Akagami Akemitsu’s father was famous for surrounding himself with many women. The boy greatly admired his father as a child. Unfortunately, as he grew up, rumors began to spread about him. Akemitsu decided not to follow in his father’s footsteps and lead a decent life. Over time, he began to exaggerate heavily, completely cutting himself off from the girls around him. One evening, while returning home from work, he is hit by a rice crack. It was dropped by accident by a girl named Yuzuki, with whom he falls in love at first sight.

The coming weeks were a veritable horror for Akemitsu. He couldn’t think about anything other than the beautiful Yuzuki. At one point, realizing his weaknesses, he makes a radical decision. He abandons school and work to become a monk. Thanks to his uncle’s connections, he is sent to one temple to receive proper training. Once he is there, it turns out that the monastery has been converted from male to female. In addition, he meets someone there whom he did not expect even in his dreams….

TenPuru (2023) – Audiovisual Design

Video

The visual aspect came off quite well. The character designs are just great. Nice shading and quite a lot of attention to detail. There were minor problems with the animation in a few places, but I can safely turn a blind eye to this, as it did not detract from the enjoyment of the viewing experience.

Most of the backgrounds looked aesthetically pleasing – especially the ones outside the buildings. This is my first Gekkou studio anime I’ve seen (of the two they’ve worked on), and if I’m honest, I’m looking forward to more.

Audio

I saw that quite a few people complained about the low voice of the main character performed by Akasaka Masayuki. If I’m honest – I don’t really know why. As for me, it fit perfectly with the simple and direct character of Akagami Akemitsu. The female roles were also sensational. The cast did not run out of popular names. Uesaka Sumire, Takahashi Chiaki or Serizawa Yuu. Some less popular seiyuu were also present, such as Asahina Madoka, Yamashita Nanami or Itou Ayasa. Each of them, however, gave their best. They were really enjoyable to listen to.

The soundtrack fit the atmosphere of the whole very well, unfortunately for me it has no qualities that will make me return to it. What’s different is the opening and ending tracks. These will stay with me for a long time.

TenPuru (2023) – Plot and Characters

Introduction

TenPuru is one of the series of the Summer 2023 season that I decided to give an entire review to. For a number of reasons. Among others, because series of this type are simply severely missing nowadays. Their peak was in the 2000s –Love Hina, Ai Yori Aoshi, Ichigo 100% and many others. These are the titles that made me love anime.

Initially (before the release) I had some concerns. The adaptation of a previous manga by this author (Yoshioka Kimitake) called Grand Blue just didn’t appeal to me at all. However, after just the first episode, I knew that this would most likely be one of the best anime of the season.

A quick look at the plot

Akagami Akemitsu’s father was famous for surrounding himself with many women. The boy greatly admired his father as a child. As he grew up – he noticed that strange rumors began to spread about him. Akemitsu decided not to follow in his father’s footsteps and lead a decent life. Over time, he began to exaggerate heavily, completely cutting himself off from the girls around him. One evening, while returning home from work, he is hit by a rice crack. It was accidentally dropped by a girl named Yuzuki, with whom he falls in love at first sight.

The coming weeks were a real nightmare for Akemitsu. He was unable to think about anything other than the beautiful Yuzuki. At one point, realizing his weaknesses, he makes a radical decision. He abandons school and work to become a monk. Thanks to his uncle’s connections, he is sent to a temple to receive proper training. On site, it turns out that the order has been converted from male to female.

The boy decides that he will stay on the site despite everything. Especially since through him part of the temple was damaged, so in a way he is forced to atone for his guilt by helping on the spot.

At first, not every girl accepts him. Most want him to leave the temple grounds as soon as possible.

What the series is about

TenPuru tells the story of the daily life of the characters and their struggles with duties and carnal temptations. The whole thing is presented in the form of a lighthearted comedy, but this did not stop the author from touching on other themes. The main anchor point is the efforts of all the tenants to keep the temple functioning. This turned out to be a very complicated subject requiring many sacrifices – especially in the main character (Akemitsu) and the heroine created to be the main one (Yuzuki).

Characters

As is not hard to guess, most of the cast is made up of beautiful girls who, for some reason, ended up in the temple as young adepts of a female convent. This is where TenPuru’s strength lies. In addition to the events of daily life, we learn the story of each girl. Besides the three Aoba sisters (Yuzuki, Kurage Tsukuyo), whose mother ran the Mikazuki temple in the past, there are Christoph Mia and Baldwin Kagura from Germany, as well as Kiki, a substitute priestess tasked with teaching and training the other girls according to Buddhist principles.

Over time, the girls get to know Akemitsu’s good-natured character and begin to open up to him. Because of this, the boy is exposed to all sorts of carnal temptations, which he wanted to avoid by choosing the path of a monk. Nevertheless, he handles them quite well, and his motivation is to help save Mikazuki Temple.

Also woven into the events were threads about how a temple is run, the responsibilities of those in charge of these places and the formalities that must be met. There were many things I had no idea about before. After consulting the Internet, it turned out that there was much more, but what was shown was shown accurately and in accordance with reality, sometimes in a slightly exaggerated way.

TenPuru (2023) – Evaluation and Summary

On the plot side, not very much has happened. The first season didn’t even manage to develop the subplot with Yuzuki’s training as a priestess. However, this type of series is watched mainly to witness the interactions between the characters and the development of their relationships. A plot only glues the whole thing together and acts as a central theme. On the characterization side, TenPuru is something I look for and something that made me love anime very long ago. Any lover of this type of atmosphere will surely be delighted to watch this anime. I hope I will be given the opportunity to see a continuation of the characters’ further fates in the future.

It would be hard for me to choose a favorite heroine. They were all really great. However, if I had to, it would be either Yuzuki or Tsukuyo.

Finalny werdykt

Final evaluation

Which translation do I recommend to watch Tenpuru (2023)

• CR – A very good official translation. I could, admittedly, forcefully pick on the way a few sentences were translated, but as a whole – I really can’t complain. As if only all official translations were like this.

Gallery