Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"You're right, [[Arch Enemy|Drakken]]. Boys? Dating? Oh it's hard. But this''...''[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|is easy]]!''" ''[[Talk to the Fist|*PUNCH!*]]''|'''''[[Kim Possible]]''''', ''[[The Movie|Kim Possible: So the Drama]]''}}
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* ''[[Red Garden]]'' deconstructs this, where the pressures of fighting monsters in the middle of the night cause problems for the main characters' social lives.
* Though ''[[Digimon Adventure]]'' avoided this one, ''[[Digimon Adventure 02]]'' waltzed right into it. A team of 11-year-old students who go to school during the day and face off against monsters and the evil emperor of another world in their spare time? Textbook.
** It has one interesting subversion: {{spoiler|said [[Big Bad|evil emperor]] is another eleven-year old student.}} But since he's evil he's allowed to ignore the
** ''[[Digimon Tamers]]'' subverted it as well. The Tamers lived like this at first, but when {{spoiler|Calumon/Culumon was captured about midway into the story}}, they decided the "go to school" part was getting in the way and got permission (sort of) to take an indefinite leave.
* This happens to Nagisa in ''[[Iczer One]]'', but only after being nothing short of abducted by the eponymous protagonist to man the [[Humongous Mecha|battle robot]] with her.
* The premise of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'' can be summarized as "Wake up, go to school, practice saving the world." [[Serious Business|By playing a children's card game]]. Which quickly turns [[Deconstruction|much uglier]] than is typical. The school is also all about playing said card game. They might have overstepped this trope a bit.
* In ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'', Yusuke flat out states that "school sucks" and that "this job" (basically, saving the world), is the only thing he's ever been good at. Probably justified in that Yusuke is extremely [[Book Dumb]].
* The ''[[Pretty Sammy]]'' series is based around this.
* ''[[Sailor Moon]]''. Maybe it's because Usagi/Serena totally sucks at/hates school (much like a lot of shoujo heroines).
** [[Downplayed]] in the S season, where we see very little of the senshi at school, but nearly every episode starts with them studying for their exams (until they are inevitably distracted, either by the [[Monster of the Week]] or by some more mundane crisis).
** Averted in ''Sailor Moon SuperS''. They're all on summer break. During the Manga they've shifted to High School during this arc but it was pushed back an arc for the anime. The
* [[
** Later on in the series, this becomes increasingly averted
* All but one of the Idiot Rangers in ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' are powerful fighters on Negi's team. Kaede and Ku Fei in particular were strong fighters even before the start of the series, yet their first major obstacle in the series was to receive adequate scores on their final exams.
* ''[[Full Metal Panic!]]'' practically runs on this. Most of Sōsuke's issues involve being unable to explain distressingly common situations and failing in epic fashion. {{spoiler|In one episode, Kaname visits while Testarossa is in the shower and Sōsuke tries to explain why Kaname can't come in. Cue Testarossa sticking her head out asking if she can borrow clothes.}} He will generally sweat bullets in these
** This is probably because, in those situations, he can't
* Subverted by ''[[Death Note]]''. Or possibly played straight. It depends on your moral stance on Light's actions; he definitely believes he's playing it straight as he interweaves his increasingly meaningless social life with his genocide.
* Shinichi, the hero of ''[[Parasyte]]''. Somewhat deconstructed towards the end. Though he just barely manages to graduate, he flunks all his college entrance exams and is doomed to a life of poverty, and thus his future with [[Love Interest]] Satomi is far from certain.
* ''[[Code Geass]]'' has something similar to this, but it's more like
** Maybe played
* In [[Bleach]], Ichigo and his friends often have to make excuses, such as all simultaneously needing to go to the bathroom, in order to get out of class to deal with a Hollow in the area. However, as the threat of the [[Big Bad]] becomes paramount, pretty much all of them stop attending school for months to concentrate on their training.
* In the first and last Eldran series, the kids actually ''had'' to go to school in order to save the world, as thats where the local [[Super Robot]] was normally kept.
