10 normal anime schools in extraordinary worlds

Anime schools are usually depicted as wondrous places where the main characters learn, meet friends, play sports, meet their significant others, and join exciting clubs. Some anime schools are even training grounds for prospective superheroes, ninja, assassins, and other fantastical groups.

Then there are anime schools within extraordinary worlds, such as Universe 7 from Dragon Ball Z or Morioh from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, that are surprisingly ordinary. School stress, it seems, is a constant, even in universes where the world could end at any moment and there is tangible proof that the supernatural exists.

It's hardly surprising this is the case. There are plenty of anime that have schools as a primary setting, even when the world has gone crazy.

Disclaimer: The following article contains spoilers for all anime involved, including manga spoilers. All opinions are exclusive to the author. As a rule, the anime school itself must be as ordinary as possible and feature in the series for more than one episode.

10 shockingly ordinary anime schools in spectacular worlds

1) Orange Star High School (Dragon Ball Z)

The anime school Gohan attended (Image via Toei Animation)

The mere existence of a place like Orange High School in Dragon Ball Z was a huge shock to fans. The fact that Gohan attended this anime school during the early stages of the Majin Buu Saga was a breath of fresh air. It allowed Gohan, a boy who had been in life-threatening situations since he was five, to be "normal" for once.

Orange High School is about as normal as anime schools can be in a universe where people can fly, teleport, and blow up cities and planets with relative ease. It's a four-story building with roof access and various fields, including a baseball diamond, swimming pool, gymnasium, and a large running track.

Gohan’s school days (Image via Toei Animation)

From what the audience sees of the institution during the Great Saiyaman Arc in Dragon Ball Z, it encourages students to pursue both physical education and academics. That said, Gohan holding back his true strength leads to comedy on the baseball field.

In terms of narrative importance, Orange Star High School is where Gohan meets his future wife, Videl. He also begins formulating the idea of the Great Saiyaman to hide his heroics. Although this anime school isn't as prominent as the Turtle School, Gohan's time at Orange Star High School represents a much-needed period of calm before the major storm that is Majin Buu strikes.

2) Eden Academy (Spy X Family)

Spy x Family’s anime school (Image via Clover works)

An elite academy that educates students to high school level, Eden Academy from Spy x Family touts its "elegant" status among anime academies. Since Spy x Family features extraordinary beings like Espers, such as Anya Forger, or future-telling dogs like Bond Forger, Eden Academy is the closest thing to "normal" as it gets.

The academy is a massive private school, featuring lecture halls, dorms, advanced cooking labs, a farm and lake, and a ranking system. While the ranking system is academically based like many other schools, it also has a reward and punishment system in the form of Stella Stars and Tonitrus Bolts, respectively.

Anya’s successes and failures so far (Image via Clover Works/Shueisha)

The Stellas and Bolts are essential to measuring student success. Earning eight Stellas, one becomes an Imperial Scholar. This title refers to the elite of the academy, who are awarded certain privileges such as better food and access to private balls. Earning eight Bolts, the student is immediately expelled, with no exceptions.

Eden Academy is essential to Anya's story, as her goal is to make friends with Damien Desmond and possibly earn enough Stellas to become an Imperial Scholar.

As of Chapter 93 of the manga, Anya has three Stellas (saved a boy from drowning, helped save the class from a bus hijack, and scored a high grade on her Classical Language final exam). However, she also has three Bolts (punched Damien in the face, took a Bolt for Damien after giving him her handkerchief, and dozed off in her Math final exam).

3) Yasogami High School (Persona 4: The Animation)

The anime school from Persona 4 (Image via AIC A.S.T.A.)

The main schools in the Persona animated adaptations almost always have something supernatural going on: Gekkoukan from Persona 3 turns into Tartarus during the Dark Hour, and Shujin from Persona 5 is turned into Kamoshida's Palace.

This leaves Yasogami High School from Persona 4 as the outlier. By and large, nothing supernatural happens there. It's a relatively normal school for a rural town like Inaba, having both a three-story classroom building and a two-story practice building for all the sports and clubs.

Several people getting more in the anime (Image via AIC A.S.T.A.)

Yu Narukami attends this school throughout the entirety of Persona 4, meeting his primary friends and Investigation Team members Yosuke, Chie, and Yukiko. The anime adds a scene where he and Kanji run into each other before officially meeting, foreshadowing Kanji's love of small, cute things. It also adds the stalker Mitsuo Kubo early on.

