Becoming the Tenko, she learns about the powerful Starfire Gems, each of which have their own magic power. However, another student, Jana, enraged that neither she nor her brother Jason was chosen as the new leader of the gems' guardians despite their grandfather being Hikita's predecessor, coerces Jason into stealing the gems. They get their hands on one apiece, but most of the rest is sent to the ends of the earth to keep them out of the twins' hands. Tenko and her friends are required to recover them all.
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16	At the end of each episode, her live action counterpart Princess Tenko (a real life magician [[CelebrityToons who inspired this show's creation]]) would either perform an amazing magic act while wearing flashy costumes, or teach a simple magic trick the kids watching could perform. The show was canceled after only one season due to poor ratings.
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18	See also: ''WesternAnimation/PrincessGwenevereAndTheJewelRiders'' and ''ComicBook/WonderWomanAndTheStarRiders''.
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20	!!Tropes used by the series:
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22	* ActionFigureFileCard: The few toys released have a short description on the back of the box.
23	* AllGirlsLikePonies: To pander to that audience, Tenko has her own personal horse, Pearl Rider. Who even gets a gem that turns him into a {{Pegasus}}.
24	* AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle: The real Princess Tenko would always give instructions for a simple magic trick at the end of the episode, along with a message of "The Magic is in You!"
25	* {{Anticlimax}}: [[spoiler: In "The Forest Emerald," things begin with Tenko having a dream about being chased by some powerful evildoer she's unable to protect herself against. At the end, the villain has found the emerald Starfire Gem and is proving almost unstoppable because of it. Then Tenko's mentor pops in and tells her all she needs to do is shoot the gem with her wand to win, which she had the option of doing at any time.]]
26	* AntiVillain: Jason, who notably tries to reason with their enemies a couple times, even though he has the power to hypnotize them and skip such niceties.
27	* BadassNormal: The reporter Stacy from "The Big Story", who kicks Janna and Jason's butts all over her apartment until Jason hypnotizes her.
28	* BigOlEyebrows: Hikita has them.
29	* BlackAndNerdy: Steel, a historian, but only a mild case of the nerdiness.
30	* BrotherSisterTeam: Jana and Jason, an evil brother-sister team.
31	* ByThePowerOfGreyskull: "Starfire!"
32	* CelebrityToons: Princess Tenko is a real person, a famous Japanese illusionist, and was given her own animated series.
33	%%* CircusBrat: Tenko.
34	%%* CoolHorse: Pearl Rider.
35	* CoolSword: Bolt's gem gives him a magic sword. When Jason steals it in one episode, he's somehow able to [[FlamingSword make the blade burst into flame]].
36	* DeusExitMachina: It's rare for the entire team to participate in a fight, the show usually finding reasons to limit the focus to Tenko and maybe one of her friends to make the logistics of fights easier on the production crew.
37	* EgomaniacHunter: In one episode, Jana's able to bribe a hunter for the Starfire gem he found by giving him the chance to hunt Tenko's pet snow leopard.
38	* EightiesHair: Jason's mullet, for one.
39	%%* ElementalPowers: This is actually used neatly in that the crystals didn't give you the basic cliche powers most of the time. There were some elemental powers though.
40	%%** BlowYouAway - Onyx Gem
41	%%** PlayingWithFire - The Amber Gem
42	* {{Expy}}: Tenko’s backstory here makes her one for Marvel’s Dr. Strange, with Hikita as the Ancient One, Jana as an AlphaBitch version of Baron Mordo and the other male guardians splitting the role of Wong.
43	* EldritchAbomination: The demonic being whose existence was revealed in the last episode, who probably would've been the BigBad of a second season.
44	* EnemyMine: Jana and Vell team up to get rid of Tenko in the last episode, but then Jana changes sides and teams up with Tenko to get rid of Vell, after he tries to sacrifice her to release a demon.
45	* EnergyRingAttack: Steel's Starfire Gem allows him to fire magical rings which can bind enemies or form ladders.
46	* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Jana dragged Jason into villainy with her, but she does truly care about his wellbeing. Jason likewise does not want to see Jana get hurt.
47	* FaceHeelTurn: Of the RivalTurnedEvil variety for Jana and a mix of RivalTurnedEvil with LoveMakesYouEvil for Jason.
48	* FiveTokenBand: The Guardians are a racially diverse bunch. Tenko is Japanese, Bolt is white, Hawk is Native American and Steel is African-American. [[spoiler:They are later joined by Ali who is white.]]
49	* FriendToAllLivingThings: Hawk, Shonti, and Tenko.
50	* HeelFaceTurn: Two episodes make it clear that Jana and Jason have the potential to become Guardians again and that if so the others will welcome them back.
51	* HenshinHero: To activate a Starfire Gem's powers, one has to say a magic word and change into another form wearing a fancy costume.
52	* HimeCut: Princess Tenko has one.
53	* IncorruptiblePurePureness: Princess Tenko is "always pure of heart and soul", making her ThePollyanna.
54	%%* JumpedAtTheCall
55	* LandSeaSky: Tenko's three gems follow this theme with the animals they let her conjure for help: a lion, an eagle, and a dolphin (the latter also letting her breathe underwater).
56	* LoyalAnimalCompanion: Ninjara, Kiddles, and Pearl Rider are shared between Tenko and Shonti. Three of the Starfire gems also give Tenko access to a Golden Lion, a Rose Eagle, and a Sapphire Dolphin as {{Familiar}}s.
57	%%* MagicalGirlWarrior: A Western example.
58	* MagicalNativeAmerican: Hawk, ''literally''. He also has the stereotypical connection to nature.
