Tenko And The Guardians Of The Magic was an ephemeral 1995 animated show by
Saban. The story is about a young teenage girl who was discovered by an old magician 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 complied. She goes to the school to train with some other students, and soon becomes best in the class. Becoming the Tenko, she must guard all of the powerful crystals in the Tenko box from falling into the wrong hands. The story revolves around her protecting the crystals from all sorts of different evil forces.
At the end of each episode, her live action counterpart Princess Tenko (a real life magician
who inspired this show's creation) would either perform an amazing magic act while wearing flashy costumes, or teach a simple magic trick. The show was canceled after only one season due to poor ratings.
See also:
Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders
Tropes used by the series:
- And Knowing Is Half the Battle: 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!"
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: Hikita has them.
- Black and Nerdy: Steel, a historian, but only a mild case of the nerdiness.
- By the Power of Grayskull!: "Starfire!"
- Celebrity Toons: Princess Tenko is a real person, a famous Japanese illusionist, and was given her own animated series.
- Circus Brat: Tenko
- Cool Old Guy: Hikita
- Egomaniac Hunter: In one episode, a hunter wanted to kill Tenko's pet snow leopard.
- Elemental Powers: 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.
- '80s Hair: Jason's mullet, for one.
- Everything's Better with Monkeys: Kiddles
- Face Heel Turn: Jason and Janna.
- Follow the Leader: An obvious attempt by Saban to have some form of Sailor Moon-killer on the market.
- Henshin Hero
- Hime Cut: Princess Tenko has one.
- Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Princess Tenko is "always pure of heart and soul", making her a borderline Purity Sue.
- Jumped at the Call
- Keep Circulating the Tapes: Good luck finding anything in the USA, but there are 6 episodes on DVD in the UK.
- Magical Girl Warrior: A Western example.
- Magical Native American: Hawk, literally. He also has the stereotypical connection to nature.
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: Hikita
- Mineral MacGuffin
- The Obi-Wan: Hikita.
- Plucky Comic Relief: Bolt
- Power Crystal: 16 of them, and each with a different power.
- Scaled Up: Combining two starfire crystals makes Janna and Jason turn into a two-headed monster.
- They can do that because they're twins.
- Sequel Hook: The final 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...
- She's not even suited up with the other Guardians when they meet at the end of the last episode.
- Sibling Team: Janna and Jason, an evil sibling team.
- Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: Tenko herself
- Totally Radical
- Tsundere: Ali
- Zombie Gait: The mummy guards in "The Stone Of Destiny" do this.
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