The 26 (?) students of the Midnight Horror School.
Midnight Horror School (Japanese: ミッドナイトホラースクール) is a Japanese CGI anime series created by Naomi Iwata (who also created Pecola and Gregory Horror Show).
It is about a school for items and things long forgotten by humans. As midnight hits, Ambre Elementary, an otherwise normal school becomes the Midnight Horror School, and the many objects within the school forgotten by its students and teachers come to life. There are 26 students, each representing an individual letter of the alphabet. Each has a unique ability, or "wonder," that they hope will become one of the wonders of the world.
It aired on Animax from October 2003 to March 2004.
This show provides examples of:
- Abhorrent Admirer: When Liddy is aware of YumYum's crush on her, she very much does not reciprocate.
- All Love Is Unrequited:
- YumYum, Genie and Inky are all shown to be crushing on Liddy, but she hardly notices it.
- Liddy herself has a crush on Docky who doesn't seem to reciprocate.
- Noisy gets a crush on Tubee in Episode 38, but he does not feel that way towards her and only keeps up the act so other students won't get mad at him for breaking her heart.
- Ambiguous Gender: Despite using the male honorific "Mr.", Mr, X's true gender is unknown to the other students. Episode 20 focuses on the students trying to figure their gender out.
- Asleep in Class: YumYum is shown to have fallen asleep at his desk in at least two episodes.
- Enton and Rosso also fall under this trope in Episode 32.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Episode 10 has Ampoo making Piranin grow giant in an attempt to make him a terrifying sea monster.
- Banister Slide: Docky has a tendency to ride down the school's stair-rails, and is fast enough to have become popular for it. The usual problem is averted as the rail ends in a curl instead of a knob.
- Balloon Belly: Mr. X gains one after drinking too much juice in episode 20.
- Biting the Handkerchief: Mr. Tiger does this while getting particularly emotional over a romance book he's reading.
- Black Bead Eyes: Genie was shown to have those underneath his glasses in episode 2.
- Bring My Brown Pants: YumYum wets himself after being spooked out of the bathroom by Kemurin in episode 25.
- Brought to You by the Letter "S": All of the students have the letter of the alphabet that their name starts with printed on their shirts.
- Brown Bag Mask: Mr. X always wears one and is never seen without it. Any attempts to pull it off result in the instigator pulling off a seemingly infinite amount of bags until they get tired and leave them alone.
- Character in the Logo: Hikky appears where the first "ー" would be in the title in the logo.
- Character Tics: Docky has a habit of pushing up the brim of his fireman helmet.
- Cool Teacher: Mr. Tiger's students love him due to how tough and cool he is.
- Dem Bones: The school's faculty is made up of living skeletons or skulls.
- Docky is based on a plastic skeleton model.
- Demonic Possession: In episode 31, an evil ghost possesses Zobie and makes him steal the students' wonders except Mr. X's.
- De-power: Possessed!Zobie sucking out the other students' wonders leaves them unable to use them.
- Dwindling Party: A non-lethal version occurs in episode 40. Due to the principal having a cold, the school is slowly freezing over and trapping everyone inside in ice blocks. By the time the episode starts, only the main quartet and the Terrible Trio are left still standing, with them slowly getting frozen one by one, until the boiler room switch is finally pulled, and the school thaws out, freeing the trapped students and faculty.
- Everybody Cries: In "Teacher's Day" Inky's speech causes all the students to break down in tears.
- Everything's Deader with Zombies: One of the students, Zobie, is a zombie. He's mostly pretty quiet and harmless, though he does have a habit of collecting random things.
- Everyone Has Standards: The Bullies (Tubee, Usop and Yumyum), while they do bully the other students and cause mischief on occasion, they never antagonized Kabo in any of his focus episodes. They even called out Genie and Vincent for giving him the behavior control jelly beans in 'Day of the Great Pumpkin' and helped him get coins for his plant in 'Kabo's Part Time Job'.
