Academy of Adventure

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

It's weird at my school
Weird at my school
Weird at my school

Weird at my school
—The Pixies, "Weird at My School"

Exactly What It Says on the Tin: a school where adventure abounds, weirdness is everywhere, and anything that could happen, will happen. Teachers turning out to be villains, strange beings stalking the school grounds, random (or maybe not so random) students getting kidnapped while the Unlikely Hero has to chase after them... Never a dull day, no matter how boring the classes are.

The school is, simply put, a Weirdness Magnet, perfect for the budding kid adventurer or hero in disguise as a teacher.

Generally, this tends to happen to any school the hero is enrolled in or teaching in, so it can be anything from a grade school to a college. See also City of Adventure and Building of Adventure. Just like there, contrast Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here. If the school explains its weirdness factor by having super powered students, monster students or magical classes, then it's either an Extranormal Institute, an All-Ghouls School or a Wizarding School, respectively.

Examples of Academy of Adventure include:


Anime and Manga

  • Ao No Exorcist's True Cross Academy's cram school is this, the principal is a Son Of Satan.
  • Mahou Sensei Negima: At Mahora Academy, you need rock climbing gear to traverse the library, the School Festival involves Humongous Mecha and zeppelins, the majority of the staff (from what we've seen) are secretly wizards, the center of campus is the World Tree, and if a student there isn't supernatural, paranormal, superscience, or otherwise out of the ordinary, it probably means they have motivational issues. Even the Muggles are bizarre or unusual in mundane ways- like being the heir of a richer-than-an-entire-country family, being able to do way more with a gymnastics ribbon than one should, etc.
  • All three schools in Winx Club: Prof. Avalon at Alfea turned out to be an imposter cloud spirit designed to kidnap Bloom; Cloudtower turned out to be housing three delinquent teenage witches who never seemed to go to class (and the school was the usual occupying hideout for the seasons evil villain); Redfountain is a school for young heroes and the headmaster is a wizard, but none of the boys have magic.
  • Rosario + Vampire. This is the natural consequence of creating a school to teach monsters with poor self control how to maintain the Masquerade. Especially when you trick a human into going there.
  • Beelzebub: The main setting for the first arc of the series, Ishiyama High, is famous for housing the city's worst delinquents, with a delinquency rate of 120%. There are always fights, no one seems to ever attend actual class, and the entire building is smashed up and covered in graffiti.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Duel Academy. Doesn't help that it's on an island, and thus almost the only setting where any dueling takes place...
  • Gakuen Alice. An "Alice" is someone with a strange or paranormal talent. Any kid who is identified as having an Alice is legally required to go to the Alice Academy, and cannot leave the campus until graduating from high school at the age of 20. The campus is immense and includes forests and a town. All teachers and administration are Alices, and other staff/residents include robots or mutant animals created by Alices. The buildings inlude three heavily guarded and mysterious school buildings and residence buildings for students and three buildings belonging the three enigmatic headmasters, all of which are guarded with supernatural means. Most of the adventures in the story are set in and somehow related to the buildings and their peculiarities.
  • Two of the Eldoran series anime, Zettai Muteki Raijin-oh and Nekketsu Saikyo Gosaurer have this. The latter turns into a group of Giant Robots and the former has them housed under them with both having fifth grade students pilot them.
  • Raira Academy in Durarara!! had a hell of reputation for this thanks to the antics of Shizuo Heiwajima and Izaya Orihara—Shinra can list off half a dozen Noodle Incidents at any given time. It was bad enough that, after their graduation, Raira had to merge with another school and rebuild their image from scratch. They succeeded...up until an ex-gang leader, the host of a Hive Mind-controlling Evil Weapon, the head of 4chan the Dollars, the stalker to end all stalkers, and some kid in love with a severed head all end up enrolling in the same year. The real irony is that the school is less chaotic than it was six years back.

