Series / Majisuka Gakuen

Majisuka Gakuen (マジすか学園, lit. Serious School) is a Japanese drama and musical series by the idol group AKB48 and was broadcasted first in 2010 on TV Tokyo. The cast mostly consists of members of AKB48 or their numerous sister groups.

Two transfer students, Atsuko Maeda and Onizuka Daruma arrive at Majisuka Gakuen, an all-girls yankee school where fights and violence are common. While Daruma is eager to prove her strength to the strongest group in school, Rappapa, Atsuko does not care about fighting. Soon enough, the Majisuka students learn about Atsuko's true power and force her to fight them.

The series was renewed for two other seasons: Majisuka Gakuen 2, set in the same school but a year after the original, where the new Rappappa has to face both an inner rebellion and the attack of Yabakune, now led by a former ally. Majisuka Gakuen 3 is set in the future on a prison for young girls and features a new cast of characters. New main character is now Paru, the newest convict in Hope Prison, a girls' prison built 20 Minutes into the Future after the Juvenile Deliquency Law is passed. Paru will have to survive in a harsh environment full of fights and crime.

A fourth season started airing in 2015: the action returns to Majisuka Gakuen where a new group of girls has become the Rapappa, and yet another transfer student (this time Sakura Miyawaki) will confront the Rappapa leader, Salt (played by Shimazaki Haruka, who played Kanburi and Paru in former seasons) while Majisuka's rival Gekioko Nurse School plans an attack.

A fifth season aired on Summer 2015 and follows a new conflict between Majijo, Gekioko, Yabakune and the Yakuza.

A spinoff special episode, Majisuka Gakuen 0, starred HKT48 going up against a group portrayed by the band Kishidan in the latter's hometown of Kisarazu, Chiba Prefecture, and is a prequel to Season 4, before Sakura transferred to Majijo. HKT48 and Kishidan collaborated on the former's 6th main single "Shekarashika!" ("Shut Up!" in Hakata dialect), and that song is also the ending theme for the special episode.

Another spinoff was a musical adaption titled Kyoto School Trip made after Season 4, which had Otabe and Gekikara as the leads alongside a cast of new characters. The story tells of the Majijo students going on a trip to Kyoto, where they face the top of Dendeke High, the Shinsengumi. The musical also gives full in-sight to Gekikara's backstory and reveals a tragic past which made her who she was today. There was also another musical sequel set after season 5 titled Lost in the Supermarket, starring Black and Katabutsu.

The sixth season of the series, titled Kyabasuka Gakuen or Cabasuka Gakuen (キャバすか学園), aired in fall 2016. It's set in an Alternate Continuity where the girls open and work at a cabaret club to raise money to prevent Majijo from closing down.

At the end of May 2018, the seventh season of the series, titled Majimuri Gakuen (マジムリ学園, lit. "Seriously Impossible School"), was announced to premiere in July. This season is a Spiritual Successor with an entirely new cast and setting, featuring some of AKB and their sister groups' younger, up-and-coming members. Unlike previous seasons, this time the schools are co-ed, and the cast also includes a group of real-life male martial artists and pro wrestlers. The main protagonists' school is also not a yankee school, but has a strict social hierarchy imposed by the Nazi-inspired Absurdly Powerful Student Council. A stage play version was produced shortly after the TV series ended, with a similar storyline but many new characters, since this time all but one of the regular cast were AKB48 members.

A sequel to the stage play, titled Majimuri Gakuen -RAI- ("Flower Bud"), was announced in February 2021 as part of AKB48 Team 8's seventh anniversary celebration. The regular cast would exclusively feature members of that team, and members of other teams would also make guest appearances like in the first play.

The third stage play installment, Majimuri Gakuen LOUDNESS, was announced in July 2021 and would be performed in August. The cast this time features members from all AKB48 teams, quite a few characters have changed allegiance, and the story focuses on the conflict between the student council and Arechi. Notably, series protagonist Lily and the Hana-gumi are not part of the main cast. Like in the second stage play, there are three main characters: first and second stage play antagonists Nero and Null, and new character König.

Timelines

In general, each series or stage play takes place in one of three continuities.

Majisuka Gakuen

• Majisuka Gakuen (2010)
• Majisuka Gakuen 2 (2011)
• Kyoto School Trip (2015)
• Majisuka Gakuen 0 (2015)
• Majisuka Gakuen 4 (2014) branches into:
  • Majisuka Gakuen 5 timeline
    • Majisuka Gakuen 5 (2015)
    • Lost in the Supermarket (2016)
  • Cabasuka Gakuen timeline
    • Cabasuka Gakuen (2016)
• Majisuka Gakuen 3 (2012), although it takes place 20 Minutes into the Future and features no characters from the previous installments.

Majimuri Gakuen

• Majimuri Gakuen (2018)

Majimuri Gakuen Stage Play

• Majimuri Gakuen Stage Play (2018), branches into two versions, both set two years after it:
  • Majimuri Gakuen: Rai (2021)
  • Majimuri Gakuen: Loudness (2021)

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This series seriously contains examples of:

Majisuka Gakuen

"In this world, there is nothing but seriousness!"

