Web Animation / Paranormal High School

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Paranormal High School, (私立パラの丸高校^note literal translation: Private Paranormaru High School, typically shortened to Parako or Para High), is a comedic YouTube animation channel created by Taichi Matsuura of Plott Inc, started in May 2022.

In a world where everyone has supernatural abilities, instead of engaging in fierce battles, they simply carry on with their regular daily lives. This is the story of the everyday lives of protagonist Hikaru Tada, whose ability is simply to "glow a little," and his friend Masayoshi Kuroi, with the considerably more powerful "Black Hole" ability, as they interact with the strange people of their town. Other prominent characters include the gals Mirai Misato and Shoko "Heeko" Taira (who have the power to see into the future and travel to parallel universes respectively), landmine girl Riko Yamikawa (who has the literal powers of one), Poisonous Person Sumire Busujima (constantly generates venom which she has to expel, usually through vitriolic comments) and Shoko's older brother Hitoshi (who has the ability to bring "Equilibrium" to things)

Episodes are typically released on Wednesday and Saturday in Japan, with other days of the week releasing short-format videos. The videos cover a giant variety of content as well, from overt parody of other series, to the main cast just playing a game together, to just looking at the absurdity a person's powers can cause. While typically an episodic production, every now and then (typically once per season) a multi-part episode series is produced, fleshing out both the world and the main characters. These "Special Episodes" as they are known, are typically more serious in nature, albeit not without losing the humor prevalent in the series, often focusing on interpersonal drama between characters.

The channel also has a spinoff manga primarily focused on Mirai & Heeko, called The Gals Who Always Say Incredible Things: My Daily Life at a Private Paranormal High School (しれっとすげぇこと言ってるギャル。ー私立パラの丸高校の日常ー^note literal translation: Shiretto Sugee Koto Itteru Gal. - Shiritsu Paranomaru Koukou no Nichijou), illustrated by Otsuji (author of My Stepmother and Stepsisters Aren't Wicked). It started in 2023, currently serialized in Tonari no Young Jump. It can be seen as an alternate retelling of the series, as while it mostly does it's own thing, any events from the main series adapted are typically given new context or fleshed out in alternate scenarios.

The original Japanese channel can be found here. A fan translation of specific (but not all) videos can be found here.

Paranormal High School and The Gals Who Always Say Incredible Things contains examples of:

• Abandoned Pet in a Box: Hikaru encountered these multiple times when he was younger, specifically with Cerberus dogs. Unfortunately for him, their owners would always end up taking them back after a while.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Hitoshi first appeared in the Spring 2025 Special Episodes, a time when the main cast are in their 3rd year of high school. In the manga however, he first appears in the manga-exclusive Tea Ceremony Arc, which is currently set during a time when the main cast are in their 2nd year.
• Adaptation Expansion: The manga adaptation often ends up doing this to any event they adapt from the original web series, taking advantage of the medium to flesh it out more, such as Hikaru's first meeting with Mirai and Heeko. In the web series, he just happens to come across them while they're at his seat and they quickly befriend him; in the manga, he ends up taking them to Shin-Okubo after this encounter, trying to interview them for the school's newspaper.
• Affectionate Nickname: Mirai tends to give these out to the main cast, such as "Pikarun" for Hikaru, "Heeko" for Shoko and "Sumisumi" for Busujima.
• Affectionate Parody: Happens on occasion with videos, such as when Heeko is shrunken down to a kid in "When You Turned Small, but Have The Mind of a Gal ♡", with the ensuing video being a parody of Detective Conan (complete with Hikaru as Kogoro).
• Angelic Abomination: The leader of Villain High is revealed to be this in the 2nd episode of the Villain High episodes, to contrast their "students" looking like Eldritch Abomination stick figures, having multiple wings, a single eyeball attached to what appears to be a stalk, and a halo.
• An Ice Person: Multiple exist in the series, though usually said powers end up being less than effective for them, such as Hikaru's former upperclassman working a job at a sauna or his cousin Hinata freezing their heater due to her ability making her a Yuki-onna.
• Animation Bump: While the regular episodes tend to have Limited Animation for the most part, focusing on the voice acting and character interactions. the Special Episodes tend to bump up the animation quite a bit, even having occasional fight scenes within them. This goes doubly so for the music videos they've made, as well, just compare a regular episode to !! Bomb Cute Bomb !!.
• Anti-Climax: The Villain High Special Episodes deliberately end this way. Hikaru and Masa have made up their friendship after having an intense fight, as well as Mirai and Heeko having a heart to heart over Heeko's jealousy towards Mirai's friendship with Busujima, with the confrontation with Villain High about to happen tomorrow...and then it cuts to one week later, Hikaru and Masa working their part time jobs and glossing over how they managed to beat Villain High. Hikaru even states that they probably would've needed 10 more episodes to cover everything.