In terms of the actual importance to the story and characters, the anime takes time to expand on Ai Ebihara's story. Ai's storyline is completely missable in the game, as are Kou Ichijo and Daisuke Nagase on the basketball and soccer teams. Another completely missable Social Link, Ayane Matsunaga, is also showcased. These additions show that Yu Narukami is helping everyone he can.

4) North High (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya)

Haruhi’s anime school (Image via Kyoto Animation)

In a world of Espers, aliens, time travelers, and omnipotent gods disguised as high school girls, North High itself is a normal school. For a world as weird as The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, where time loops and alternate futures exist, that's a compliment.

Most Haruhi fans need to remember that the supernatural elements are mostly created by Haruhi being an omnipotent goddess in a high schooler's body. North High itself is not special aside from the student body and the SOS Brigade being made of the very people Haruhi hopes to attract.

The school clubs (Image via Kyoto Animation)

As for the importance of this anime school to the series, it serves as the main setting. While Kyon's experiences in the school grow weirder after joining the SOS Brigade, there are shades of normalcy shown throughout the school. Regular students still attend classes, the arts festival still takes place, and worrying about regular club fees and management continues as usual.

Haruhi trying to join every club and finding them painfully ordinary suggests that there isn’t anything supernatural happening at the school itself. The only remarkable feature of North High is its location on the side of a hill that Kyon must climb every day to reach it.

5) Sarayashiki Junior High (Yu Yu Hakusho)

Yusuke and Kuwabara’s anime school (Image via Studio Pierrot)

In a world where spirits, demons, and spiritual energy are very real and haunt the world of Yu Yu Hakusho, knowing that Yusuke Urameshi and Kazuma Kuwabara were barely high school students might be about as shocking as realizing that Sarayashiki Junior High was a regular school.

Besides Yusuke possessing a girl once and beating thugs up using her body as a conduit, which was anime only, there's no real spirit activity at the school or demons attacking the school. The school was named after the Banchō Sarayashiki ghost legend, but nothing of the sort appears on campus itself, apart from Mr. Iwamoto being possessed by a Makai Insect.

Yusuke’s schoolmates and jerk teachers (image via Studio Pierrot)

That said, the school does serve a purpose as a setting during the Spirit Detective Saga. It not only acts as a beacon of normalcy but also shows that human experiences are just as valuable as supernatural ones. It highlights the struggles that so-called "delinquents" go through to navigate everyday life.

Case in point: two antagonistic teachers, Mr. Iwamoto and Mr. Akashi. They are both considered Yusuke and Kuwabara's human nemeses while at school. Mr. Akashi was fired for falsifying test results to get Kuwabara and his friends expelled. Mr. Iwamoto was possessed by a Makai Insect during the Spirit Detective Saga and only returned to normal after Yusuke destroyed the Makai Whistle.

6) Juban Public Middle School (Sailor Moon)

Sailor Moon’s anime school (Image via Toei Animation)

The superhero double-identity trope is present in Sailor Moon, with at least three of the heroines attending Juban Public Middle School throughout the first three arcs. These three include Usagi Tsukino, Ami Mizuno, and Makoto Kino, aka Sailor Moon, Mercury, and Jupiter. While all of the Senshi would attend the same high school later on, the high school parts of their lives aren't in focus.

As far as the anime school itself goes, it’s a fairly normal middle school. Students wear uniforms, attend classes, and are punished by standing outside of class when late, as Usagi frequently learns. The school is significant in Sailor Moon as the place where Usagi meets her friends and attends classes.

Students and others in the school (Image via Toei Animation)

Although some events occur at Juban Middle School, it is an anime school that never gets attacked. Even in the original 1990s Sailor Moon anime, the most significant event at the school is alien antagonists An and Ail infiltrating it during the Makai Tree filler arc.

Other school-related events usually involve either Umino being possessed in the second episode of the original anime or helping Naru cope with Nephrite's death. The school is otherwise ordinary, featuring teachers such as Usagi's constantly unlucky homeroom teacher, Ms. Haruna Sakurada.

7) Budogaoka High School (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable)

Josuke’s anime school (Image via David Production)

Most anime take place in extraordinary or bizarre worlds; JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is no exception. Though many of the protagonists at the time of their series are older teens, if not full-grown adults, Josuke Higashikata is the only one seen actively attending school at 16 years old.

Budogaoka High School in Morioh might be minor in the grand scheme of anime schools, but it does serve a purpose. Practically all of the school-age cast, including main characters Josuke, Okuyasu, and Koichi, attend this school. While the school itself isn't special, the events that happen there are.