• Aborted Arc: The fourth season really builds up the tension between Gekioko and Majijo, seemingly leading up to a full-fledged conflict between the two schools just as in the second happened between Majijo and Yabakune... only for Antonio to be defeated by Sakura, Gekioko peacefully accepting defeat and Antonio and Kobii quietly graduating. Their graduation is retconned in season 5, but as Salt rescued Antonio from the yakuza early on, the arc is aborted once again.
• Absurdly Powerful Student Council: The strongest group - the wind instrument club Rappapa - is feared by everyone and de facto considered the top of the school.
• Abusive Parents: Both Nezumi and Center's fathers.
  • Also, Gekikara's mother.
• Action Girl: Any character who is not an action girl is a rare exception.
• Adult Child: Show in 0 is proudly "Forever 16 Years Old".
• Adults Are Useless - Whereas all students possess fighting skills, the school staff seems to be mostly made of average humans not affecting the plot at all. By the time of fourth season, not even the director appears, and the school seems to be in anarchy.
  • Gekikara is stabbed in a hospital yet no medical personnel immediately come to help her. Thankfully she is later given treatment.
  • In season 5, all the adults are either evil, corrupt, or inept.
• Affably Evil: Yoshimune and Akechi.
• A Friend in Need: Why many of the characters have deep connections, underneath their cool exteriors.
• All There in the Manual: All the yankees have nicknames, including those who only appear for a few seconds. Some are only named in the credits.
• Alternate Character Reading: The main schools have their names in ateji and are homophones of Japanese slangs.
  • Majisuka Girls' Academy: 馬路須加女学園, homophone for "Seriously?"
  • Yabakune Girls' Commercial High School: 矢場久根女子商業高校, homophone for "Ain't that bad?"
  • Gekioko High School: 激尾古高校, homophone for "really angry"
  • Shekarashika Girls' Commercial School: 志恵唐鹿女子商業, homophone of Fukuoka dialect slang "Shut up!"
• Ambiguously Gay: The first two seasons show quite a bit of subtext, but the third takes it up to eleven. Uruseeyo and Tatsuo are really masculine girls who are obsessed with each other, and Peace gets described by the guard as "the girl who loves Paru".
  • In the musical, two of the Majijo girls (played by Takahashi Juri and Oshima Ryoka) are in a secret relationship.
• Analogy Backfire: In season 4, Minami tries to explain the necessity of having friends by showing that a single chopstick cannot stand by itself while a bunch tied together can. Sakura simply pushes down and collapses the chopstick tower, justifying her belief that being at the top matters more.
  Sakura: If you crush it from above, it's done for.
• Antagonist in Mourning:
  • Season 1: After Yuko's death, everyone mourns her, including those who stood against her. Maeda never gets the chance to fight her and properly take Rappappa's top position.
  • Season 2: Shibuya declines to fight Maeda after she realizes that she has no chance of defeating her, and when Maeda is arrested, friends and foes tearfully see her off. She also names Center and Nezumi as the next Rappappa leaders as she is taken away.
  • Season 5: Salt is assassinated before Sakura can have a rematch after her defeat in season 4. Center also never gets to fight Salt, as she informs Principal Mori before executing him.
• Anyone Can Die: Season 5.
• Apathetic Teacher: In season 1.
• Arc Words: All the main characters believe in "living seriously".
• Artifact Title: Season 3 is not set at the titular school.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: The simple way of the yankee world.
• Attack Pattern Alpha: Team Fondue always fights as a unit, and they have various battle formations.
• Attention Whore: In season 2, Student Council President Minegishi Minami reinvents herself into Shaku ("screentime") and joins Maeda's Rappappa. The first time we see her, she launches into a long rambling monologue about how she wants more screentime and be acknowledged by the other yankees, making an Actor Allusion to the real Minegishi's previous movie Moshidora and Breaking the Fourth Wall along the way, while the other Rappappas watch in confusion.
• Ax-Crazy: Shibuya and Gekikara.
  • Yagi in the third season is so mad she needs to be carried around in chains to prevent her from attacking anyone.
  • Shirogiku and Kurobara are pretty ruthless, as they live for hearing the pained cries of their opponents.
• Babies Ever After: In her cameo in the fourth season, Daruma is seen with a baby.
• Back-to-Back Badasses - Used several times throughout the series, most notably with Atsuko and Sado (and Atsuko and Minami in a flashback) in the first season, then with Center and Nezumi in the second. Paru and Miyu also do this in the third.
  • Yoga and Magic in season 5.
• Backup Twin: Played with and lampshaded as Yuko's actress returns. Not as a twin, but as the two surviving triplets.
• Badass Boast:
  • Maeda's "Any time, freshman."
  • In season 5, in response to a threat from a yakuza she just defeated, Salt replies, "Majisuka Gakuen. I'm Shimazaki Haruka. Come at me anytime."
• Badass Bookworm:
  • Nezumi is more often seen plotting than fighting, is a fan of Hermann Hesse, and her base classroom is full of books. She can also hold her own in a fight.
  • Messi from season 3 is a scientist and genius hacker.
• Bad Boss: Akechi has his two most loyal henchmen killed for no good reason.
• Battleaxe Nurse:
  • Gekioko is a nursing vocational school. Their uniform resembles that of nurses instead of the Sailor Fuku both Majisuka and Yabakune wear. All of them are also yankees and can treat their own injuries after a fight thanks to their training. They also know how to use truth serums to extract information.
  • Sado becomes a (terrible) nurse after graduating. She comes to season 2's Final Battle in an ambulance, wearing her trademark fur coat over her nurse uniform, stating that she's underworked and needs to send more people to the hospital.
  • Center cameos as a nurse in season 4. She resigned and returns to Majijo in season 5 to help with their crisis.
  • Ironically, we never see Maeda becoming a nurse, even though she's always studying for that in season 1.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: No matter how brutal they fight and how much they bleed, the yankees retain their beautiful, shiny hair and flawless makeup.
• Berserk Button:
  • Unlike most students, Atsuko is reluctant to any kind of fighting... until you ask her whether she is serious.
  • Never ask Otabe why she is Held Back in School. She appears in seasons 2, 4, 5, and Cabasuka as the same character, and is part of Maeda, Salt, Sakura, and probably also Center's Rappappa; she keeps wearing her season 2 uniform with dark blue collar in the later seasons, while the others wear the updated Majijo uniform with white collar, as Continuity Nod.
  • The last person to ask Black about her son's father was reportedly beaten up half to death.
• Best Friend: Magic is the one most devastated when news of Yoga's death arrived, and savagely beats up the two Yabakune students who came to apologize for leaving her behind after she saved them.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Maeda, Sakura, and Salt.
• Bifauxnen: Gakuran.
• Big Sister Mentor: In season 4, Minami is one to Sakura, who initially has no friends.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: 0's Show puts hot sauce on everything, including soft drinks. He also punishes his subordinates' failure by drenching his fist with hot sauce and punching their wounds.
• Bloodier and Gorier: For a drama based on an idol group, one would think that it'll be something light and happy, right? Definitely wrong.
  • And then, there is the Gekikara episode, which is much gorier and more cruel than everything else until this point.
  • Season 5 takes this up to eleven.
• Bond One-Liner: There are some.
  Otabe, after dousing Lee with boiling oil: When cooking Chinese food, maintaining the correct temperature is crucial.
• Book Dumb: Bakamono in the fourth.
• Bottomless Magazines: Mostly averted except in Season 5's final showdown.
• Bragging Theme Tune: Season 5's "Yankee Machine Gun" has lines like "Yankees are like a machine gun, each one of us is a bullet" and "If you call for war, we'll answer it anytime".