- Fingerless Hands: The students have rounded nubs for hands, with the exception of Piranin, who has fins.
- Fish People: Piranin is, well, a piranha.
- Forced Sleep: In episode 21, Liddy sings a song that puts everyone in the school to sleep, with the obvious exception of her. It also makes them completely obedient to her.
- Forgot About His Powers: Sometimes a student may forget to use their wonder which would've solved the conflicts of many episodes easily.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: Episode 43 has Docky and Enton switching bodies after crashing into each other on the stairs.
- Genki Girl: Noisy is a rather energetic girl, fitting her association with Spimon. Guess it comes with being created from sound equipment.
- Hammerspace: Whenever Watt needs a colored light or his bulb burns out, Anpoo pulls a replacement from nowhere.
- High-Pressure Emotion: If Inky gets overly flustered, his ink cap starts to rattle around and steam puffs from his head until his ink seemingly evaporates and he passes out.
- Inflating Body Gag: In episode 10, one of the attempts by Hikky and Liddy to help Piranin become a terrifying sea monster is to inflate him with an air pump.
- Intrepid Reporter: Noisy is always on the hunt for a news story.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The three bullies, Tubee, Usop, and YumYum, have shown signs of this sometimes.
- Karmic Butt-Monkey: YumYum, Tubee and Usop get pushed around a lot, but they mostly deserve it for their mean and selfish actions.
- Keet:
- Hikky and Spimon are both pretty energetic boys.
- Kabo is one to an almost obnoxious extent.
- Quicky has so much energy he's almost bouncing off the walls.
- Living Drawing: Hikky's 'Wonder' is creating these, though it took him a while to completely perfect it.
- Man-Eating Plant: Juno always carries a man-eating plant on her head. When she gets angry or serious, the man-eating plant on her head gets violent.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- At the end of Episode 30, Hikky becomes sad after he caused his friend to pull a Heroic Sacrifice because he brought a monster to life.
- In Episode 22, Ampoo and Watt are horrified when they accidentally create a shadow-sucking monster that starts going after their friends.
- Nerd Glasses: Genie has the traditional swirly-lensed anime glasses.
- No Mouth: Vincent lacks a mouth yet is still able to eat and talk. Mr. X also qualifies, as their face is always hidden by their brown paper bag mask.
- Non-Standard Character Design: All the students have black sclera in their eyes except Onpoo who has white sclera instead. Justified as her head is a black music note.
- No Ontological Inertia: In episode 22, destroying the shadow monster causes the shadows it's eaten to return to their owners.
- Odd Friendship: Some of the Friendships in the show are a bit odd.
- Although not properly explained in 'St. Elmo's Fire', It's a bit odd for someone as shy as Rosso being friends with Enton and Zobie. Though him inviting Borocca, Inky and Piranin is likely because they're Birds of a Feather.
- The Stoic Docky's friendship with the Keet Schedule Fanatic Quicky is this.
- Although calling it a friendship is a bit of a stretch, it's a bit odd for Kabo to have some form of friendliness with Tubee, Usop and Yumyum.
- Out of Focus: Some of the students, including Enton and Onpoo, don't get much focus due to the anime's rather short run.
- One Extra Member: A 27th student exists, making a total of nine students for each class. They are never named and their shirt has a Question Mark rather than a letter.
- One-Shot Character: Magneron and Casey, both of whom perished to save others in the same episode they were introduced in.
- Only Sane Man: Onpoo and Vincent, as their focus episodes never really get hectic like the other students' do.
- Parasol Parachute: Borocca can do this by himself, being based on an umbrella.
- Personal Raincloud: Borocca's "Wonder" is that, whenever he gets too worked-up and cries, a raincloud appears over his head and it begins raining everywhere. This becomes dangerous if he's inside when this happens, as he creates enough rain to flood rooms and send desks afloat in the hallway. Not helping is that he's a bit Prone to Tears.
- Prone to Tears: Borocca and Rosso are rather emotionally sensitive kids. Perhaps fittingly, their "Wonders" both are water-related.