Shigechi’s death at the school (Image via David Production)

The first notable event is Yukako obsessing over Koichi, including almost killing their class representative in the boiler room due to mistaking her kindness for an attempt to seduce him. This revealed she was a Stand user and led to Koichi being kidnapped by Yukako and nearly tortured and killed due to her yandere-like version of love.

The second event is a bit more important: Kira's killing of Shigechi. While it puts the main cast on Kira's trail, or at least acts as the first domino to fall when he gets their attention, it's still a horrifying scene to happen in a school, and Shigechi’s body is obliterated.

8) Ohananomitsu High School (The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You)

The Anime school of 100 Girlfriends (Image via Bibury Animation Studios)

An interesting example of a series playing with all the typical tropes, Ohananomitsu High School from The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You is another case of an interesting cast in a relatively ordinary anime school.

Ohananomitsu High School is a large three-story building with roof access. It is no different in design than many of the other anime schools on this list, and functions like an ordinary school. The world itself, on the other hand, contains many fantastical things, including a shrine god, a mad scientist, and other colorful characters who fit various romantic anime archetypes.

Some of the more eccentric characters (Image via Bibury Animation Studios)

The school is the primary setting for the series, with many of Rentaro's future girlfriends and soulmates in attendance. The staff includes Hakari's mother, Hahari, as the chairwoman, the dreadful An Baba as the antagonistic vice principal, among others.

The events that happen in this school are typical of anime schools in romantic series that fuel the plot taken to extremes. Rentaro meets Hakari and Karane by bumping into them, meets Shizuka by touching the same book she does, and experiences the "love zombie" moment accidentally caused by Kursuri, among a few other run-ins.

9) Karakura High School (Bleach)

Bleach’s anime school (Image via Studio Pierrot)

With all the Hollow fighting and general spiritual madness that Bleach has, it can be almost easy to forget that Ichigo and his companions are high school students. Almost, that is, were it not for the introductory arc of Bleach giving the audience a glimpse into Karakura town before the Soul Society Arc.

While plenty of spiritually aware people, aside from Ichigo, attend Karakura High, the anime school is fairly ordinary. It has multiple buildings, including sports pitches, a six-lane running track, and a gym. The school is famous for its karate team and, curiously, attracts a large number of delinquent applicants.

Other students and faculty (Image via Studio Pierrot)

The student body is usually treated as onlookers and background noise at best, save for craft club members Hirayama, Fujio, Takehara, and Onodera during the Soul Society arc, when they all argue about why Ishida and Orihime are missing. The only other student who succeeds in recruiting Ichigo to a club is the Soccer Club's VIP, Satoda.

The only other student who gets much of anything besides the core four is Tatsuki Arisawa, Ichigo's childhood friend and Orihime's protector in middle school. The staff at the school includes Misato Ochi, the laidback teacher, and Kagine, the rather strict physical education teacher.

10) Tokyo-3 First Municipal Junior High School (Neon Genesis Evangelion)

Eva’s anime school (Image via Studio Gainax)

Even two apocalyptic events like the First and Second Impacts did not cancel out the idea of school, though the Eva Trio in Neon Genesis Evangelion probably appreciates that. Their time in high school is one of the only times they get to be regular teenagers.

It's worth noting that the original anime focused more on the school life and interpersonal connections between Asuka, Shinji, and Rei. The school is also important because it introduces characters who are important later on, like Toji.

The anime school is important to the narrative because, as said earlier, the teens get to be teens instead of child soldiers. They all go through traumatic events and are socially awkward. However, amid that, Rei still develops a personality, Asuka gets to enjoy the limelight for a while, and Shinji starts developing confidence as the series progresses.

Incidentally, there is an alternate reality in episode 26 of the original series. Before the infamous "Congratulations" scene, Shinji sees a world where he is not an Eva pilot and experiences a quirky high school comedy. He learns that fate is not fixed and breaks free from the constrictive shell that has held him captive during Human Instrumentality.

Final Thoughts

Other anime schools (Image via Studio Bones, J.C.Staff, Studio Sunrise, I.G. Tatsunoko)

All of this is to say that anime schools have been, and doubtlessly will continue to be, the focus of many anime. It may not always be high school, as schools featured in anime range from elementary school to college, and even homeschooling.

The point is that sometimes, even if there are extraordinary anime schools, like U.A. High in My Hero Academia or the various ninja academies in Naruto, an ordinary school can be a setting for many kinds of stories, including horror, romance, and comedy.

It's worth remembering that the cast of many famous or popular anime is usually school-aged, if not adults. Anime schools, therefore, tend to be popular settings. It's also well worth remembering that an education is a terrible thing to waste.