• Brainwashed and Crazy: In season 3, the prison is run by a global consortium which tasks the director to turn selected girls into assassins and put the rest into Human Trafficking.
• Breakout Character: Gekikara definitely rose to high popularity with the fans, as well as her actress Matsui Rena.
  • She was also co-lead (along with Otabe) in the musical adaption of Majisuka Gakuen.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Otabe comes to Yoshimune's office and interrogates her father at gunpoint when she suspects he is behind Salt and Bakamono's murders.
• The Cameo: In the fourth season, Center appears as the nurse treating Salt when she gets injured in episode 8. Nezumi also makes a comeback in episode 10, wearing her trademark hood. Torigoya appears on episode 1 saving a Majisuka student from Gekioko bullies, and Daruma appears on episode 6 giving some cryptic advice and some of her trademark chicken wings to Kamisori and Zombie.
  • Many Majijo alumni from Season 1 join their alma mater's Final Battle in Season 2.
  • In Season 5, Maeda, Yuko's sister, Yuka, Black, Torigoya, Nezumi, and Center ALL appeared at Salt's funeral in Episode 2. However, Center eventually made more appearances as a key character to the story. As for everyone else... no. Nogizaka46's Hori Miona also briefly appears as a student whose uniform and student book are borrowed by Magic to disguise herself.
• Catchphrase:
  • Atsuko has "I'm serious".
  • Gekikara has "Are you mad?"
  • The third season is full of these. Uruseeyo has "Shuddup!", Nantene has "Just kidding", Komimi has "I just overheard this but..." and Messi has "Bang!" when releasing Yagi from her chains, and "Perfect", answered by Yagi's "Respect".
  • Sakura's "I will never look back!" and "Get out of my way!"
• Celebrity Paradox: The girls sometimes make jokes about AKB48 and has mentioned Takahashi Minami by name, even though she plays several different characters in this series.
• Chain Pain: The final duel in episode 0 is a Russian chain match. Ageman manages to trip Show on the chain and ends the match with a headbutt.
• Chekhov's Gag: In 0, Namaiki and Otona are curious about kissing and are often seen discussing about it. In the climax, they watch in awe as their senior Ageman kisses her ex-boyfriend Show after defeating him.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Dance in the first and second seasons and KY in the fourth.
• The Chessmaster: Yoshimune in season 5. See the Analysis page for details.
• Coat Cape: Ageman wears her red jacket this way, a mild allusion to the red Senbatsu Election winner cape her actress has worn many times.
• Cold-Blooded Torture:
  • Gekikara loves to inflict pain on others using pencils, umbrellas, and other implements.
  • Shirogiku and Kurobara of season 4 enjoy the screams of their victims.
  • The Gekioko nursing students in season 5 torture a crooked lawyer for information.
• Combat Commentator: Team Hormone. Hilariously lampshaded by Daruma when Kokabuki commentates during Atsuko's fight with Ookabuki.
• Combat Sadomasochist: Gekikara does not care about winning or losing but takes and throws punches alike just for the sake of violence while giggling like a maniac.
  • Sado's nickname is a shortening of the word "sadist". Seeing as Yuko gave it to her after seeing her fight it makes a lot of sense.
  • In Season 4, Shirogiku and Kurobara are pretty much torturing their opponents, wanting nothing more than to hear their screams of fear and cries of agony.
• Compensated Dating: The Chinese Mafia runs a brothel and lures high school girls to work there, wearing their school uniforms. Also a case of G-Rated Sex since all we see them doing are non-sexual activities.
• Content Warnings: Season 1 episodes start with a disclaimer stating that the show is an "extension of a school drama" so the acting may be poor at times and asks the viewers to bear with it. The warning in Season 2 states the same thing but additionally claims that there has been some improvements, then in Season 3 it conversely states that the acting is even worse (probably owing to many new members taking main roles).
• Continuity Nod:
  • Otabe wears the old Majijo uniform in all her appearances.
  • Salt plays with Sado's metal balls in the Rappappa club room.
• Cool Big Sis: Minami acts as one towards Sakura in the fourth season.
• Cool Teacher: Teramoto-sensei in 0 seems like an Apathetic Teacher at first glance. When the Kishidan gang abduct him to lure the girls to a showdown, most of the girls are unwilling to rescue him until the tour agency rep, his Love Interest, scolds them and reveals that he has fought hard for them to be able to go on the school trip and have a memorable time, since their school administration were reluctant to allow yankees that privilege and had even canceled the trip before Teramoto-sensei intervened.
  That lame Teramoto. Is this a school drama or something? Trying so hard to be cool.
  • Otona acknowledges him as one of their own by referring to him as "our boy" when they come to pick him up. Katsuzetsu also calls him "Sensei" instead of the usual "Teramoto".
    Katsuzetsu: Sensei! This is how yankees talk things out.
  • He later Took a Level in Badass and beats down a group of yankees harassing his new girlfriend.
    Teramoto: Please stop. She might look conventionally ugly, but she is beautiful to me.
    (Thugs continue harassing his girlfriend, so he beats them up and embraces her. His students watch in amazement)
    Sakura: Teramoto...?
    Teramoto: It is true that some problems cannot be resolved by talking (winks).
• Cover Identity Anomaly: Magic goes to infiltrate the brothel where Yoga was last seen and borrows the uniform and student ID of the first high school student who happens to pass by as a disguise. Unfortunately, she is quickly found out because that uniform is of Nogi Girls' High School, a school for rich kids unlikely to be interested in doing underage prostitution.
• Coordinated Clothes: Kabuki Sisters.
  • Shokkaku and Sudachi in the third season and Kamisori and Zombie in the fourth.
• Corrupt Politician:
  • Nezumi's father is one.
  • Nogi-sensei in Season 5 is in league with the Yakuza and seeks to acquire the land Majisuka Gakuen stands on.
• Cowboy Cop: Detective Nirasawa in season 5, assigned to investigate Salt's murder, is insolent, laughs and eats at inappropriate times, wipes his hand after shaking hands with unsavory people in front of them, and employs Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique. He does ask the yankiis to stand down and let the adults handle the case, but at the same time pragmatically admits that their involvement would make his job easier. In the end, he gets reassigned by his corrupt superiors and never gets to the bottom of the case, and sits laughing outside the warehouse where the Final Battle takes place, maybe accepting that although he'll never know who the culprit is, at least they'll most likely die in the battle.
• Crapsack World: Season 5's world, where a bunch of high school girls, who are admittedly violent but never killed anyone or even shown to hurt anyone outside their own kind before, have to wage war against two powerful crime syndicates because the Police Are Useless, is definitely one.
• Creepy Child: Miso in the second season.
• Custom Uniform: Atsuko and the other main characters in each season (except Otabe, who still wears a cardigan over the normal uniform) are pretty much the only persons who wear her uniform correctly.
• Dark Action Girl: Several have shaded of this, but Gekikara in Season 1 most of all.
• Dark and Troubled Past: The leads usually have one.
  • Season 1 - Atsuko's best friend, Minami, was killed by a rival school and she blames herself for it all.
  • Season 2 - Center and Nezumi both have abusive/neglecting fathers whom they hate. They only have each other left.
  • Season 3 - Paru had a violent streak until she met Keita. Also, Dasu, betrayed by her friends, Nanashi and Nantene, left alone in the world and only have each other, and most importantly, Miyu, who killed Keita and felt jealousy and hatred towards Paru because he only thought of her as a sister, not as something more.
  • Season 4 - Sakura's father left her when she was a child.