  • The finale to the Newspaper Club side-plot also ends this way, with Makoto and the rest of the newspaper club confronting the supposed main cause of the loop, Sekio Kakeru...who then proceed to agree with them about wanting to end the loop and to not cause it anymore without much fuss, with his apparent kidnapping of Hikaru being a result of Miyagi's missing person posters looking like someone was after Hikaru and wanting to protect him. Though as later videos would show, time shenanigans would end up happening regardless of Kakeru's involvement.
• Baby Morph Episode: One video has all the members of the main cast (sans Hitoshi) and the physics teacher turning into children after encountering strange men at an amusement park (as another Detective Conan reference).
• Bad Future: The December 24, 2039 video showcases one, as part of the build-up for the Villain High Special Episodes. In it, people are shown wearing collars that seemingly nullify their powers, various parts of the city are destroyed (including Paranormal High) and posters of people from Villain High are plastered about, implying they took over. There is a resistance movement going around, organized by Hikaru's junior from the newspaper club, Makoto, though their attempts to recruit Masa end in failure, as he's far too depressed to help.
• Bait-and-Switch: This tends to be the type of gags the series goes for, but is especially used in videos with Riko, often playing off the assumption of her appearance as a landmine girl to her suddenly doing something unexpected of a person who dresses like she does. This is especially noticeable in the videos about her using social media, such as in "Emo Account, But Very Healthy Kinda Deal"
• Be Careful What You Wish For: The basis for the Summer 2024 Special Episodes. Hikaru, after getting fed up with having a lame power compared to everyone else, wishes for a world without any supernatural abilities, and suddenly wakes up in college in a world without any powers. Beyond the initial confusion of suddenly being a college student however, he also realizes he never really became friends with Masa, Riko or the gals as a result, as their encounters with each other were the result of his power.
• Beach Episode: A couple have happened throughout the series:
  • Parodied in "A gal who easily survives on a deserted island", where Mirai and Heeko are stranded on a deserted island but mostly treat the whole thing as a beach getaway (albeit in their school uniforms). Justified, as with Heeko's powers, they end up being able to leave whenever they wanted.
  • A straight example comes from a "A vampire who loves the outdoors", with Riko and her friend Kiyu hanging out at the beach as they go over all of Kiyu's vampire traits while they relax.
  • Chapter 21 of the manga also ends up being this, due to a classmate's ability causing the season to change to summer due to a literal interpretation of Summer Romance.
• Birthday Episode: A couple have happened across the series, for multiple characters:
  • Hikaru celebrated his early on in "Birthday Boy who asks for too much", taking advantage of Masa doing him favors for the day to put him through some pretty embarassing situations.
  • Masa's was celebrated in "A birthday celebration that's way too funny", with multiple characters giving him funny props and gifts all day, much to his annoyance. He also ends up getting Hikaru back for what he did to him during his birthday, getting him to glow like a rainbow alongside him so they'd both be the butt of the joke.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Winter 2024 Special Episodes ended this way. Hikaru has been turned back to normal, and everyone absorbed by Noriko has been freed. When Masa questions what Noriko's plan was, however, she simply states that she liked Hikaru from afar and just wanted to be with him. Masa breaks down, realizing he was targeting her our of misguided jealousy, but Noriko affirms to him that due to her powers, Hikaru would've been in danger eventually and she was growing jealous towards all of his friends. Though Masa promises to find a way to help her stay with Hikaru, she simply states it's either her or Hikaru's friends. She then makes Masa promise to always watch over Hikaru for her, before erasing herself from everyone's memories. Everyone involved has their memories of the events erased except for Masa, who still remembers and vows to Hikaru he won't forget her.
• Captain Ersatz: A large number of minor and one-off characters tend to be this, such as one of Hikaru's former upperclassmen being a large reference to Portgas D. Ace from One Piece, or the girlfriend of one of his classmates being a clear reference to Frieren from Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Even when Mirai and Heeko are in seemingly dangerous situations, they don't particularly act scared or surprised, usually calmly commenting on some other thing that has their attention that isn't the danger. Justified, since with their special abilities, they can fairly easily escape any situation they find themselves in.
• Cat Girl: A Gender Inverted example, where Hikaru and Masa are turned into cat boys in "Catizied". Played for Laughs as well, as they run the entire Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism as they are transformed repeatedly, sometimes only vaguely being cat related.
