Tenmaku Cinema is a shonen manga written by Yuuto Tsukuda and illustrated by Shun Saeki, the writer-artist team behind Food Wars!. It began serialization in Weekly Shonen Jump in April 2023 and ended in September 2023 with 21 chapters.
The story follows movie buff teenager Hajime Shinichi, who comes across the ghost of a mysterious teenager screenwriter, Takihiko Tenmaku, who, supposedly, wrote a script before his death set to be turned into a movie by legendary director Ryu Shirakawa. Unable to move on due to his unfinished business, Tenmaku demands that, in his stead, Shinichi take up his script, bring it to Shirakawa, and finally make his movie real. However, his dream is moot, Shirakawa died 20 years prior to their meeting.
After failed attempts to get Tenmaku to pass on, Tenmaku and Shinichi cross paths with Hinaki Kurai, Shinichi's schoolmate and a rising star of Japan's movie industry as an actress. Tenmaku immediately gets a strike of inspiration and writes a new short movie while possessing Shinichi and asks of Kurai to star as the lead for that production. To Shinichi's surprise, Kurai agrees, being absolutely floored by the script, putting Shinichi straight into a director's chair for Tenmaku's movie.
Tropes
- Actor-Inspired Element: In-Universe. Once Kurai gets invested in playing Nagisa for Tenmaku and Shinichi's "The Shore", she starts developing her character more, including her likes and dislikes and the kinds of faces she would make.
- Amnesiac Hero: Tenmaku is revelaed to have a really faulty memory in chapter 3. He doesn't remember how or when he died, and albeit he remembers collaborating with Ryu Shirakawa in various movies, he doesn't remember why he isn't credited in any of them.
- Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: Shinichi, to the protagonist of the creators's previous work, Yukihira Soma. Soma is skilled, experienced, and confident to the point of even downright cocky at times. Shinichi, by contrast, is passionate about the manga's topic, but shy and never had to do anything related to it besides appreciating movies, not even picturing it as something he could do.
- Cut Short: The manga ended at 21 chapters due to low popularity rankings, though it does at least manage to wrap up the main plot.
- Everyone's Baby Sister: Kurai, as an extension of having been a child actor, is known by the members of the crew in the movie she works on since she was little, and everyone tends to dote on her because of it and her dedication and talent despite her young age.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Tenmaku, to his surprise, learns that he has been dead for 30 years, having entered his last year of high school in 1993. As such, he is completely alien to streaming services and tablets, but he warms up to them quickly.
- Happily Adopted: In a flashback, it's revealed that Tenmaku is something of an adopted son to Shirakawa. The man took him under his care after his birth mother died by suicide, and the extensive flashback about them reveals they were very close and friendly with each other.
- Happy Ending: The manga 21st chapter wraps up Kurai getting a better relationship with her mother once she sees the new ways Kurai appears on screen. Shinichi promises to become a professional filmmaker and work together with Kurai and Tenmaku in the future. The end narration states that ten years later, Kurai was the lead actress when Shinichi finally made The Fang to international success.
- Mystical White Hair: Tenmaku is a ghost with white-blueish hair which denotes him as otherworldly. The end of chapter 3 indicated that, when alive, he had dark hair.
- Nom De Plume: Hinaki Kurai goes by the stage name Himeki Kurakui.
- Reference Overdosed: Not surprising, considering the three major characters of the story are massive movie buffs (two of which were already involved in the industry to begin with). The story makes both references to major movies that are broadly known by everyone, as well as more high-brow movies that would be popular with movie enthusiasts. For example, chapter 2 starts with Tenmaku listing which movies he would like to watch, and names The Sting, Tokyo Story, The Godfather, Taxi Driver, The 400 Blows, and Paris, Texas.
- Riddle for the Ages: Because of the quick cancellation of the manga, the reader ends up never learning anything about The Fang, only that it is what Tenmaku considers his magnum opus of which only a handful of grand auteur directors can bring to the screen, that it was eventually made ten years after the events of the manga, and, presumably, has a female lead for Kurai to play. Elements of the movie like plot, genre, etc. are never explained.
- Scarf of Asskicking: Tenmaku has control over his massive scarf and can use it to push Shinichi around.
- Shout-Out:
- Kurai mentions the movie Linda Linda Linda as a source of inspiration for Nagisa's pouty expression.
- Kurai and Shinichi bond over their shared love for the movie The Shawshank Redemption
- Chapter 7 has the characters mentioning by name the live-action adaptation of The Promised Neverland as an example of editing that can make two places look connected even when they aren't. note
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- As Chapter 4 shows, there is a vast difference between seeing a place often and location scouting. Shinichi has to notice that some places where he might want to record their movie is simply impossible due to being a packed place and he would need permission from the local police to start recording, and even then he would capture people in the background when he shouldn't.
- Despite the fact that the school in The Shore is supposed to be by the ocean, Shinichi and the crew use their own school to film scenes, despite being landlocked. It would be a waste of both time and money if they kept traveling to a school that met the criteria. Thus, the plan is to edit the film to make it look like their school is by the ocean.
- Of course a small school club couldn't afford professional filming equipment. The people involved film the scenes of The Shore using their own smartphones, but with equipment like phone cages to make it steadier.
- Take Our Word for It: Tenmaku's script for The Shore is so incredible and moving that everybody who reads it starts crying. The reader, however, only knows the overview of the plot of the script.
- Teen Genius: Tenmaku is of such a level as a screenwriter that a legendary director agreed to film his movie when he was still in high school. Similarly, a up-and-coming actress is trying to give herself time to be in his short film after his script impresses her.
- Unfinished Business: Tenmaku wrote his script, a movie called "The Fang", and said he could die in peace if it was made and directed by Ryu Shirakawa, after dying before even getting his script to him and said director dying 10 years after, he now is stuck on earth with no clear way out.