  • Gekikara's tragic backstory is fully revealed in the musical. In a Troubled Backstory Flashback scene, we find out that Gekikara's mother was an unfamous alcoholic guitarist. She physically and verbally abused Gekikara as a child, and put all the blame and anger from her struggling career out on Gekikara, almost killing her and telling her she's a nuisance. Since then, the trauma stayed with her, as shown when Okita started playing her guitar, Gekikara was triggered from the horrible memories the sound brought and started going crazy. She is, however, able to recover and comes back stronger than ever, even to the point of taking Okita's guitar from her and shredding it like a boss before heading back into battle.
• Darker and Edgier: Season 5 involves the yakuza and lots of gunfights, and much less comedy. The first episode ends with Salt shot dead by an assassin.
• A Day in the Limelight: Season 4 and 5 side stories (gaiden) focus on the antics of Team Hinabe, with a few other secondary characters guest starring in each episode.
• Decoy Leader: Lin, the Chinese interpreter lady, is the real Chinese Mafia boss.
• Decoy Protagonist:
  • In season 2, Maeda rarely interacts with the other yankees and spends most of the season Walking the Earth. The story focuses on Nezumi, Center, and Otabe instead, with Shibuya as main antagonist.
  • In season 5, Salt is the first Majijo student to appear and is featured prominently on promo materials and the opening and closing credits. She is murdered at the end of the first episode, kicking off the season's plot.
• Defeating the Undefeatable: The protagonists' goal in seasons set at the Majisuka Academy is to defeat Rappappa's president. Subverted as none of them manage to do so.
• Defeat Means Friendship: After Atsuko beats Team Hormone, the latter becomes relatively amiable towards her.
  • Also the case with the Kabuki Sisters, Gakuran, and Choukoku, out of whom the first two actually fight for her.
  • Sado is another case, seeing as she not only became Yuko's second-in-command, but one of her fiercest defenders, after Yuko beat her senseless the first time they fought.
  • Happens to Team Habu and Paru in the third season, and Kamisori, Zombie and Sakura in the fourth. Kamisori-Zombie also become friendly with Team Hinabe after handily beating them, even though the latter is technically their seniors.
  • Ageman in episode 0 ends their conflict with the Kishidan gang on good terms. Her past relationship with Show certainly helps, since they're clearly still attracted to each other.
• Defrosting Ice Queen:
  • In season 2, Nezumi eventually breaks down and accepts Center as her Only Friend after Center proves her unwavering loyalty many times, despite Nezumi's many rejections and Chronic Backstabbing Disorder. They reunite in Cabasuka when Nezumi comes to help out at the Aquarium one evening.
    Nezumi: I really despise this comradeship thing... But it can't be helped if it's for a true friend.
  • In season 4, Sakura is reluctant to make friends due to her Dark and Troubled Past, but eventually warms up to Kamisori and Zombie and Team Hinabe and accepts the Power-Up Food they made for her (Chinese herb nabe) before facing Otabe. Similarly, the main antagonist Salt grows to appreciate her underlings and regard her own status as Rappappa's top seriously.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: "Sakura no Shiori", the ending for the first season, is Majisuka's hymn. It's also Yuuko's favourite song, and she usually sings or hums it.
• Diegetic Switch: In Season 5's final showdown, a gunned down yakuza Mook accidentally increases the volume on a sound system mixer. The scene continues with the same music.
• Disappeared Dad:
  • Sakura's most vivid childhood memory is running after her father and helplessly calling out to him as he left their home. This caused her determination to never run away from anything.
  • Black's raises her infant son on her own.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: All the opening and ending songs are sung by AKB members.
• Domestic Abuse: Nezumi tried to protect her mother from this.
• The Dragon: Sado to Yuko.
  • Also Kobii to Antonio in the fourth, although she has her own agenda.
  • Otabe to Salt in season 4. Salt in turn acknowledges her as the embodiment of Rappappa.
  • In the Chitoitsu Triad, Lee to Shu. And Shu to Lin, the real boss.
• Driven to Suicide: In season 3, after the prisoner data has been stolen by the escapees and her daughter, Peace/Yuria, broke free of her conditioning, the director shot herself with a derringer.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Yuko's Rappappa in season 1 is the only generation which has Queens with actual superpowers, namely Black with her Super-Speed or Flash Step and Torigoya with her Mind Rape power (Gekikara is just Ax-Crazy).
• Edible Theme Naming: In every season and musical set in the Majisuka Academy, there is a mid-tier squad named after a food and enjoy cooking it in class and also serve as Ms. Exposition: Teams Hormone, Fondue, and Hinabe in the TV series, and Teams Kebab, Okonomi and Monja in the musicals, the latter two of which later form an alliance called Team Teppanyaki.
  • The hostess names in Cabasuka also reminds many customers (and the hostess themselves) of sushi.
• Elegant Gothic Lolita: The Sanshou Sisters adopt this style and hold tea parties (while tormenting their victims).
• Elite Four: The Rappappa's Four Heavenly Queens.
  • Also Shokkaku and Sudachi in the third season.
• Everybody Dies: Unfortunately, this is the Gainax Ending / Downer Ending to Season 5. Center and Kenpou survive, although the latter is implied to leave the school afterwards. It's also revealed in the second musical that Katabutsu survived, as well, because she didn't participate in the Final Battle.^trivia Kenpou's actress left the group the year season 5 was released.
• Everyone Is Related: In Season 5, which means the girls are unknowingly trying to kill each other's relatives. Only Katsuzetsu actually does so in the season finale, though, by putting a bullet through Center's grandfather's head before he shoots her.
  • Otabe is the daughter of Yoshimune, acting boss of the Akechi yakuza group. Minami and some Ryuuto soldiers attack him in retaliation for Minami's father's murder, but the Chinese mafia suddenly comes and massacres them all.
  • Minami is the adoptive daughter of the Ryuuto yakuza leader. Antonio tries to kill him but is shot first, and his lawyer, who is in the Chinese mafia's pocket, does the deed instead.
  • Center is the granddaughter of Majisuka Gakuen's owner and lives in his house. He is killed by Katsuzetsu during the Final Battle.
• Evil Laugh: Gekikara's sadistic cackle is in everyone's nightmares.
• Evil Makeover: Torigoya looks completely different after her power is awakened.
• Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: Happens with the Kabuki Sisters. Daruma even comments on this: "Are you a commentator?"
• Expy: All the main girls from each season share the same characteristics: extremely silent, bob haircuts (Paru has longer hair but cuts it later), only person in the school to wear their uniform correctly, and having a habit before fighting (Atsuko takes off her glasses, Paru removes her hairband and places it on her knuckles and Sakura takes off her uniform's ribbon)
  • Salt has a very similar hairstyle to Yuko. They're also the only two Rappappa heads who have never been defeated, and both are dead by the time their sequels premier (Yuko dies between seasons 1 and 2 and Salt is killed in season's 5 first episode).
• Family Theme Naming: The three Ooshima triplets are called Yuko, Yuki and Yuka.
• The Fake Cutie: The Sanshou Sisters act childish and wear lolita clothes, but they aren't any less violent than their classmates.
• False Friend: The Sanshou Sisters' sisterhood rapidly breaks down while fighting Maeda.
• Finishing Move: In season 4, Scandal comments that Sakura does not finish off her opponents if she already knows she's stronger than them, for example Team Hinabe and Kamisori-Zombie. Played straight during her duels with The Four Heavenly Queens since they're powerful foes. In the final episode, Salt also doesn't land the final blow to Sakura since she's disappointed that Sakura couldn't give her the worthy fight she's been longing for... Until Sakura gets her Heroic Second Wind and proves her determination.
  Sakura, rushing to Salt: GET OUT... OF MY WAY!
  Salt: Try and open your path!