- Pumpkin Person: Kabo has a pumpkin for a head, and sometimes spews out more as part of his "Wonder".
- Punny Name: Most of the students. Some are obvious, others less so.
- Docky, a skeleton, is derived from "dokuro" which is Japanese for "skull"
- Rosso, a red fire hydrant, has a name that comes from the Italian word for "Red".
- The "Vin" in Vincent (a jar of jellybeans) would be pronounced "Bean" with a Japanese accent.
- Mr. Salaman is both a Salamander and a Salaryman.
- Casey sounds like "Keshi", which is Japanese for "Eraser".
- Realistic Species, Cartoony Species: While the students look cartoony, most of the faculty are realistic skeletons.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: The titular mysterious vending machine from episode 34, along with the clones of the students it creates, has glowing red eyes.
- Schedule Fanatic: Quicky is obsessed with the time. Makes sense as he's a clock.
- Searching the Stalls: Done by Docky in episode 20 to try and find if Mr. X is using the boy's restroom.
- Scooby-Dooby Doors: Episode 20 features a variation of this, with groups of students chasing Mr. X through the restroom's stalls.
- Short-Runner: The show ran for one season from 2003 to 2004.
- Shrinking Violet: Borocca, Inky, Piranin and Rosso are all pretty timid and nervy.
- The Smart Guy: Genie is the smartest of the students, at least academically.
- Snot Bubble: Piranin was shown with this in the pilot episode.
- Quicky was later shown with this in Episode 14.
- Enton and Rosso later in Episode 32.
- The Spook: The "?" student. They stay silent in the background and are never acknowledged by anyone else (to the point viewers will likely fail to notice them unless specifically trying to find them), yet have their own dedicated chair, desk, and locker in the Pink Toad classroom and are visible on a status report with all the other students in episode 28, making it ambiguous if any of the cast is aware of their existence.
- Squashed Flat: Happens to Yumyum in one of the episodes.
- Stern Teacher: Both Mr. Tiger and Ms. Peginind have shades of this. Mr. Salaman is a downplayed version, as he's mostly good-natured and friendly as long as his buttons aren't pressed too much.
- The Stoic: Docky is the resident "cool kid" of the school, though he does have his moments of slipping.
- Talking with Signs: Fonton's main method of speech.
- Time-Freeze Trolling Spree: In episode 13, the school clock malfunctions, leading everyone to become frozen in place with the exception of Quicky. After briefly panicking, Quicky decides to take advantage of this to mess with the other students, like eating other kids's lunches and smearing some on Magnero's face to frame him for it, and doodling on Ms. Peginind's screen-face and planting the marker used for it in YumYum's hand so he gets blamed for it.
- Those Two Guys: Ampoo and Watt tend to form this sort of duo.
- Terrible Trio: The bullies, Tubee, Usop and YumYum, are called this in-universe. Perhaps as a form of damage control, they're spread out amongst the 3 classes.
- Took a Level in Kindness: The Bullies became a lot less bad and more mischevious in the later episodes.
- Unmanly Secret: The tough and manly Mr. Tiger secretly likes to read romance novels. The bullies try to embarrass him by revealing this to the other students, but it just makes them love him even more.
- Verbal Tic: A couple characters use these; Borocco has "-boro", Enton has "-moku", Spimon has "-damon", Ampuu has "-puu", Magnero has "-magu", Quicky has "-dagya", Tubee has "-zura", Zobie has "-zobie" and Mr. Book Deposit Machine has "-gero".
- The Voice: The Principal, though it's implied he's the will of the school building itself.
- The Voiceless: Fonton doesn't talk, instead communicating through writing what he wants to say on pieces of paper.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Though the characters speak and write in Japanese, all the background text is in English. The school's name being spelled "Ambre" implies it's located somewhere in the UK, though the end credits pronounces the letter Z the American way.
- "Which Restroom?" Dilemma: Episode 20 focuses on the other students trying to figure out which bathroom Mr. X uses.