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== Comics ==
* ''[[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|The Amazing Spider-Man]]'' may well have ''[[Ur Example|invented]]'' this trope, and Peter's constant struggles to keep his life on track while fighting crime shows up in almost every other incarnation of the series.
** In fact, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created Spider-Man around this very premise. They wanted a young superhero who, unlike the then-popular "sidekick" depiction of such a character, had to simultaneously deal with the social and emotional pressures of becoming an adult... and the parade of crazy costumed baddies.
** Marvel has tried to recapture this a couple of time with [[Speedball]] and [[Darkhawk]].
* [[Deconstruction|Deconstructed]] in Scott McCloud's ''[[Zot]]'' The problems in Zot's world are on the surface bigger, but since it is ultimately a fantasy world the much smaller problems in Jenny's world are real problems and therefore more serious. The [[Deconstruction]] comes in the exploration of why high school life seems more serious than fighting super-villains.
* Ostensibly, the ''[[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]]''
* Similarly, the ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'' mansion is technically supposed to be a "School for the Gifted" but only a couple of writers (among them Grant Morrison) really paid anything more than lip-service to the concept.
* [[Deconstruction|Deconstructed]] in [http://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2007/09/08/ this episode] of ''[[Tom the Dancing Bug]]''.
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== Films -- Live Action ==
* ''[[Let the Right One In]]'' doesn't deal with world-saving, but still exhibits signs of this trope. Oskar finds romancing his vampire (girl/boy)friend to be [
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** It also helped that they gained advanced ancient androids as allies who could take their place in school for long absences thanks to their advanced hologram technology.
** Near the end of the series the war has escalated significantly, pressuring the kids to devote their entire lives to fighting. Jake notes that none of them get to school consistently anymore, to the point where Jake can't even recall what they're studying in class. They go on missions pretty much full-time, almost every day, and they rarely get more than a couple hours of sleep either.
* ''[[The Demon Headmaster]]'' series of books. That crazy headmaster is always trying to take over the world (although he's not always a headmaster), and apparently this small group of children are the only ones who can ever spot it. But they still have to go to school and be home for tea.
* ''[[Percy Jackson and The Olympians]]'' is "Wake up, Go To Summer Camp, Save the World from [[Greek Mythology]]".
* At the end of [[Peter David]]'s [[Star Trek]] novel "Q-Squared", the omnipotent and titular Q gives Captain Jean-Luc Picard a possible outline for his next log: "Captain's log, stardate yakkity yak. Woke up. Brushed teeth. Charted some stars. [[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick|Saved the universe]]. Had dinner. Brushed teeth, went to bed."
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'''Buffy''': It was one hell of a battle.
'''Oz''': Not the battle. High school. }}
** There's also the series finale. Right before the final battle, Buffy, Xander, and Willow start making plans for the day after, which involves shopping. Wake up, save the world, go shopping.
** It is frequently lampshaded on the show that this trope is the reason Buffy is able to survive so long as a Slayer. Previous Slayers focused so much on training and fighting monsters that they never got to experience the normal lives and problems of a teenage girl. Without these experiences and connections the Slayers became careless and [[Death Seeker
* In an episode of ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'', after John helped destroying a batch of coltan, a metal used to build terminators, he comes back home to do his homework for school.
** Of course, he's since dropped out.
* In ''[[Ace Lightning]]'', Mark Hollander, a thirteen-year-old boy, unintentionally gets himself elected as the superheroes sidekick: this pretty much costs him his social life, including two girlfriends.
* Disney's ''[[Aaron Stone]]''.
* [[Series/Chuck|Chuck]] Bartowski's spy work is often impacted by the equally complex, though not as dangerous, life he leads as a Buy More employee.
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* ''[[M.I. High]]''
* ''[[Big Wolf on Campus]]'' has this.
* ''[[Smallville]]'' should qualify. Oh so very much.
** Newer seasons is more like "Wake Up, Go to Work, Save the World."
* ''[[Hex]]'' did a boarding school version, although it can be debated how much saving actually took place.
* Likewise ''[[The Vampire Diaries]]'' where the world may not exactly be at stake, but there is a whole lot of saving and battling the forces of evil going on. They even do school reports on the subject of vampires!