• Flash Step: Black's specialty.
• Flat Character: Most of the cast. The number of girls with actual backstories can be counted on one hand.
• Flawless Victory: Maeda VS Shibuya, surprisingly.
• Flipping the Bird:
  • When she first transferred to Majijo, this is Daruma's short and sweet self-introduction.
  • Principal Mori does this to Center as he dies, displaying his hatred of yankees to the very end.
• Floral Theme Naming: Gekioko's Shirogiku (white chrysanthemum) and Kurobara (black rose).
• Foil: Daruma to Atsuko, Peace to Paru and Kamisori and Zombie to Sakura.
• Foreign Exchange Student: Michelle, a minor Gekioko character, is a transfer student from Jakarta played by Michelle Christo Kusnadi of JKT48. In a season 4 side story, she transferred to Majisuka Jyogakuen (it is not explained whether this is before or after she becomes a Gekioko student in the main season) and bonds with Team Hinabe over their signature nabe.
• Forgot About Her Powers:
  • In Season 4, Otabe's intelligence is not shown much. Zombie also only demonstrates her instant recovery ability once, even though her nickname came from that power.
  • Season 5 attempts to be Darker and Edgier and thus the Heavenly Queens' gimmicks are downplayed. Bakamono isn't that stupid anymore and never activates her super strength; Yoga is never shown meditating (although she fights using soft martial arts); and Magic no longer uses trickery while fighting (although she attempts to infiltrate the Triad brothel wearing a disguise and still possesses great agility). Otabe, on the other hand, regained her intelligence from Season 2.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In season 5's first episode, Salt declares that yankees would also throw away their lives if they have to, and that she has lived life on her own terms and doesn't mind dying.
  • Center's grandfather tells her when they're playing chess that she is always too fixated on taking the king, possibly giving her the idea that Salt's murderer isn't connected to the Yakuza after all (although he may not actually know that).
  • When interrogated by the detectives, Principal Mori expresses his regret in a way that could be both interpreted as putting the blame on the Yakuza and as him hinting to the truth.
• Former Delinquent:
  • The female detective in season 2 (portrayed by Takahashi Minami) scolds her partner when he called yankees "trash" and is sympathetic toward the Majijo students, as she used to be a yankee herself.
    Female Detective: Please excuse my partner. There's no such thing as a trash yankee.
  • Takahashi Minami, the owner of Asobina diner in seasons 4 and 5, is a former Majijo yankee, and went on to join the Yakuza until she retired to her diner.
  • In Cabasuka, Salt has become a police detective and goes undercover at the Aquarium to investigate the hostess murder case. She later saves Saionji from a murder attempt.
• Friendly Enemy:
  • Yuko to Maeda.
  • In season 2, Shibuya is affable to her former Rappappa allies, even visiting Gekikara at the hospital after she is stabbed. After all, she cares nothing about the school rivalry and only wants a rematch with Maeda.
  • Majijo's Shaku finds a kindred spirit in Yabakune's Janken, since they both strive to be acknowledged by their peers.
  • In season 4, Salt often offers advice to Sakura who aims to overthrow her, as she wants Sakura to become a Worthy Opponent strong enough to give her a satisfying fight.
• Gender-Blender Name:
  • Sayanee's character in the fourth season is named Antonio, a Spanish boy name (she is nicknamed after Antonio Inoki, who has a prominent chin like hers).
  • Abe Maria's character in the third season is called Tetsuo, a name only used by boys.
• Genki Girl: Yuko, despite her terminal illness.
• Girls Behind Bars: Season 3 is set at a prison for female juvenile delinquents.
• Girls with Guns: Season 5 dabbles with this, as all the girls pack heat in the finale.
• The Glasses Come Off: When Atsuko gets serious, she always takes off her glasses.
  • Lampshaded in episode 11 when before a fight with Sado she removes them dramatically... to clean a lens.
  • Her dad does this, too.
  • Averted in the second series, as she gets contacts.
• Gold Digger: After graduating, Kojiharu starts out as an erotic masseuse (where her ability comes in handy to read her clients' fantasies) and from there seems to have seduced many rich men to support her lifestyle. She's alway seen Pretty in Mink and in her season 4 cameo is riding a limousine with her spouse. It's mentioned in Cabasuka that she recently won a huge alimony from an ex-husband.
• Good Bad Girl: Majisuka Gakuen 0 opens with Ageman (formerly Wota) half-awake in bed, covered only by a blanket, while her lover prepares to go to work and reminds her about her school trip before leaving. She is later revealed to also have a past relationship with Show. An Actor Allusion to her actress's scandal and suggestive public persona that grew from that, and possibly also a Take That! to the 48 Group's dating ban, which her actress has spoken up against a few times.
• Graduation for Everyone: Despite nobody is ever seen caring about education (except for Maeda), most senior students graduate normally and find normal work, including skilled professions like nursing. Those who don't wish to graduate yet can just deliberately miss enough school days and stay as students (although Otabe is sensitive about this). Graduates can also easily re-enroll as students as the plot requires.
• Gratuitous English:
  • Majijo's headmaster in seasons 1 and 2 loves to mix English into her speech. Atsuko herself speaks a line or two in English in addition to the "Rock and roll!" in the theme song.
  • Messi and Yagi's connecting catchphrases in season 3.
    "Perfect." "Respect."
• Growing Up Sucks:
  • In season 2, Choukoku asks Center to wear MMA gloves before they fight, because as a professional MMA fighter she cannot risk a Career-Ending Injury, unlike yankees who can fight with everything they have. Center throws the gloves away after the fight, reaffirming her will to fight wholeheartedly.
  • In season 5, Minami discusses with Sakura how yankee brawls are always exciting because everybody knows it will all be over when they graduate, and warns her against fighting the Yakuza because fights involving adults will always carry lasting consequences. Of course, Sakura doesn't listen.
• Hand Puppet: Nantene uses one in the third season. It's called Sally.
• Headphones Equal Isolation: Nezumi combines this with In the Hood.
  • Averted with Dance.
• Healthcare Motivation: Choukoku agreed to fight Otabe on Nezumi's behalf because her father is ill and Nezumi offered a very large amount of cash. She later returns the cash as she decides not to fight others' dirty battles anymore.
• Held Back in School: Shibuya is a bit of a strange one. She has already graduated, started working, but then voluntarily goes back to third year, of a rival school.
  • Gekikara is held back at school in season 2 (due to being kept in a mental institution during most of season 1) and the musical.
  • Otabe in seasons 4, 5, and Cabasuka, though it was never explained as to why she was held back, which means she has been a high school senior for more than 4 years, if we include the year in which Center and Nezumi were at the top and consider that in Cabasuka even the youngest students are already 18.
  • Wota, now known as Scandal, in season 4.
  • In season 5, Salt was held back because she missed too many days of school. The other queens decided to stay back another year with her... except Bakamono, who miscounted her attendance percentage and actually met the number of days required for graduation and therefore had to graduate.
• Hellhole Prison: The girls live in one in the third season. Sure, they're relatively free to move around and can even play golf, but gang rivalry is rampant and they're actually being screened to either become brainwashed assassins or given over to human traffickers.
• Heroic Neutral: The only reason Salt took the top of Majijo is to prevent anyone weak from disturbing her.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: The Chinese Triad in season 5 has a business relationship with the Akechi Group, but they secretly conspire with Akechi to kill Yoshimune and obtain a secret document he possesses. They even invade Majijo and ransack Rappappa's club room looking for it, knowing that Yoshimune might have sent it to his daughter Otabe.