  • During the Wonderland Special Episodes, Mirai's Wonderland Counterpart plays the role of the Cheshire Cat and is given various traits to make her seem more catlike, such as a tail, extra cat ears and fangs. She's also more mischievious than Mirai's normal self, pressing at Hikaru's worries and self-doubt when talking to him and making funny faces at Wonderland Masa.
• Cerebus Rollercoaster: Most of the videos are comedic in nature, but every now and then they would mix a more serious undertone in the episode to be explored, such as the First Anniversary Special. This became a lot more prevalent once Special Episodes started being produced; while some of them still keep the overall comedic tone of the series throughout, certain ones like the Winter 2024 Special Episodes lean heavily on the serious side.
• Cheating by Copying: Parodied in "Those Who Cheat in a Risky Way on Exams", where a bunch of people try to copy off Hikaru's answer for a test in very obvious ways, despite the fact Hikaru himself doesn't even know if his answer was correct.
• Class Trip: Occasionally a video will have this as the setting, but for the most part the series skips over the actual trip part and instead focuses on the downtime with characters, such as the girls gossiping about love in "School Trip Love Gossip Gone Wrong (Girls' Room)" or the guys pretending to sleep in the aptly named "Guys who are really bad at pretending to be asleep".
• Cry into Chest: Busujima does this to Mirai in the Winter 2024 Special Episodes after reuniting with her when she gets absorbed by Noriko like Mirai was.
• Cute Ghost Girl: The newspaper club briefly encounters one in "A Ghost That Looks Too Good In Photos", who had the literal ability of being cute as her special ability. All except Hikaru comment on how cute she is before she seemingly departs, though she does return to bother Hikaru in "A Ghost That Comes Forward", since he was the only one who didn't call her cute.
• Dancing Theme: The opening to the Villain High Special Episodes, Better Better, featuring a segment where the main cast for the episodes just dance to the chorus. Ironically, the rest of the opening and the episodes themselves get pretty dark for the series, the lyrics even mentioning how things getting "slightly bitter" isn't so bad.
• Dating Service Disaster: Parodied in "Yankees looking for a fight partner with a matching app" where Hikaru's sister Miharu thinks she installed a dating app, but it was actually an app for delinquents to pair for fights.
• Day in the Life: A couple videos focus on a specific member of the main cast explaining their daily routine to the viewer (or Hikaru), such as Heeko's nighttime routine or Busujima's morning routine.
• Deadly Game: A minor recurring episodic video is the hosting of a death game by a masked man, who grabs people with strong abilities to participate as a form of challenge. Unfortunately for him, it usually ends up going awry, typically by the challengers being too strong, as seen in the aptly titled "Invited An Immortal Guy To A Death Game".
• Depending on the Artist: The series has multiple different artists working on it, with the art style changing depending on who is working on it. The general character designs don't change that much beyond the colors of their school uniforms and Special Episodes generally keep the same artist for the whole thing, but characters can look more realistic or stylized per video, as can be seen here and here.
  • Averted with the manga, which has a single artist (Otsuji) working on it, and thus characters generally have the same design the whole time through (outside of comedic moments)
• Digging to China: Masa and some other students attempt to dig to Brazil in "The theory that you could reach Brazil by digging through the schoolyard", hitting a bunch of obstacles along the way.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Though the basketball team's new supervisor appeared to be this in "A super kind club advisor with a tough-guy attitude" by the way he looks and sounds, he turns out to be an inversion, advising the team to take it easy and even preparing treats for them as a break, Hikaru even noting maybe he's a bit too soft on them.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Early videos with Masa would occasionally have him also acting as a straight man alongside Hikaru, and was notably more willing to snark back at Hikaru for his remarks, even willingly making fun of his ability. While he still will occasionally snark back at Hikaru, he's mostly seen as Innocently Insensitive, and no longer makes fun of Hikaru's ability at all.
  • Early videos also had less of a focus on what would be the main cast in general; while Hikaru and Masa still appeared fairly often, there were plenty of videos instead just focusing on various other members in the school with little to no involvement from either of the two, while characters like the gals or Rikotya weren't considered main characters at that point yet.
• Easy Impersonation: In "It's Been Taken Over by a Fake", Hikaru is suddenly shown being impersonated by a random person while he gets taped to the ceiling, with neither Masa or the gals noticing the obvious differences. It's only when they attempt to copy Hikaru's glowing power that Masa figures it out, mainly because they turned out to be glowing brighter than Hikaru normally is.