* Shortlived British fantasy show ''[[Demons]]'' focused on the teenage heir to the Van Helsing title.
* While technically not in school, ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]'' does face both [[Big Bad
* ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures]]''
* ''[[The Secret World of Alex Mack]]'' has this. Alex occasionally has to handle threats at her (junior?) high school.
* The Canadian series [[Todd and the Book of Pure Evil]] features a cast of students and faculty battling the eponymous [[Artifact of Doom]]. The series relies on various issues facing teens (bullying, loneliness, obesity, etc.) to set up its [[Monster of the Week]] premise.
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== Video Games ==
* ''[[Persona 3]]'' bases both its storyline and gameplay around this concept, requiring you to balance fighting demons with [[Dating Sim|day-to-day activities]] to succeed. It also subverts it, to an
** Most of the world-saving goes on AT [[Eldritch Location|school]] (albeit a supernaturally altered one.)
** ''[[Persona 4]]'' does much the same thing, though in this case it's Wake Up, Go To School, Catch a Serial Killer. {{spoiler|Although as you find out later, catching the Serial Killer is part of saving the town, so it's actually both.}}
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== Western Animation ==
* [[Follow the Leader|Popularized]] within relatively recent American cartoons by ''[[Kim Possible]]''. Even before the series rolled out, TV previews summarized the premise of the series as a girl who finds saving a hijacked space station far easier than asking a cute boy out, a problem she faces in the very first episode to be broadcast ("Crush"). Highlighted within the series itself in [[The Movie]], when Kim responds to Drakken's taunting about her social drama with, "You're right, Drakken. Boys? Dating? It's hard. But this? Is ''easy!''" [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|At which point she slugs him]].
** A variation on the theme shows up in the driver's-ed
* ''[[The Life and Times of Juniper Lee]]'', while about the supernatural rather than espionage, goes out of its way to imitate KP's style, right down to the [[Extraordinarily Empowered Girl]] lead and the bare midriff.
* ''[[American Dragon: Jake Long]]'' does the same thing, though thankfully he keeps his midriff covered (well, in his human form at least).
* ''[[Danny Phantom]]'': No matter how many ghosts he defeats Danny still spends most of his time running from [[Jerk Jock|Dash]] or being shoved into lockers.
* ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'': "Saving the world... before bedtime."
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* ''[[X-Men: Evolution]]'' Though in the early seasons this got a bit of flak for too much school, not enough world saving (less "how can I use my powers to help people?" and more "how do I stop people from knowing I have powers?" essentially). The outing of mutants "fixed" that though, bringing in more action and less wangst.
** That problem with not enough action stemmed form a [[Broken Aesop]] for the first two seasons: Xavier preached about how humans needed to learn to accept mutants. Humanity does not know mutants exist (one assumes there are no other superheroes in the world, but then they had a flashback with Captain America....), so how can they learn to accept them?
* ''[[
* ''[[Monster Buster Club]]''
* Parodied, mocked, and even averted in ''[[Invader Zim]]''. The eponymous character may be an evil green alien attempting to bring about the [[
* Who could forget ''[[Batman Beyond]]'', since this was a major dilemma for the Batman-who's-still-in-high-school Terry McGinnis. A lot of sub-plots in the episodes revolve around this, and even a few major plots do, like when Terry takes his schoolwork on the job in "The Eggbaby". Rather coincidentally, a lot of the villains and problems in the show ALSO come out of Terry's high school.
* For ''[[Winx Club]]'', this would be the girls' daily routine.
* Same thing with Sam, Alex and Clover of ''[[Totally Spies!]]!''
* ''[[Transformers Prime]]'': Though its more like "Wake Up, Go To School, Help The Giant Robots Save The World."
* Averted in ''[[Iron Man: Armored Adventures]]''. Tony Stark has very little interest in keeping up with his school life and would much rather be working on new armour in the lab or flying around, saving the world. Nevertheless, he seems to have made friends pretty easily despite never being in a high school before and taking very lengthy "bathroom breaks" seemingly every other day.
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[[Category:Magical Girl Tropes]]
[[Category:Plots]]
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