• Hidden Depths: Maeda is studying to become a nurse while climbing the Majijo ranks. Nezumi and Center first bond over their shared interest in the works of Hermann Hesse. A number of other students also show knowledge in literature and other subjects, although they're never seen studying.
• Homage: The premise of superpowered delinquent schoolgirls is probably inspired by TV series from The '80s, such as Sukeban Deka and Hana no Asuka-gumi!.
• Honor Before Reason: Happens a lot with people not shying away from challenging whole crowds of opponents. The Kabuki Twins come to mind, with one fighting a whole bunch of girls, while the other challenges Shibuya.
  • In season 5, the girls go against both the Yakuza and the Chinese mafia, against the warnings of the police, parents, and principal. Otabe herself points out the absurdity of the situation.
• Huge Schoolgirl: Daruma.
• Human Traffickers: The prison director in 3 threatens to sell the prisoners overseas.
• I Am the Noun: In season 4, Salt calls Otabe the embodiment of Rappappa.
  Salt: And Otabe... Rappappa is you.
  Otabe: Much obliged. Be that as it may, you are our leader.
• I Ate WHAT?!: There's always someone in each season's cooking squad (Teams Hormone, Fondue, and Hinabe) who puts a questionable ingredient or two into the pot, and only informs the others what they did after they eat it, with predictable results.
• Identical Stranger: The only explanation for the same actresses playing different characters, having the same name in most cases, in the same universe without their characters being related. One of the weirdest cases would be Maeda, who doesn't blink an eye when she is arrested by a detective who looks exactly like her late best friend.
  • Otabe knows Kanburi of Team Fondue, a mid-tier group in season 2, and in season 4 is subordinate and closest friend to Salt, Rappappa's president, who's played by the same actress.
• If I Can't Have You…: A subversion in the third season. Miyu was in fact angry at Keita for loving Paru and only seeing her as a sister, but didn't kill him because of hatred, but because she was ordered so by the prison.
• If I Do Not Return: Implied in season 5 in Center's last conversation with her grandfather, since both of them are separately going to face danger.
  Center: Are you a good or bad person? ... I hope I have been a good person for you.
• I Have Many Names:
  • Wota has also been called Scandal and Ageman throughout the series, and becomes famous by her real name Sashihara Rino after graduating.
  • In Cabasuka, the girls are given a hostess name in addition to their yankii name.
  • Salt's real name is Shimazaki Haruka but she changes it to Kazahaya Kyoko when she becomes a detective as portrayed in Cabasuka's alternate continuity. Given that many of the yankees are Held Back in School, it's also possible that she and Team Fondue's Kanburi are the same person.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Center really feels a connection to Nezumi because of their common background (Friendless Background and Abusive Parents) and interests, despite the latter's aversion to friendship.
• Important Haircut: Paru cuts her hair after deciding to become head of Team Habu.
• Improperly Placed Firearms: In the season 5 opening titles, the yankees wield firearms from several eras, including sawed-off shotguns, a World War II-era M3 "Grease Gun", Prohibition-era Tommy gun, an M-4 carbine, and Magnum revolvers. Averted in the show where everybody uses modern handguns.
• In Name Only: The third season is set in a prison instead of a school, and features a new set of characters. The prison has the nickname "Majisuka Prison", but it's set in a different place, not related to Majisuka Academy.
• Ironic Nickname:
  • Dodobusu is considerably attractive even in comparison to the rest of the all-idol cast, but her nickname means "very, very ugly woman". According to Word of Saint Paul (i.e, the real Miyawaki Sakura's explanation during season 4's announcement), having two "very"s is somehow a negation and the name actually means "pretty girl".
  • Katsuzetsu's nickname means "speaking clearly", while she has a lisp.
  • Otona's name in 0 means "adult", while she looks like a child (her actress actually was around 14 at the time) and has a childlike curiosity about adult relationships.
• It's Personal:
  • Erena despises Atsuko because she believes she's the reason of her sister Minami's death.
  • Otabe personally executes Akechi, whom is ultimately responsible for her father's death.
• Karma Houdini: The corrupt police superintendent walked out of the Final Battle alive.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Happens to Daruma a lot.
• The Lad-ette: Uruseeyo.
• Lady of War: Maeda Atsuko
• Laughing Mad: Gekikara.
  • In Season 4, Kurobara.
• Legion of Doom: The Final Battle of season 5 is set at a lunch metting between the Akechi Company, Chinese mafia, and their associates.
• Leitmotif: Salt's appearance is often heralded by an Old West-style tune in season 4 and Ominous Latin Chanting in 5 and Cabasuka.
• Life Debt: After being saved by Salt, Antonio breaks Gekioko's alliance with Yabakune, which was formed to attack Majijo. After Yoga gave her life to save Yabakune students from the Triad, Head, Yabakune's leader, decides to also ally with them along with Gekioko, forming the Three-School Yankee Alliance for the Final Battle.
• Line in the Sand: Otabe gives everybody one last chance to bail out before the Final Battle against the Yakuza. Kenpou tearfully takes that chance. Since Everybody Dies, this might have been the wiser choice, and nobody judges her on her decision.
  Kenpou: You guys are weird. We're only high school students!
  Otabe: You're right. Yearning to destroy the Yakuza, we are the weird ones. ... Deciding to quit now also takes courage.
• Literal-Minded:
  • The conversation in season 4 episode 2 between Sakura and Team Hinabe.
    Dodobusu: Why do you want to reach the top?
    Sakura: Why not? If there's a mountain in front of you, won't you climb it?
    Kusogaki: I prefer the sea, though. What will you do if the sea is in front of you?
    Uonome: That's beside the point!
    Sakura: I'll swim.
    Kusogaki: What about a very high cliff?
    Sakura: I'll jump.
    The team: You'll fall! Are you stupid?
  • Being the Dumb Muscle, Bakamono is also an example.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Nezumi is the daughter of a wealthy Corrupt Politician and has all the money she could ever want or need, but is averse to friendship due to her troubled childhood until Center comes along.
• Long-Lost Relative: In season 1, Ono Erena is Minami's younger sister. In season 2, there's Oshima Yuka and Yuki, Yuko's surviving triplets.
• Lured into a Trap: Center by Nezumi. Subversion in that she knew Nezumi was betraying her and still showed up
  • In the fourth season, Sakura by Shirogiku and Kurobara, who kidnap Kamisori and Zombie.
• Mafia Princess: In season 5, Center's grandfather and Otabe's father are connected with the Yakuza. Minami was also one before she became a Ryuutou Clan member, although she has retired since before the events of season 4.
• Meaningful Name: There are several, justified for a few of the characters as they are nicknames.
  • Daruma shares her name with a type of good luck charm in Buddhism that is able to always get up when it's knocked down. This is even lampshaded by the Sanshou Sisters who start saying lines of the game "Daruma-san fell down" (akin to "Red light green light") while fighting with her and Atsuko.
  • Given to her by Yuko after their fight, "Sado" is a shortform for "Sadist", which is... strangely appropriate once you see her fight.
  • Shibuya dresses in kogal fashion and shares her name with a district in Tokyo where kogals are known to hang out.
  • "Nezumi" means "mouse." Guess who is The Mole and Manipulative Bastard trying to quietly orchestrate all of the events of the series?
  • Even the name of the school, "Majisuka", contains the word "maji" that is a homonym for "serious."
  • Yabakune's name comes from "yabai". It means bad.
  • Meanwhile, Gekioko is kogal speak for "very angry".
  • The name of Minami's diner, Asobina, is a homonym for "have fun!" which is her actress's famous catchphrase.

