CLAMP School Detectives



CLAMP School Detectives is a 3 volume manga series made by CLAMP (creators of Cardcaptor Sakura, Chobits, Angelic Layer, Magic Knight Rayearth, Tokyo Babylon, etc.) which was adapted into a 26 episode anime, in 1997. It tells the adventures of the Elementary School Student-board, solving cases and easing the life of all kinds of women. Aiding them are the Pre-school Class President Utako and her best friend Nagisa, who are sorta smitten with them. But their hardest case will be one regarding Nokoru's past...

CLAMP's manga Man of Many Faces (which stars as the elusive thief 20 Faces) and Duklyon: Clamp School Defenders both Crossover with Clamp School Detectives, and X/1999 is also partially set in Clamp School.


 * Absurdly Powerful Student Council: No kidding.
 * Attractive Bent Gender: Nokuru, when he dresses up as a girl to capture a ferret who is afraid of men. All for a lady, natch. Not only does the crowdin the beauty contest love him, even his friends think that she is a very cute girl.
 * Baseball Episode
 * Beach Episode
 * Big Brother Complex: Develops into something more
 * Bishie Sparkle
 * Bodyguard Crush: But no Ho Yay, sorry. True for the anime. The manga, however...
 * Cerebus Syndrome: Most of the story is comedic with some light mystery and helping girls slightly in distress. But the last seven episodes have a  kid with deep emotional issues trying to cause harm to the school and the protagonists in particular, and it's almost a different show.
 * Clock Tower: Provides a setting for some of the key scenes in both the scavenger hunt episode, and in the final confrontation.
 * Crossdresser: In an episode, Nokoru dresses as an Elegant Gothic Lolita, and very convincingly...
 * Cooking Duel: Without the 'duel' part
 * Dark-Skinned Redhead: Only in appearance.
 * Elaborate University High: A huge campus with all levels of education in the middle of Tokyo, it seems to have everything:
 * Dorms
 * School buildings that look like they belong in Versailles
 * A big ol' Clock Tower
 * A stadium big enough to be called Gamera Hall
 * Elevator School: CLAMP school is massive, and goes all the way from kindergarten to postgraduate education. This help our elementary schooler protagonist Akira teaches university level cooking courses to the adults.
 * Eyecatch
 * Festival Episode: Almost every episode. The reason that Kaichou has to do so much paperwork is that the campus has a festival at least every week.
 * Fiction 500: The Imonoyama family founded the CLAMP Academy, which acts as a self contained city, and doesn't actually charge any tuition.
 * Freudian Excuse: Do Idomu's mommy issues really justify the hacking and kidnapping spree he went on? In CLAMP world they do.
 * Hair of Gold: Nokoru and Nagisa in the manga.
 * High-Speed Missile Dodge: Suoh saved Nagisa from them.
 * I Have the High Ground: The last episodes' antagonist, Idomu Yudaiji, was fond of hiding in tall places, like the School's clock tower.
 * Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Utako and Akira. Not a perfect fit, Akira likes cooking and Utako is pretty assertive, but close enough.
 * Meganekko: Some of the students, like the art club president in the haunted gallery episode.
 * Meitantei: The are trying to apply the great detective trope to themselves. It's only in the last seven episodes that it gets going, with a proper mastermind villain causing chaos with computers.
 * Names to Know in Anime: Akemi Okamura (Nokoru), Shiho Niiyama (Suoh), Omi Minami (Akira), Yuko Miyamura (Utako)
 * New Transfer Student: Idomu Yudaiji, mysterious transfer and obvious villain candidate who, in fact, turns out to be the villain.
 * Ninja: Suoh, who comes from a ninja clan and is expected to find a "special someone" to protect. This person is Nokoru, of course.
 * Official Couple: Suoh/Nagisa and Akira/Utako.
 * One Head Taller: Straight in Suoh-Nagisa, inverted in Akira-Utako.
 * School Idols. (Taken ever so slightly to excess.)
 * Student Council President: The CLAMP School Detectives also happen to the be the CLAMP Elementary Division Student Council -- with some assistance from the Kindergarten Division Student Council.
 * Team Chef: Akira, who is good enough to teach college classes on cooking.
 * The Ace: Nokoru
 * The Faceless: Possibly parodied: the Chairwoman (logic dictates she's Nokoru's mother) frequently hides her eyes on purpose with a fan or a set of blinds whenever the camera could have gotten a good shot of her upper face.
 * Lawyer-Friendly Cameo / Writing Around Trademarks: Apparently, the Chairwoman is based on a character named Imonoyama Rarisa who appeared in some of CLAMP's old doujinshi (SHOTEN, I think). However, some of CLAMP's members split in the interim, and one of them took the rights to the character Rarisa with her. So the face hiding and general crypticness surrounding the Chairwoman was basically due to avoiding trademark/copyright.
 * The Only One Allowed to Defeat You. (again related with the New Transfer Student.)
 * Those Two Guys: Kentaro and Takeshi, who are really Crossover characters.
 * Tsundere: Utako, though definitely a Type B, is very opinionated and wants Akira to respect her and prove himself.
 * Tokyo Tower: The very first setting.
 * Tomboy and Girly Girl: Utako is a Plucky Girl Tsundere, Nagisa is a pint-sized Yamato Nadeshiko.
 * School Play
 * Two-Teacher School: Are there teachers in this school? The only ones we see are in the university division, and one of the is Akira!
 * Wise Beyond Their Years: I'm sorry, but these are supposed to be 4th to 6th grade boys? Not to mention Utako and Nagisa can hold rather sophisticated conversations when they're kindergartners -- and get themselves hot boyfriends.
 * Yamato Nadeshiko: Nagisa is a kindergarten version.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Special mention goes to Suo, who really does have blue hair, and Nagisa, who has lavender hair in the anime (she has Hair of Gold in the manga).