• Eldritch Abomination: While typically the supernatural elements in the series don't veer this far, every now and then they pop up, usually animated in a unique way to show something is off, most notably shown with the residents of Villain High, appearing as roughly drawn stick figures with no discernable features and having a warble filter on their voice whenever they speak, and Noriko, whose default appearance is a vaguely humanoid black mass with an off-centered smiley face, indecipherable except for a buzzing sound.
• The End of the World as We Know It: The plot of the first set of special episodes released involves stopping this, as Mirai learns the world would end that summer after trying to see the future past that point, prompting her and Heeko to find out what caused it.
• Ensemble Cast: While the series started off mainly focusing on Hikaru and Masa, fairly soon after their introduction Mirai, Heeko and Riko end up having episodes solely dedicated to them, without either Hikaru or Masa around, spreading out the focus a bit more. This becomes a plot point for the Villain High Special Episodes, where 11 notes how despite how the leader of Villain High may think, Hikaru is not the only protagonist of the world.
• Everyone Is a Super: The general gist of the setting is that everyone has special powers, but it also takes it further by showing that pretty much everyone but Hikaru has incredibly strong powers as well, such as his former upperclassman having strong ice powers or the kids who play dodgeball very seriously. Hikaru later gets an upgrade to his abilities after the Spring 2025 Special Episodes to just have general light based powers, however.
• Evil Makeover: Parodied in "A high school boy who changed his look too much after the holidays", where Masa comes to school with his hair and clothes dyed white, while spouting various references to famous evil characters the whole time.
• Festival Episode: "Enjoying The Summer Festival Kinda Deal" was one the series had early on, involving Hikaru, Masa and the Gals at a summer festival meeting various other characters from other videos managing stalls or having their own moments with each other.
• Flash Forward: Occasionally, there will be videos showcasing the characters as they would be in the future, from anywhere to years in university or as young adults applying for jobs, This is often implied to be the result of Mirai telling the characters about the future due to her powers, though it has also been the focus of some of the special episodes as well.
• Food End: The Special Cultural Festival Episodes ends this way, with the main cast all going to eat at an all you can eat yakiniku restaurant. It ends up mostly just being Hikaru and Riko though, as everyone else ends up arriving late.
• Forgotten First Meeting: The 3rd Anniversary Special Episodes reveals Mirai and Heeko met each other as kids prior to their first meeting on a train in their first year of high school, though that memory was seemingly lost to them.
  • Subverted with Masa and Hikaru, as the end of that arc revealed the Hikaru they were protecting at the time was a fake, but played straight with later revelations in the Villain High Special Episodes, which showed Masa and Hikaru did in fact meet each other as kids prior to formally becoming friends in their first year of high school.
• Fractured Fairy Tale: Quite a few videos are parodies of fairy tales that star the main cast and their own powers and personality quirks, such as Riko and Hikaru in Hermes and the Woodcutter, or Busujima as Snow White.
  • The Fourth Anniversary's Special Episodes are a large extended version of this to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, with Hikaru in the role of Alice and Mirror Self versions of the main cast as the various Wonderland residents, such as Wonderland Mirai as the Cheshire Cat and Hikaru's own Wonderland counterpart as the Mad Hatter.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: Happens in "You're going to replace us today, right?" where the main cast (and some recurring characters) end up swapping around with each other.
• Frictionless Ice: Hikaru ends up stuck in a puzzle like this in "Class where teacher is probably a gym leader" as he tries to deliver a notebook back to a friend, as a parody on a Pokémon gym leader's gym puzzle. Students that look like the Gym Guide and a Jynx even show up to help him, as he gets stuck repeatedly.
• Gag Series: While there are occasional dips into serious plots and storylines, the series is primarily a comedic one, with most videos being about the cast getting into wacky situations in this world of superpowered people (and sometimes not even involving someone's powers).
• Gender Bender: Hikaru is briefly subjected to gender changes in the Special Cultural Festival Episodes, which is revealed to be the result of falling into a "Spring of the Drowned Girl" while training in the mountains, complete with the hot and cold water transformation (though in his case, it's hot and cold noodles).
  • Chapter 30 in the manga also has a similar premise, though in that case it affected everyone in the school, not just Hikaru.
• Giant Woman: Okinako, one of the students at Paranormal High, has this as her ability. Riko is also briefly transformed into one during "An extremly large landmine girl", Played for Laughs the entire time.
  • Chapter 7 of the manga also has Heeko briefly turned into this, when everyone's powers end up getting swapped around.
• Girl's Night Out Episode: Happens on occasion, with a video focusing on all the female members of the main cast having a sleepover or going camping (though in the latter's case, Hikaru also ended up joining in his female form).