• Missing Mom: Atsuko's mother is also a yankee who travels a lot. She does come back to visit pretty early in the series.
  • Center's mother left her when she was very young.
• Mr. Exposition: Team Hormone are usually the ones that explain (either to each other or to Daruma) other girls' characteristics and fighting styles.
  • Their successors, Teams Fondue and Hinabe, also talks about plot points among themselves for the viewers' convenience.
• Morality Pet: Center to Nezumi.
• Motive Decay: In season 2, Maeda is never seen studying to be a nurse as was her goal in season 1, instead spending her days beating up people Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life to fulfill Yuko's last request.
• Mundane Utility:
  • Black uses her Super-Speed at her job as a supermarket cashier.
  • As an erotic masseuse, Torigoya reads her customers' minds to find out their fantasies.
  • In Season 4 Gaiden, Jisedai asks Kamisori to open a nabe seasoning package with her sharp nails.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After knowing that his murder of Salt has led to Majijo about to be shut down, Principal Mori regrets what he has done and starts talking to the police.
• Mythology Gag: Shibuya's ringtone is "Dear J", Itano Tomomi's (her actress) first solo single.
  • The first song Sashihara Rino ever centered in AKB was "Kagami no Naka no Jeanne D'Arc", where in the beginning she carries a flag. At the second season's last episode, there's a scene where her character Wota is carrying Majisuka's flag. The positions of the rest of Team Hormone also make it look like the song's unit.
  • Atsuko standing in the school's rooftop with her arms wide open at the end of the second season's opening looks very similar to Yuuko's shot at the beginning of the "Keibetsu Shiteta Aijou" PV.
• Never Bring a Knife to a Fist Fight: In season 5, Salt defeats a yakuza armed with a katana.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Sakura suddenly speaks Chinese and everybody can expertly use firearms in season 5.
• New Transfer Student - The first episode starts with two transfer students, Atsuko and Daruma, joining Majisuka Gakuen.
  • Otabe is this in the second season.
  • In the fourth season, the same happens with Sakura.
• Nonindicative Name: Rappappa is officially Majijo's Brass Instrument Club (rappa itself means "trumpet"), but nobody there ever plays an instrument. Sakura does blow a trumpet once to conceal the sound of Bakamono's gun in season 5.
• Non-Uniform Uniform: Atsuko, Otabe and Sakura are the only ones that wear the proper uniform, everyone else wears longer skirts, extra jackets, no ribbons, etc. Gakuran doesn't even wear the girls' uniform, wearing a boys' one instead. Happens the same to most of the Yabakune and Gekioko cast.
• No Sense of Direction: In her season 4 cameo, Kojiharu ends up rescuing her juniors when she stops her car to ask for directions to a museum in Atami, a city in Shizuoka Prefecture, to yankees from a rival school who are beating them up.
• The Notable Numeral: The Four Heavenly Queens.
• Office Golf: Season 5's Yoshimune has a putting mat in his office and practices his swing while talking to Otabe, his daughter.
• Office Lady: In season 2, Shibuya becomes one after graduating, and is terrible at her job. Maybe that's one of the reasons she returned to school.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In season 5, it's not shown how Center managed to identify Salt's murderer.
• One-Steve Limit: Minami the Student Council President is not to be confused with Minami, Atsuko's deceased friend.
  • Also in season 4 Sakura frequents a diner owned by a woman named Minami, portrayed by the same actress (whose name is Minami Takahashi) as Maeda's late friend.
• Only Known By Her Nickname: Almost all of the yankees are.
• Overly Long Name: In a season 4 Gaiden episode, Dodobusu is tired of her Ironic Nickname and changes it to Tenjou Tenge Yuiga Dokuson (a phrase attributed to Gautama Buddha) after seeing the phrase graffitied on a wall, until she realizes that it's too long that she herself cannot remember it (although Uonome and Kenpou can) and reverts to her original name.
• Parasol of Pain: Gekikara sometimes fights and tortures people with an umbrella.
• Parental Neglect: Otabe has a strained relationship with her father, who is the boss of a Yakuza clan. She mostly calls him by name and has threatened to kill him one day after she is convinced that he was the mastermind of the yankii-Ryuutou war, despite knowing that she attends Majijo and would inevitably be caught up in the conflict. They still ultimately care for each other, however: he has a picture of them together on his desk and encourages her to give up the yankii life and get married soon, and her last words before dying are that she'll again be able to pull weeds with her father, who has been murdered earlier, as they used to do when she was little.
• Peaceful in Death: For someone murdered by the Chinese mafia and found at sea, Yoga looks like she's just sleeping peacefully with no visible wounds.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: In the Action Prologue to 0, Namaiki^* ("know-it-all") and Otona^* ("adult"), who are tiny by Japanese high school student standards (their actresses, Yabuki Nako and Tanaka Miku, or NakoMiku, were still in middle school at the time), effortlessly defeat a gang of around nine male yankees on their own. The whole school qualifies as well for holding their own against the physically larger Kishidan gang.
  • In season 5, the teenaged female yankees also hold their own against the Yakuza and Triad in both fistfights and gunfights.
• The Place: The series is titled after the school where most of the story takes place.
• Plague of Good Fortune: Season 2's Janken, played by Janken Tournament winner Uchida Mayumi, is looked down upon by her peers in Yabakune since they believe she's just coasting on her luck, and is desperate for a chance to prove her strength.
• Plucky Girl: Every single student could qualify for this, but especially Atsuko, Daruma, and Yuuko.
• Posthumous Character: Minami, Atsuko's best friend, only appears through flashbacks, as she died before Atsuko came to Majijo.
  • In the third season, same happens to Keita, Paru's crush.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: During most of season 1, Maeda only fights when her opponent questions her seriousness, so before every fight she declares, "I'm serious!"
• Pretty in Mink: Sado wears a fur jacket over her uniform. After graduating, Torigoya/Kojiharu is often seen wearing fur as well.
• Product Placement:
  • Detective Nirasawa is seen reading AKB49 – Renai Kinshi Jourei and carrying Kojima Haruna's real-life photobook.
  • In episode 0, the Mitsui Outlet Park in Kisarazu is shown prominently and the shopping group discuss how they enjoyed shopping there.
• Protectorate: As the strongest Majijo students, the Rappappa doesn't only command respect from their fellow students, but is also responsible for protecting the school from their rivals.
  • This extends to protecting all yankees from external threats, as in season 5 Yoga rescues a pair of rival Yabakune yankees from a group of street thugs, eventually at the cost of her own life.
    Candy: You're from Majijo. Why did you help us?
    Yoga: Because I am Rappappa.
• Put on a Bus: All the third-years that graduated on the first season (as well as Daruma) only have small scenes explaining where they are now in the second season's first episode. The Sanshou Sisters (once it's revealed they've transferred to Yabakune) state that Manamana stayed at Majijo (a way to cover the fact that her actress, Oku Manami, graduated before the show started airing) Same happens to Erena, who doesn't appear on this season after her actress graduated from the group.
• Recycled Premise: Season 4 is very similar to 1 with new characters and slightly better production values. In season 5, Uonome lampshades this (since that season most definitely averts the trope).
  Uonome: Do you think a new transfer student will come and try to shake up the Rappappa again? We're tired of that old story!
  • Cabasuka also lampshades this in the Opening Narration after the Fake Action Prologue.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • Generally speaking, each character's prominence in a given season is proportional to her actress's real-life popularity (or whether the 48 Group management is giving the actress a marketing push) at the time.
  • In her introduction, Comeback states she dropped out of Yabakune and later came back. Kikuchi Ayaka, her actress, was kicked out of the group after a scandal, and later came back.
  • Otabe is a transfer student from Kyoto. Yokoyama Yui is from there.
  • Shaku changed her character to get more screentime. Minegishi Minami's gimmick is being obsessed with spotlight.
  • In her cameo in the fourth season, Wota claims she was grounded and sent to Fukuoka for a couple of years, as we see in 0. Sashihara Rino was moved to the Fukuoka-based group HKT48 after getting involved in a scandal.
  • In the fifth season, Bakamono is the only Rappappa member to have graduated. Kawaei Rina was the only actress featured in the series that graduated between the fourth and fifth seasons. Kenpou also leaves Team Hinabe and Rappappa before the final battle as her actress, Uchiyama Natsuki, is about to graduate.
• Reluctant Warrior:
  • Maeda in season 1 tries to stay away from brawls and focus on her studies, yet everybody keeps pushing her Berserk Button. This is no longer the case in season 2 as she becomes a vigilante.
  • Sakura in 0 tries to keep herself and the Hot-Blooded Katsuzetsu out of trouble, as she is aware that they have to behave themselves on the school trip. She finally snaps, to Katsuzetsu's delight, when a member of Kishidan gang tries to manhandle her.
    Sakura: Get out of my way.
    Katsuzetsu: There it is, Sakura's "Get out of my way!" I'd run if I were you guys.
• Replacement Goldfish: Team Fondue on second season take most of the commentary Team Hormone did on the first, after the latter Take a Level in Badass. Same goes to Team Hinabe in the fourth season.
  • Actually, most of the protagonists are very similar to each other. Atsuko, Otabe, Paru and Sakura all have bob haircuts, stoic demeanor and really messed up pasts.
• Retcon: The last episodes of season 4 repeatedly mention that the current Rappappa and Gekioko's leaders are going to graduate. In season 5, it turns out that the Rappappa are held back due to Salt missing too many school days and her Queens deliberately doing the same to stay beside her (except Bakamono, who miscalculated and had to graduate and get a job afterwards, although re-enrolling, as Shibuya did in season 2, could have been an option), and Antonio and Coby of Gekioko are also still at school with no explanation given. Meanwhile, in Cabasuka, which follows season 4 as an alternate continuity, only Magic and Otabe are held back.
