hosted by Amy Jo Johnson.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.
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 kids watching could perform. The show was canceled after only one season due to poor ratings.
See also: Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders and Wonder Woman and the Star Riders.
Tropes used by the series:
- Action Figure File Card: The few toys released have a short description on the back of the box.
- All Girls Like Ponies: To pander to that audience, Tenko has her own personal horse, Pearl Rider. Who even gets a gem that turns him into a Pegasus.
- 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!"
- Anticlimax: 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.
- Anti-Villain: 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.
- Badass Normal: The reporter Stacy from "The Big Story", who kicks Janna and Jason's butts all over her apartment until Jason hypnotizes her.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: Hikita has them.
- Black and Nerdy: Steel, a historian, but only a mild case of the nerdiness.
- Brother–Sister Team: Jana and Jason, an evil brother-sister team.
- 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.
- Cool Sword: Bolt's gem gives him a magic sword. When Jason steals it in one episode, he's somehow able to make the blade burst into flame.
- Deus Exit Machina: 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.
- Egomaniac Hunter: 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.
- '80s Hair: Jason's mullet, for one.
- Expy: Tenko’s backstory here makes her one for Marvel’s Dr. Strange, with Hikita as the Ancient One, Jana as an Alpha Bitch version of Baron Mordo and the other male guardians splitting the role of Wong.
- Eldritch Abomination: The demonic being whose existence was revealed in the last episode, who probably would've been the Big Bad of a second season.
- Enemy Mine: 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.
- Energy Ring Attack: Steel's Starfire Gem allows him to fire magical rings which can bind enemies or form ladders.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: 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.
- Face–Heel Turn: Of the Rival Turned Evil variety for Jana and a mix of Rival Turned Evil with Love Makes You Evil for Jason.
- Five-Token Band: The Guardians are a racially diverse bunch. Tenko is Japanese, Bolt is white, Hawk is Native American and Steel is African-American. They are later joined by Ali who is white.
- Friend to All Living Things: Hawk, Shonti, and Tenko.
- Heel–Face Turn: 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.
- Henshin Hero: To activate a Starfire Gem's powers, one has to say a magic word and change into another form wearing a fancy costume.
- Hime Cut: Princess Tenko has one.
- Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Princess Tenko is "always pure of heart and soul", making her The Pollyanna.
- Land, Sea, Sky: 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).
- Loyal Animal Companion: 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 Familiars.
- Magical Native American: Hawk, literally. He also has the stereotypical connection to nature.
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: Hikita gets wiped out by Jana and Jason in the first episode. No wonder he was looking for a replacement.
- Mineral MacGuffin: The Starfire Gems. There are at least sixteen of them.
- Multinational Team: 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.
- Multiple Head Case: Villains Jana and Jason can perform a Fusion Dance into a two-headed dragon, with each of them in control of one head.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: 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.
- No Ending: Type Cut Short. 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.
- Old Master: 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".
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Tenko herself, with Tenko being the title of the jewel master and 'Princess' being Hikita's nickname for her before hand. Her actual namenote is never revealed.
- Power Crystal: The Starfire Gems. There are at least sixteen of them.
- Remember the New Guy?: 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.
- The Rival: Jana, being the grandchild of a previous master, is the Privileged Rival 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.
- Satchel Switcheroo: How Ali accidentally ends up with a Starfire Gem in her debut episode.
- Scaled Up: Jana and Jason's secret weapon is combining into a ten-foot dragon.
- Sequel Hook: 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...
- 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.
- Ship Tease: 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.
- Sibling Fusion: 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.
- Smurfette Principle: 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.
- Spirit Advisor: Like Obi-Wan and Jaga before him, Hikita sometimes shows up in ghost form to advise Tenko after he dies in the first episode.
- Status Quo Is God: 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 "Far Side" Island. 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.
- Surveillance as the Plot Demands: 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).
- Totally Radical: Unsurprisingly, really, the teenage character sounds nothing like an actual teenager.
- Toyless Toyline Character: 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).
- Trailers Always Spoil: 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.
- Zombie Gait: The mummy guards in "The Stone Of Destiny" do this.