Teacher: But really...compared to the times when we had to teach Izaya-kun and Shizuo-kun, this school is way more peaceful nowadays. Back then we used to have filled gasoline drums rolling down the third floor of the school building...

  • Every high school in Ikki Tousen qualifies. One wonders how these institutions still attract students, considering all the mayhem that goes on there.
  • Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin in its entirety.
  • Hidan no Aria has Butei High, where the students are trained to be armed detectives. Naturally, this occurs.
  • The Death Weapon Meister Academy in Soul Eater.
  • A standard setting for most My-HiME series.
    • Fuuka Academy in the original. In the anime, the girls' identities as HiME are kept secret from the public. In the manga, the identities and the abilities of the girls are well-known, and all of the battles that take place within the school (sometimes between other students) are seen in full view of everyone, as is the resulting property damage.
    • Garderobe Academy in Mai-Otome, a training ground for Magical Girl Warriors where potential Otome candidates are expected to show poise, grace, and fighting prowess almost in equal measures.
    • Hoshinomiya Fuuka Academy in Mai-HiME Destiny, where most of the main characters possess Psychic Powers to some degree.


Comic Books

  • The Lovecraft Academy from Locke & Key. The main cast attend the school, and before them, so did their Dad. Needless to say, the main 'big' mystery of the series revolves around what happened to their father and his friends during their school days.
  • Spider-Man went to both an Adventure High School and Adventure College, and generally continued to do so in every adaptation of the character. As a matter of fact, several of his most memorable villains and allies were either students, introduced through students (for example, Molten Man), or as teachers/professors (for example, The Jackal), but even the everyday goings on of the school have a bit of adventure to them. Later on, he becomes a teacher at a high school, which inevitably becomes an Adventure School as well, even after he resigns.
    • In particular, his college Empire State University, is a huge Adventure School that has since extended far beyond involving just Peter Parker. Just look at the notable faculty/students list, which involves X-Men, villains of every kind, and even the Human Torch! Needless to say, things are rarely boring there.
  • Xavier's Institute is an example of both this and Extranormal Institute; it's students are constantly involved in adventures and attacks by villains and such because it's entire faculty and student body are mutants, and, in order to deal with the constant threat of danger, among other things, there's a jet, the Danger Room, etc and of course the faculty/senior students double as a Superhero team on the grounds. The schools been leveled so many times by these threats, it's been lampshaded by the cast.
  • In Static Shock, it's justified in that the chemical explosion that caused the "Bang Babies" happened at a popular local gang hangout near Virgil's school.
  • This is the setting for PS238, which is about an Adventure School filled with superpowered children. Despite their best efforts, they don't do that great a job of keeping the super powered danger away.
  • Advanced Public School #001 (APS-001) in the Gold Digger universe. In the "Tifanny & Charlotte" series, the title characters attend the school.

Fan Works

  • Both Furinkan and Hogwarts in Top Dog. At Hogwarts, it's basically because it's a political football that is politically neutral in all disputes, and members of species and cultures that are furiously at war both attend; at Furinkan, it's more a function of poor faculty judgment in approving projects. (The tokamak in the physics building ended up blowing up, and the biology projects routinely escape and eat people.)

Literature

  • Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series.
  • Louis Sachar's Wayside School.
  • Camp Half-Blood is a summer camp designed to protect the children of Greek Gods, and teach them battle skills - but if that doesn't count as a school, then pretty much every school Percy's been to counts, because monsters just can't get enough of his godly goodness.
  • The titular academy in the H.I.V.E. Series is a school for supervillains. In the first book the school is attacked by a giant plant - a science experiment Gone Horribly Wrong.
  • Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is a school for training teenage girls to be spies.
  • The Seven Realms gives us Oden's Ford, a world-famous academy that teaches everything from magic, to the art of war, to how to be a proper lady. Most of book two takes place there. The Imagery is spectacular.