59	* MentorOccupationalHazard: Hikita gets wiped out by Jana and Jason in the first episode. No wonder he was looking for a replacement.
60	* MineralMacGuffin: The Starfire Gems. There are at least sixteen of them.
61	* MultinationalTeam: All of the magicians. Tenko is Japanese, Bolt and Ali are white Americans, Hawk is Native American, Steel is African American, and Shonti is African. Jana and Jason are ambiguous. Jana's toy has a light brown skin tone, which between her, Tenko, Shonti, and Ali by convention suggests she's meant to be Latin American.
62	* MultipleHeadCase: Villains Jana and Jason can perform a FusionDance into a two-headed dragon, with each of them in control of one head.
63	* NewPowersAsThePlotDemands: Unlike the rest of the Guardians, Tenko tends to have whatever magic power would be handy at the moment like telekinesis or walking through walls, totally independent of their Starfire Gems.
64	* NoEnding: Type CutShort. The cartoon ended on a major cliffhanger regarding Jana's fate nor gave clarity on Vell's. Ali received her Starfire gem in the second-to-last episode and never got to use it. Shonti never got her Starfire gem at all. Kiddles is the only one of the three pets never to receive a gem-upgraded form.
65	* OldMaster: Hikita, who taught Tenko everything she knows. However, he is immediately taken out when he confronts Jana, admitting "I may be old, and I may be weak".
66	* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Tenko herself, with Tenko being the title of the jewel master and 'Princess' being Hikita's nickname for her before hand. Her actual name[[note]]Mariko Itakura[[/note]] is never revealed.
67	%%* PluckyComicRelief: Bolt
68	* PowerCrystal: The Starfire Gems. There are at least sixteen of them.
69	* RememberTheNewGuy: Shonti makes her entrance in the third episode and is explicitly said to have been hired as animal trainer by Hikita, who "died" in the first episode. It doesn't help that there were no animals to train prior to Tenko getting her snow leopard after Hikita's departure. The other animals of the Guardians, a monkey and a horse, also qualify for the trope and thereby pull it right again.
70	* TheRival: Jana, being the grandchild of a previous master, is the PrivilegedRival to Tenko, who has no family connection to magic. Jana is also explicitly said to be the only one whose power matches Tenko's, despite Tenko being a harder worker.
71	* SatchelSwitcheroo: How Ali accidentally ends up with a Starfire Gem in her debut episode.
72	* ScaledUp: Jana and Jason's secret weapon is combining into a ten-foot dragon.
73	* SequelHook: The second-to-last episode shows Ali becoming a full fledged guardian, with a brief shot of her costume just before the episode ends. Unfortunately, we never got to see her show her stuff...
74	** She's not even suited up with the other Guardians when they meet at the end of the last episode. Then again maybe that's because they're meeting on a beach and her costume incorporates rollerblades. Yes, an ancient mystical gem incorporate rollerblades.
75	* ShipTease: Jason flirts with Tenko the moment he meets her, and a subsequent episode implies that the attraction is mutual, but Jana drags him into evil with her before anything can happen between them.
76	* SiblingFusion: The twins Jana and Jason can fuse into a two-headed dragon form, achieved by placing their personal Starfire (Amber for Jana, Ruby for Jason) gems together.
77	* SmurfettePrinciple: Weirdly for a show seemingly aimed at a female audience, but Tenko's the only female Guardian out of four. There's three other women, but they all don't qualify for one reason or another. Ali only gets her own gem at the end of the second-to-last episode, but doesn't get to use it because Tenko's on her own in the last episode. Shonti did not get her gem in any of the episodes and the only reason we can even assume she was to get one at all is because of her toy. And Jana is evil and doesn't cooperate with Tenko ever but in the finale.
78	* SpiritAdvisor: Like [[Franchise/StarWars Obi-Wan]] and [[WesternAnimation/{{Thundercats}} Jaga]] before him, Hikita sometimes shows up in ghost form to advise Tenko after he dies in the first episode.
79	* StatusQuoIsGod: Yes and no. There are some endings that leave you wondering how things got back to normal for the next episode, like when Janna and Jason are turned into rats or stranded on a FarSideIsland. On the other hand, the show has elements of an ongoing narrative (mainly in Starfire Gems that were discovered in earlier episodes being used again in later ones), as Western animated series were starting to experiment with doing around that time.
80	* SurveillanceAsThePlotDemands: In an early episode Janna and Jason manage to steal a Starfire Gem that lets them spy on anyone anywhere, letting them know when and where they'd need to be to screw up Tenko's plans. If needed the Guardians could fake it out with elaborate charades, but this did mean splitting up the team, which presented its own problems (indeed, the one episode they do this is the one where the show's ''other'' major villain appears, and having the firepower of the whole team would've come in really handy).
81	* TotallyRadical: Unsurprisingly, really, the teenage character sounds nothing like an actual teenager.
82	* ToylessToylineCharacter: All the male characters, leading to things being filled out by sideline characters from the show. The doll line consisted of a few variants of Tenko and one apiece of Jana, Ali (who did eventually become a Guardian but not in time to ever use her power), and Shonti (who was never a Guardian and never had a gem, although her doll did).
83	* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: As if the title of "Trust and Betrayal" didn't give it away, the teaser before the intro reveals Janna's really coming to the Guardians for help so she can stab them in the back.
84	%%* {{Tsundere}}: Ali
85	* ZombieGait: The mummy guards in "The Stone Of Destiny" do this.

Context WesternAnimation / TenkoAndTheGuardiansOfTheMagic