Found: Lost 1980s Anime Episode (Tenmaru) | Forums - The Lost Media Wiki (2025)

Recently, I bought a mixed lot of VHS tapes from Japan. They're all from around 1983-1984, and one of them had an episode from a series that I'm fairly positive is lost media, called "べムべムハンター こてんぐテン丸" or "Bemu Bemu Hunter Kotengu Tenmaru". There's very little documented about the show in English, but from what I've gathered, it was another attempt to capitalize on the "Yokai Boom" that was popular at the time before the third Gegege no Kitaro anime completely enveloped the scene.

I have Episode 19, which is the final episode. A user on YouTube uploaded an episode a few years back, but I'm fairly positive that this is all that's surfaced. I can't find anything about this series receiving a home video/digital release.

So far, this is the only piece of lost media I've found on these tapes. However, I'm still going documenting and cataloguing everything. Some of the tapes have commercials, which is always fun to see.

Lastly, here’s a Japanese fan-site about this series.: kiokunokasabuta.web.fc2.com/kiokutenmaru.html (This site has a list of the episode titles along with the staff and dates on which each premiered on T.V. ) Anime News Network’s page has English information about the staff and cast: www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=1216
I really hope we can find all of the episodes of this obscure anime series.

Here’s another episode on youtube uploaded by Jiro Tori, it’s been up since 2015 but to be safe I’ll save it, you should too just in case.

Update: I was reading over that Japanese fansite and this caught my eye.: ※最終回として第20話「テンクロこんびでウォンチット！」という総集編が予定されていたが未放映に終わる。
“The 20th and final episode titled: 「Tenkuroku’s one shot」 was scheduled, but it never aired.”
So not only did this anime not have an official release, the final episode never even aired. The ratings must of have been bad which is sad, because this looks like a cute, funny comedy anime. I guess it just couldn’t stand out from the crowd.

tengtou.web.fc2.com/index.html

Found this other fan site, that seems to have a lot more information about the anime and manga,
Including description about the Yokai featured in each episode.
It looks like it was last Updated very recently even.

Great find! This is an interesting fansite, after skimming a bit on this page there is confirmation that Tenmaru ends after 19 episodes and was cancelled without warning. The writer is frustrated about it’s sudden cancelation because obviously they really enjoyed the show even though it seems to be forgotten by other anime fans. The writer also states that there are 4 volumes of the manga.

So yeah, this is certainly a case of lost media because the final episode (20) never aired and there was never an official media release. There is nowhere online that we have found where you can watch all the episodes that aired on television, the only way to get those would be finding home recordings.

Weird update, I don't know if I would consider this more "found media" for the series or not, but I just recently got the full storyboard for Episode 8. There's about 65 pages... I'm halfway done scanning it, and I plan on finishing and uploading the rest of it by either today or tomorrow. Interesting thing to note: There's about five pages worth of a "deleted scene" that may have been omitted from the final episode. But, since Episode 8 has never surfaced, there's no way to confirm it. I will provide a link to the scans on the Internet Archive once I am finished.

Files are still uploading, but everything should be up and processed on the site in about an hour. You can find them here: x

Thank you!! If memory serves, there's three manga volumes. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for them in the future, though Comic BomBom has omitted manga chapters from their books in the past. It can make trying to find a complete series sort of a nightmare, lol

Did you even read this thread? If you did then you would know that makes no sense. Are you refering to the manga or other merchandise being found at a store in Japan or what? This anime was only ever aired on television and according to Japanese sources it's last episode wasn't aired at all. So... What are you talking about?

So, I went looking through that fansite again. I remembered it had episode descriptions when I found it. but they are gone now.
A few are still one the Wayback Maschine

web.archive.org/web/20210902135932/http://tengtou.web.fc2.com/t_storyA/TA-06.html
web.archive.org/web/20170806023725/http://tengtou.web.fc2.com/t_storyA/TA-12.html
web.archive.org/web/20211016030921/http://tengtou.web.fc2.com/t_storyA/TA-16.html

These are pretty detailed and also have screenshots.

I think I made some big discoveries.

First, I found some screenshots, which have an "ANIMAX" Ident in the bottom right corner.
I wasn't able to find a schedule, only a few mentions about a "broadcasting error"

sonypictures.fandom.com/ja/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%8B%E3%83%9E%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B9

I did find a schedule for AT-X that confirms this anime still aired as late as 2003
www.at-x.com/program/21650

I completely forgot to reply to this, I'm so sorry! This is fantastic news!! Thank you so much for this lead, IMO it gives the show a much better chance of being found. I'll have to investigate this further when I get the chance... tysm!!