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Shortly after his introduction in the Spring 2025 Special Episodes, Hitoshi began taking part in some of the more light-hearted episodic videos of the series despite still being seen as an antagonist, such as playing Word Wolf with Hikaru, Masa and Busujima or joining Hikaru and Masa on a school trip. It's downplayed however, as the members of the main cast who have the worst relationships with him, Heeko and Hikaru, and pretty reluctant to be around him.
• Graduate from the Story: A graduation video was produced on March 9, 2024, showing the main cast graduating and going their separate ways, with many tears being shed, especially by Masa. The end of the video then reveals that time has then rewound back to their second year of high school (though the relationships they've made since then have been kept), seemingly caused by someone's power, averting this for now.
  • Another graduation video was produced on March 31, 2026, though mostly skipping the ceremonial aspects and just showing off the cast celebrating in their homeroom afterwards. It then takes a swerve into a Sudden Downer Ending as new transfer students arrive and suddenly erase the whole class save Hikaru. Though Hikaru tries to fight back, he ultimately fails and all he can do is let out a few anguished gasps as he too is erased, and soon the whole world. Like the first one, it becomes a subversion as well, with the following video revealing that time has indeed rewound itself back once again...only this time to Hikaru's first year of high school instead, with his friendships with the other main characters somehow also kept, despite not meeting any of them until high school.
• Great Offscreen War: The Villain High Special Episodes reveal the world used to be a lot more like a world in a battle manga, complete with constant ability user battles and warring nations, until something put a stop to it and sealed away anything that would make the world less "peaceful". It's also revealed the one who did this was Heeko and Hitoshi's grandmother and her friends.
• Green Thumb: From the Summer 2025 Special Episodes, Green Riko's ability turned out to be this, with it running wild thanks to the summer weather. Hikaru's own ability proved to just strengthen the plants via photosynthesis, so he and the gathered Rikos instead stayed around to help nurse her back to health.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: An early video showed that one of Hikaru's classmates, Tokio, has the ability to rewind time, causing this kind of situation to occur as he attempts to fix Hikaru and Masa's relationship after a falling out.
  • A more serious, downplayed version this trope is implied to be part of the series Myth Arc, as the Summer 2024 Special Episodes implied that Hikaru and co. have already graduated high school for a while, but Hikaru's own reluctance about leaving high school and something else has caused a time loop that resets time back to their 2nd year of high school. Makoto, and later the rest of the Newspaper Club sans Hikaru are also revealed to be trying to figure out how to break the loop as well.
• Heroic BSoD: Played for Drama during the 3rd Anniversary Special Episodes, where Masa enters one in both the future and the past, causing him to engulf a part of the city in a black hole in the future, and let Noriko take over his body in the past. Both times, Hikaru pulls him out of it.
• Historical Domain Character: Mirai often ends up running into various people who are clearly meant to be historical figures in the middle of their famous feats or experiments, such as encountering an Erwin Schrödinger-like person in the middle of his famous experiment, usually messing up whatever they were doing as a result.
• Image Song: The series has actually produced 3 so far:
  • "torima.", which is about Mirai and Heeko.
  • "Inner Net Explorer", which is about Hikaru and Masa.
  • "!! Bomb Cute Bomb !!", which is about Riko.
• Impending Clash Shot: Used as the thumbnail for the first episode and last episode for the Villain High Special Episodes.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: Hikaru is suddenly shrunken down in one episode, causing Masa to take him to his home for safety, under Hikaru's own protests.
• Intercontinuity Crossover: The channel occasionally crosses over with other Youtube channels or properties of Plott Inc, such as Karekore of Mixed Blood, with a video made on both channels. Typically in a short format, though sometimes the characters will appear in longer videos as well.
• Invisible Streaker: Defied by a robber who tries to rob the store Hikaru and Masa work part-time at, showing up fully dressed despite his ability actually granting him Invisibility. When Hikaru questions him about this, he notes that if he did that, he'd get in trouble for being naked, obviously.
• Karaoke Box: The cast occasionally are shown visiting places like this, Riko especially, with her song covers framed as her singing them at karaoke.
• Last-Second Photo Failure: The plot of the 500K subscriber special revolved around this, as the Gals go around trying to take selfies that always end up getting ruined at the last second.
• Literal Split Personality: The plot of the Summer 2025 Special Episodes has Riko split into 6 different versions of herself, causing her brother to get the main characters to help in tracking them down.
• Loony Friends Improve Your Personality: As the series goes on and Hikaru starts interacting and befriending the main cast, he becomes more open and friendlier to them as well, becoming more accepting of their quirks and personality traits. It's still downplayed, as he's still acting as the Only Sane Man most of the time and will call them out on doing insane things, but he definitely cherishes their friendship.
