On this page: Box contents - Tenyo website - Identifying Tenyo puzzles - Special orders
Tenyo has been in the puzzle business for almost as long as any company in Japan. They now concentrate almost entirely on Disney puzzles, but have a huge range. For a little more history, see the manufacturers page.
Box contents
In days gone by you opened a jigsaw puzzle box, and inside were just the pieces! But Japanese puzzles come with various extra bits and pieces. The assumption is that you will only do the puzzle once, then glue it together for wall mounting, to impress your friends.
1 Most important - the pieces
2 Missing piece card (details on request)
3 Foil sachet of puzzle glue
4 Cardboard glue spreader
Doing the puzzle
Ignore the strict instructions to do the edge pieces first: put the bits together in any order you like. If you want to display the puzzle, you can use the glue to stick it together. Spread a sheet of clean but unwanted paper under the completed puzzle, with the puzzle the right way up. Then pour the glue over the front of the puzzle: spread it out with the sponge, so all the joints get neatly filled with glue. It should dry with a nice glossy finish.
Disclaimer: I have very limited experience of gluing puzzles - I usually break them up to do again some day. But I have had some success with trompe l'oeil murals!
Please note: Actual box contents may vary slightly - if you find any major discrepancies, please let us know.
Website
Tenyo website: jigsaw puzzle introduction page - main catalog page
The Tenyo site is not easy to navigate. In almost all cases, there is no thumbnail index — so each of the following links leads to a page with a list of titles in Japanese, and you will need to click them one by one to see the puzzles. They are ordered by Japanese title, with different sizes mixed up together. The exception is the thumbnail list of new Disney puzzles which you may find useful: Latest Disney puzzles. Tenyo also produces a range of children's puzzles, with large pieces from sturdy thick card, and these are listed on a separate website.
Below, the small numbers in parenthesis show the approximate number of puzzles in each list. (Note that these may be missing or out of date, and also many lists overlap.)
Disney puzzles by character
Mickey and Minnie (34) - Mickey and friends (93) - Frozen (11) (Disney's award-winning animation) - Disney babies (3) - Pooh and friends (13) - Classic Pooh (2) (Art by Peter and Harrison Ellenshaw) - Baby Pooh (3) - Alice in Wonderland (17) - Mulan (2) - Ariel (16) - Snow White (3) - Cinderella (13) - Beauty and the Beast (14) - Sleeping Beauty (3) - Aladdin (18) - Rapunzel (21) - Princess collection (17) - Pixar characters (6) - The incredible family (1) - Inside out (1) (Japanese title: "Inside head") - Toy Story (22) - Cars (6) - Monsters Inc. (4) - Finding Dory (4) - Onward (1) - All characters (57) - Villains (7) - Nightmare before Christmas (4) - Lilo and Stitch (13) - Baymax (3) - "Tsum Tsum" (8) - Wreck-It Ralph (2) - Zootopia (2) - Twisted-Wonderland (3)
Disney puzzles by size
108 pcs (36) - 200 pcs (13) - 300 pcs (33) - 500 pcs (33) - 950 panorama (2) - 1000 pcs (95) - 2000 pcs (11) - 4000 pcs (1) - 266 small pieces (48) (Translucent and opaque white plastic) - 456 small pieces (16) - 500 small pieces (32) - 2000 small pcs (4) - 1000 tiny pcs (23) - Other sizes (2)
Disney: special features and series
Photo frame insert (13) - Glow-in-the-dark (45) - Paper hologram (18) - Calendar (1) - Crystal hologram (8) - "Best friends" (2) - Tiny pieces (23) (World's smallest ) - 266 small pcs crystal (33) - 456 small pcs crys (12) - 500 small pcs crystal (17) - 1000 pcs crystal (7) - 500 small pcs frosted (1) - 1000 pcs frosted (1) - Small pieces (7) - Hidden images (1) - Impossible drawings (3) (Inspired by M C Escher) - 266 small pcs plastic (15) - 500 small pcs plastic (14) - 1000 pcs plastic (11) - Fantastical art (6) - Photomosaic (6) - 144-piece square puzzle with frame (2) - Disney artist Rodel Gonzalez (5) - Disney artist James Coleman (1) - Tsuneo Sanda special art (3) - Thomas Kincade (12) - Tim Rogerson (1) - Manuel Hernandez (1) - Stephen Fishwick (1) - Canvas finish (11) - Double-sided (2) - Lenticular 3D (1)
Non-Disney puzzles
Star Wars (1) - Marvel series (12)
Icons on puzzle list pages: the website indications of availability are not always reliable, but here they are:
In stock (shown by a shopping cart on the individual puzzle pages)
Out of stock (similar message in red on the individual puzzle pages)
Note: The Tenyo product codes all include the piece count. E.g. D-1000-245 is a 1000-piece puzzle.
(Updated December 2020)
Identifying Tenyo puzzles
The Disney puzzle shown above has the code D-1000-301: the number after 'D' indicates the number of pieces. Occasionally there is an extra letter, and non-Disney puzzles generally have a 'T' in place of the 'D'. Imaginatorium Shop codes condense these: e.g. the above appears as TD10301.
Note Generally Japanese manufacturers show the exact number of pieces on the box, but the service card inside this puzzle states that although "1000 pieces", there are actually 1014 pieces.