Live Action TV

  • In Buffy the Vampire Slayer the Hellmouth that made Sunnydale a City of Adventure was located right underneath the local high school, so Sunnydale High was this in a big way.
  • Reefside High in Power Rangers Dino Thunder. A natural consequence of having The Dragon for a principal and Jeebus for a science teacher.
  • Strange Times At Blake Holsey High is set in one of these.
  • Smallville High was one of these, with plenty of students and teachers turning into insane monsters and/or dying horribly. Plus Superman was also a student there...
  • Smithson High is one especially since the "DOUM Room" has many undocumented artifacts of the Smithsonian National Museum Complex.
  • The Academy that River attended on Firefly could be an extremely warped version of this. Sure, the students are lured there under false pretenses, tortured, and given unwanted brain surgery, but they become psychic, telepathic, and learned ninja fighting skills!
  • Amanogawa High School is an Elaborate University High that features a secret Cool Base on the moon, a Humongous Mecha, and of course the belt that allows you to transform into Kamen Rider Fourze. And that's before the Zodiarts show up.
    • Or not. Turns out the good guys and bad guys alike have interest in the place because it's right on top of a source of cosmic energy. Foundation X from Kamen Rider Double is at least in part behind it all.

Tabletop Games

  • The GURPS setting IOU is set in one of these.
  • The Defender academy in Age of Aquarius. The final exams are field missions that combine combat against actual foes and magic use. No, it does not fly.

Video Games

  • While it's a summer camp and not a school, Psychonauts's Whispering Rock is an ordinary, mundane Summer Campy, if one mixed with a Super-Hero School.
  • PSP JRPG Class of Heroes.
  • Maritsu Evil Academy from Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice, of course.
    • Notable for the fact that the school's campus is so gigantic that it encompasses most of the world (And presumably will be the entire world eventually, due to its constant expansion). As such, traversing things like icy wastelands and lava-filled ruins to get to a class isn't out of the ordinary, making the "adventure" part of the trope's name quite literal in this case.
  • Territoire for Windows by Easy Game Station. Main character Facil becomes Student Council President and fights battles along with her "students" in this TRPG.
  • Final Fantasy VIII has the Gardens, such as Balamb and Galbadia, which are military academies.
  • Escape From St Marys has time travelers, aliens, a random knight in shining armor, kung-fu battles, angry cannibals...
  • Naranja Academy or Uva Academy, the central setting in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet (Naranja in Scarlet, Uva in Violet), a school for Pokémon trainers! Naturally, given the nature of the franchise, there is a lot of field work for the curriculum, but there are classes to attend and tests to take, the same idea as Mini Games.

Web Comics

Western Animation

  • Timmy Turner's Dimmsdale Elementary not only always has the effects of Timmy's wishes to deal with, but the mad fairy obsessed Mr. Crocker to make things crazy as well.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door features a school where some of the students are in a global organization bent on guaranteeing freedom for children worldwide, teachers who oppose this group, corrupt members of the student council who try to ensure that snow days never occur, playgrounds with hidden paths to volcanoes, etc.
    • Not to mention the secret temple that leads to the Fountain of Youth, kindergarteners that are practically wild animals, Wild West situations... the list goes on and on.
  • Hamilton Hill High School is this in Batman Beyond. Aside from Terry "Batman" McGinnis, Max "Almost a sidekick" Gibson and Dana "Damsel in Distress" Tan, this school has a Flash Thompson-esque Jerk Jock, a Rich Bitch who can't seem to stay out of trouble, a student who dated a sexy psycho robot, a student whose step-father had a short career as a villain, an avid gamer who almost helps a villain kill someone, no less than four students who are villains, a coach who attacked Batman trying to protect students using steroids and a guidance counselor who was a super villain.
  • Casper High in Danny Phantom qualifies. It's a wonder the teachers could get any teaching done with ghosts constantly fighting in it.
  • While nothing too out-of-the-ordinary happens, Third Street School usually has something crazy going on every episode.

Web Original

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