• Lower-Deck Episode: Occasionally, a video or short won't feature any of the main cast at all, instead focusing on side characters such as the Newspaper Club or Riko's brother Riku and what high jinks they get up to. It was more prominent in early videos, due to Early-Installment Weirdness, but it still happens fairly regularly in the shorts.
• Mentor Archetype: Hitoshi tries to be this to Hikaru after the events of the Spring 2025 Special Episodes, having taken a vested interest in him since then, but his antagonistic attitude towards Heeko and his Abhorrent Admirer tendencies towards Hikaru make him less than willing to hear him out.
  • It's also revealed in the Villain High Special Episodes that his antagonistic attitude towards Heeko was in part an attempt to be a Stealth Mentor towards her as well, as she was the only one in their family who had the potential to become as strong as their grandmother.
• Mirror Self: Hikaru encounters mirror versions of the entire main cast during the Wonderland Special Episodes, with all of them also taking the roles of various Wonderland characters as well, such as his Wonderland counterpart being the Mad Hatter, or Masa as the White Rabbit. They also all have abilities opposite they normally have, such as Wonderland Hikaru's ability being "Unimaginable Darkness". The sole exception being Hitoshi, whose basically the same as his regular counterpart, due to his nature of being "average".
• Morality Chain: An inverted example with Noriko and Hikaru; many of her nastier traits are because she became closer to Hikaru and wanted him all for herself. Later turns into a straight example when she appears again in the 3rd Anniversary Special Episodes, where though she admits she doesn't really care about the world, she takes over Masa's body in an attempt to help him save past Hikaru, eventually sacrificing herself for Masa when his body is mortality wounded, justifying it by saying she didn't want to make Hikaru sad.
• Multiple Head Case: A classmate of Hikaru's once introduced him to his girlfriend, who ended up being a Cerberus type girl, complete with the multiple heads with differing personalities. It didn't last particularly long, as by the end of the video he ends up introducing him to his new girlfriend...conjoined snakegirl twins.
• Mundane Fantastic: The setting is generally portrayed as basically modern day Earth, but everyone has abilities they use for their daily lives. It's a bit downplayed, as on occasion someone's ability causes an incredibly out there situation that characters just have to comment on how weird it is, but for the most part people just act like normal people.
• New Year, Same Class: Shown off in "Before we knew it, we became third years", with Hikaru concerned about knowing anyone in his class. Besides some recurring characters (such as Hayakawa) he knew being put in some other classes, all the other main characters were grouped together, to his relief. Though as later videos show, some of them ended up part of his third year homeroom eventually, presumably due to the loop.
• Not Zilla: One of the students in the main characters homeroom is revealed to have a mom who is very clearly based on Godzilla, when they come by for a PTA meeting. As an extra bonus, another one's mom turns out to be based on Mothra and another based on King Ghidorah.
• Only Sane Man: Often the role Hikaru ends up playing when putting up with everyone else's antics. Busujima as well once she joined the main cast, with the two either sharing the role or having to act as one to the other due to events.
• OOC Is Serious Business: Initially played for laughs in the Winter 2024 Special Episodes, with Hikaru suddenly starts being more outgoing and less introverted when he starts dating Noriko (his hair even starts turning from blue to yellow as a result.). This causes Masa to get very concerned, to the point he forms a team of Yanagi, Mirai and Busujima to find a way to return Hikaru back to normal. It takes a turn for the dramatic, however, when Yanagi is seemingly killed by Noriko, causing the group to take the situation more seriously.
• Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Videos leading up to the Villain High Special Episodes notably had retreads of older videos, such as "Re: 8:30 AM Exam Day", a retread of the very first video of the channel "8:30 AM Exam Day", but with the characters seemingly ending the video on a sour note. This comes to a head with the start of the Villain High Special Episodes, where both Hikaru and Heeko end up breaking off their friendships with Masa and Mirai respectively. Luckily, by the end of the arc they've rekindled their friendships after confronting one another about everything.
• Poisonous Person: Busujima and her family have this as her ability. She is able to use it offensively, such as shooting blasts of poison from her hands, but for the most part it's kept inside her, only really being released while she makes snarky comments.
• Power Swap: A classmate of the main cast, Kumi Ogura's ability "Catch and Release" is this, able to take other people's abilities and then give them back out by having them eat food she makes. Hikaru notes how it's a surprisingly scary ability in this setting in the manga, being akin to an ability a final boss would have.
• Power-Up Food: In "Did they have a Super Mushroom in the cafeteria?", the school cafeteria starts serving various foods that end up giving everyone power-ups from Super Mario Bros.
• Red Skies Crossover: The series was part of a large crossover with other Plott animation channels (such as Grim Reaper Flag-chan!) in which various characters from the channels involved would get isekai'd. However their part of the crossover didn't really have them interact with any of the other characters they were crossing over with at all; the video on their channel was even structured like a standard Riko social media video. The characters themselves also just treated the whole thing as more like a Vacation Episode, as Heeko's ability meant they could leave any time they wanted.
• School Festival: Multiple school festivals have happened, to various degress of silliness, such as when the various girls of the school hosted really strange stalls. At least one of those times was given a multi-part episode series as well, being called the Special Cultural Festival, involving Hikaru getting into Gender Bender situations.
• School Uniforms are the New Black: Zig Zagged, despite the limited animation of the series. Characters are usually shown in a variant of their school uniforms, but that's mainly because the setting of a video is usually at school or right before/after, thus characters not having time to change. When a video is set outside school entirely, characters will have multiple different outfits depending on the occasion, most notably shown with the gals, who have a compilation short showing off various outfits they've worn in the series..
• Seinfeldian Conversation: Mirai and Heeko love to do this, with many videos just being about the two of them talking about something quite random while someone (usually Hikaru) listens and silently comments.
• Serious Business: A common trend for a video is the main cast or anyone else getting involved into minor activities and then treating them with the utmost seriousness (barring Hikaru), such as a snowball fight, making mochi, or trying to get a bee out of the classroom.
• The Seven Mysteries: Riko ends up encountering them during "Riko-tya VS the Seven School Mysteries", all attempting to scare her. It goes awry from the get go, thanks to Riko's usual mix of All-Loving Hero and Cute and Psycho traits.
• Sick Episode: Riko catches a cold during "The girl with the secret social media account gets flamed", which ends up causing her to have a fever that makes her literally on fire. She tries to work through it and attend her classes and club activities, but her friends basically go and tell her to rest and take a break.
  • Hikaru himself also catches one in a "The absolute wrong way to care for someone" and in Chapter 22 of the manga, with various other characters coming to his house to help him out, in their own unique ways.
• Snarky Inanimate Object: Hikaru, Masa and Hayakawa encounter a very judgemental photo booth in one video, berating Hikaru for his lack of enthusiasm and complaining about Hayakawa's fashion sense. It even ends up refusing to take pictures for them, refunding them and telling them to do better next time.
• Speech-Centric Work: The series is primarily focused on dialogues between characters, having mostly Limited Animation in effect for most videos. While some videos do have more of an emphasis on animation, mainly with abilities or otherwise wild things happening, the videos mainly focus on characters talking and hanging out with one another.
• Standing in the Hall: Parodied in "The whole class is made to stand in the hallway", where the entire student body is made to stand outside their classrooms for reasons unknown, with the entire video spent trying to figure out how to get back inside.
• Start of Darkness: Parodied in the Sigma Episode epilogue to the Villain High Special Episodes, where Hitoshi gives Hikaru a letter explaining his backstory and where his antagonism with Heeko began. It turns out to mostly be a recounting of random mundance grievences he experienced, such as when his grandmother accidentally erased his save data in Kirby Super Star, or when he got teabagged while playing a fighting game online.
• Stylistic Suck: Played for laughs in "Let's take it easy today, okay?", where Heeko and Mirai note how they look pretty sloppily drawn, wondering if the artist is cutting corners and to do it properly next time.
• Sudden Downer Ending: The 2026 Graduation Video is suddenly hit by this, as two new transfer students appear and suddenly "cut" the entire graduating cast of the series out of existence, with Hikaru and Hitoshi only barely managing to hold on before ultimately succumbing as well. Though Noriko seemingly attempts to do something from within Masa, the world is ultimately considered ended before suddenly cutting to a black screen, followed by a "To Be Continued" text.
• Super Drowning Skills: The school's swimming team all unfortunately have powers completely incompatible with swimming, being someone made out of the earth, someone who dies if the fire on their head goes out and a man made out of paper respectively.
• Time Capsule: The main cast attempt to bury one in "Burying a time capsule before graduation", with each of them having an increasingly absurd amount of stuff they'd like to bury as the video goes on.
• Time Travel: The basic plot of the 3rd Anniversary Special Episodes involves Hikaru and Masa being sent to the future and the past respectively, to help protect someone important. This is quickly shown to be the other's counterpart in that time period.
• Toast of Tardiness: Parodied in "It's too fast to be a romantic comedy" where a student constantly tries to run into someone while having toast in their mouth in an attempt to start a Crash-Into Hello romance. Unfortunately for her, she happens to have Super-Speed and Time Master powers that constantly messes her up, as Busujima points out.
• Training Montage: Parodied in "What I Was Training During Summer Vacation", where Hikaru suddenly appears with a Heroic Build, explaining how he was out training over summer break. It's soon revealed that his newfound muscles were actually the result of another student's ability however, and he quickly returns to normal. He does confirm that he did actually train, however.
• Underground City: Hikaru, Masa and Riku encounter one during their hunt for the different Rikos in the Summer 2025 Special Episodes, where it's revealed Yellow Riko ended up making one in Osaka with her unique ability of Fast Tunnelling, where other landmine girls inhabit.
• Unsatisfiable Customer: The Gals and Riko-tya encounter a duo in "Shitty Customers VS Gals", but thanks to their own weird personality quirks they end up resolving the ordeal in a peaceful manner.
• Unwanted Harem: Parodied in several videos where the main cast get Hikaru to play an Otome Game they made featuring gender-bent versions of the female members (and Masa) as romance options...but the goal of the game is to reject them all in RPG style combat.
• Vacation Episode: The Gals go on a two-parter vacation trip to a little island town shortly after the Summer 2025 Special Episodes, getting into all sorts of wacky fun while there. They even meet a little girl name Mitsuru who ends up acting as an equivalent to Hikaru while there.
• Valentine's Day Vitriol: Hikaru display this attitude during Chapter 7 of the manga, being notably cynical about the whole holiday until he receives a Platonic Valentine from Kumi, briefly cheering him up before going back into his cynical attitude.
• Wacky Homeroom: The entire school is fairly wacky, but a common setting for a video involves the main characters' homeroom being affected by someone's ability, usually someone else in that class, and the ensuing high jinks that ensues.
• Weather Manipulation: Quite a few people have this as an ability, to the point it can cause drama between competing weather forecasters, as seen in "Weather Report Drama". Hikaru's sister Miharu also has a specialized version in having the ability to cause "Spring", which also doubles as Love Is in the Air.
• Wham Episode: The Spring 2025 Special Episodes would shake up Hikaru's status quo quite a bit, as Hitoshi's ability would cause Hikaru's powers to go from "glowing a little" to more general Light 'em Up powers, with future Special Episodes having him show off his full range of abilities pretty well, even getting them even more enhanced as time goes on. It's downplayed though, as while it is a pretty big shake up, it doesn't exactly change his dynamic with his friends all too much and most of the time you don't exactly see it shown off during regular videos, although Hikaru's own quirks have started being more forefront since this change.
  • The 2026 Graduation Video and the following video, "Paranormal High 2026 Enrollment Ceremony" are a huge one, with the entire cast suddenly being cut from existence just after their graduation ceremony by new transfer students, with the acknowledgement that this world has ended. The following video then reveals time has once again rewound itself back despite the supposed cause of the loop having been stopped in an earlier video, but this time to Hikaru's first year of high school instead. He is also somehow friends with the rest of the main cast and is implied to have kept his enhanced abilities as well, despite both of these things not happening until after he started high school.
• World of Technicolor Hair: A downplayed version, as a majority of the people in the setting have fairly normal hair colors, but there are quite a few people who have exotic hair colors that people don't really bat an eye too, usually in relation to a person's powers. Of the main cast, Hikaru has teal hair and Busujima has purple (though it is revealed it's that way due to her powers and she actually has black hair), which aren't treated as unique at all.
• World of Weirdness: With a world of people all having superpowers but living ordinary lives, it tends to fall into this category. Extraterrestrial and paranormal creatures exist and also try to just live regular lives most of the times as well, as can be seen with Riko's friend Kiyu.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Riko gives one to Hikaru at the end of the Summer 2024 Special Episodes, after letting him air out his grievances about how the powers he thought were useless were actually more important to him than he thought, and were responsible for forging friendships he sorely misses now. Riko says that his powers were just one aspect of him, and he can still rekindle the relationships he no longer has despite not having them anymore.
  • Hikaru himself also gives one to Future Masa in the 3rd Anniversary Special Episodes, mixed with You Are Not Alone. He mentions how surprised he was to see Masa in such a depressive funk, because that's how he feels about himself. He says it's because of Masa that he's met so many amazing people and had so much fun, that he's what he is today because of him, and that no matter what he'll stick by his side.
  • Masa gives another one to Hikaru in the Villain High Special Episodes, mixed with Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!. During their second fight Masa shuts down the idea that Hikaru is the main character of the world, that the fighting and sacrifices are because of him and he needs to live up to that expectation. Instead, he says that people did that simply because Hikaru is a likable guy, there is no main character of the world, and people can do whatever they want, just as he is going to and not to make that decision for him.