• Retired Badass: Minami, owner of the Asobina diner in seasons 4-5, is a former Majijo yankii and high-ranking yakuza known as the long sword-wielding "Scarlet Peony" Minami. She takes up her sword again in season 5 to avenge her adopted father, a Yakuza boss, who was murdered by the Akechi Group.
  • In season 4, Scandal keeps a relatively low profile after returning to Majijo despite being the top yankii of her previous school in Fukuoka, Shekarashika Joshishogyo, as seen in the Majisuka Gakuen 0 prequel, and acts like she doesn't know Sakura, her junior who transferred from the same school, while around her classmates (since Sakura always says she's from Kagoshima and never mentions her previous school, nobody suspects a thing). Justified since her Team Hormone teammates have all graduated and she probably wants to avoid another scandal and graduate as well. However, she stays in touch with Sakura and Katsuzetsu even after graduating and helps Jisedai out of a predicament.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Yoshimune is murdered by the Chinese mafia with the cooperation of Urasawa, his Starscream, in order to put Urasawa first in line for succeeding the dying Akechi and get him to return the incriminating documents Yoshimune had on the Chinese mafia. Akechi, who has groomed Yoshimune as his successor but has no intention of stepping down despite his illness, challenges him afterward to a game of Russian Roulette, but they are interrupted by Otabe. Finally Akechi simply shoots him in the back.
• Russian Roulette: A dying mafia boss challenges his apparent successor to one.
• Sailor Fuku: The school's uniform qualifies. Yabakune also uses one, but grey and white instead of black/dark blue and red.
• Save the Villain: Season 5 starts with Salt rescuing Antonio, who is being held by a Yakuza gang, later revealed as part of the Ryuutou clan.
• Say My Name: In season 4, the Heavenly Queens are startled when Salt mentions Sakura by name, implying that she has started to take her seriously.
• School of Hard Knocks: Majisuka Academy and all of its rival schools, which are also School of No Studying.
• Second Year Protagonist: Atsuko and Sakura transfer to Majisuka Gakuen in their second year.
• Sequel Escalation: From yankees fighting other yankees in seasons 1-4 to fighting organized crime in season 5. With guns.
• Sequel Hook: A girl (identified as Center in season 2) walks up to challenge Maeda at the end of Season 1. Her response? "Any time, freshman."
  • The fourth season ends with new Yabakune head Gekkou warning Sakura about a counterattack from Yabakune on spring. Later, Sakura is defeated by Salt, but both realized the former will get even stronger and keep fighting for the top position.
    Sakura: I thought that if I kept moving forward, I'd keep progressing. But there will always be a wall that I cannot break down. Isn't that interesting? I don't want something I can easily obtain.
• Sex for Services: When Sakura gets shot, Otabe doesn't have money to pay the doctor and starts stripping down to her undergarment, complete with Male Gaze. Averted when the bartender she befriends decides to foot the bill.
• She-Fu: Thankfully averted.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Asobina diner set (combo) menus are called Sets A, K, B, 4, and 8. The diner's name is also a shoutout to Takahashi Minami's catchphrase, although written with different kanji. There's also a scoreboard displaying the number 48 in the storage room where Sakura and Yoga battle.
  • The numbers 4 and 8 appears several times in the background.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: In season 5 finale, Principal Mori goes into a Motive Rant to try to justify his action, framing himself as a Well-Intentioned Extremist who only wishes to help his students and the school by weeding out bad eggs like Salt. Center shuts him up with a bullet to the heart and an Armor-Piercing Response.
  Center: Even yankii are still your precious students, Principal.
• Significant Double Casting: Some of the girls that played characters in the two first seasons play new characters in the third. For example, Matsui Jurina (who played Center) plays Nobunaga, Kumi Yagami (who played Dance) plays Komimi, Shimada Haruka (who played Docchi) plays Uruseeyo, and Shimazaki Haruka (who played Kanburi) plays Paru, the main character. Same goes for the fourth season, despite being set in the same place as the first two.
• Silly Walk: Nezumi goes around by hopscotch jumping when she's excited.
• Small Role, Big Impact: In season 5, when Principal Mori assassinates Salt, the motive is because he hates yankiis and seeks to destroy the school's yankii hierarchy. As it turns out, the yankiis suspect the Ryuutou yakuza clan because of an earlier conflict and are brave/crazy/stupid enough to seek vengeance as Yoshimune, The Chessmaster, initially planned, causing a Cycle of Revenge which culminates in an all-out war between a yankii alliance from three schools, the Yakuza, and the Triad where Everybody Dies at the end. Center survives, though, and makes sure the principal gets his comeuppance for starting off the whole thing.
• Speaks in Shout-Outs: Kenpou's nickname refers to the Constitution of Japan and she speaks her mind by quoting a somewhat related article from it for the given situation (and quotes random articles when she's panicking).
• Spear Counterpart:
  • The Kishidan gang in 0, portrayed by the real-life rock band of the same name, is the only named male yankee gang in the series. They're based in Kisarazu, Chiba, which is also the band's real hometown.
  • The series as a whole is often compared to Takashi Miike's movie series about male high school yankees, Crows Zero. Incidentally, AKBingo!'s former host duo Bad Boys, who are former yankees, are cameos in the first movie.
• Spoiler Opening: The opening of season 5 features the girls wielding guns, which often come into play that season. Episode 0 opening features chain imagery, which foreshadows the final duel.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Since Maeda and Sakura are stoic types, the supporting characters (e.g. the cooking teams and gimmicky duos) get most of the fun lines.
• Sssssnaketalk: Nezumi.
  • Shokkaku hisses a lot too.
• Stalker with a Crush: Gakuran.
• The Starscream: In season 5, Urasawa, Yoshimune's right hand man, secretly conspires with the Triad to assassinate Yoshimune, who possesses incriminating documents regarding the Triad, and become the next head of Akechi Company. Akechi sees through this, though, and kills him for his treachery.
• Stoic Glasses: Atsuko in the first season, Nakamata in the second, Messi in the third.
• Strong Family Resemblance: The musical that follows season 5, Lost in The Supermarket, recasts some of the actresses as the younger sisters of their previous characters.
• Struggling Single Mother: Black is revealed to have a baby son in season 2, and carries him while doing her job as a supermarket cashier. She wants to enroll him in Majijo if he becomes a yankee when he grows up, even though Majijo is a girls' school.
• Suicide by Cop: Being the only yankii to walk out of the Final Battle, Sakura chooses to follow her fallen friends and points her gun at a platoon of armed police officers. There Is No Kill Like Overkill ensues.
• Superpowered Evil Side:
  • Torigoya ("Henhouse") is not much of a fighter compared to the other major characters (although she can dispatch mooks easily), but has Mind Rape powers which is awakened by being locked up in a henhouse, implying a past trauma.
  • In season 2, Gekikara ("spicy") has promised Yuko that she'll finish high school. She represses her violent personality in order to stay sane and goes by Amakuchi ("mildly spicy"). There's also a third personality called Chukara ("medium spicy") which is somewhere in the middle.
• Super-Speed: Black's special ability.
• Symbol Motif Clothing: Rappappa members wear sukajan jackets with a musical note and back artwork related to their specialty (for example, Magic's has cards and other magic items). Members of the cooking squads wear trainers adorned with their names and gang symbol.
• Tank-Top Tomboy: Katsuzetsu wears a white tube top under her uniform and never buttons her blouse.
• Team Power Walk: Happens often. The biggest one is in the season 5 finale, where Sakura walks with the spirits of all the fallen yankees away from the final battle and finally commits Suicide by Cop.
• Tell Me How You Fight: While most of the yankees employ Good Old Fisticuffs, some have distinct fighting styles.
  • Black makes good use of her Super-Speed.
  • Nezumi is more of a Dainty Combatant, although she prefers to let others do the fighting.
  • Kamisori ("Razor") cuts her opponents with her very sharp nails.
  • Yoga emphasizes the use of soft martial arts and palm strikes, befitting her calm and spiritual demeanor.
  • Magic, being an illusionist, relies on flashy moves, agility, and trickery.
  • Center uses some wrestling techniques on Choukoku.
• Temporary Blindness: Sakura is blinded by Shirogiku and Kurobara's pepper spray, but Kamisori and Zombie manage to guide her into defeating them by calling out their positions using clock directions, by which they attempted to persuade Sakura into a walking formation earlier.
• Tempting Fate: In season 5's first episode, when the Rappappa members express their concern after she assaulted a Yakuza gang on her own to save Antonio, Salt said that she's bored and looks forward to anything happening to her. Guess what happens at the end of the episode.
• That Woman Is Dead: In Majisuka Gakuen 0, Ageman no longer answers to her old nickname, Wota.
• Theme Music Power-Up: Season 2's Final Battle feature the theme songs of both seasons 1 and 2.
• Theme Tune Roll Call: Since Season 4, as there are several characters. Season 5 onwards uses Roman alphabet instead of Japanese script, probably to accommodate international viewers (even though the series isn't officially exported) and because it feels exotic for domestic viewers.
• There Are No Therapists: Some girls certainly need some treatment. Averted with Gekikara, who did get it in a mental institution.
• Thicker Than Water: Center loves her grandfather despite suspecting his involvement in Salt's murder and subsequent events. Her motivation for going back to school is to protect both her friends and her grandfather's legacy. While Everybody Dies, at least she manages to avenge Salt's death and the destruction of the Akechi-Triad alliance means Majijo won't be shut down.
• Those Two Girls: Yabakune's Candy and Rookie are always seen together, don't receive much characterization, take responsibility together after they left Yoga to be murdered by the Triad, and ultimately perished back-to-back while fighting the Yakuza.
• Trademark Favorite Food:
  • Daruma eats fried chicken wings as her victory meal and always have plenty to share, although her friends are usually not looking forward to eating it, since she carries the wings unhygienically in a cloth bag or under her shirt.
  • Nezumi chews bubblegums almost all the time.
  • Maeda in season 2 eats sakura petals, symbolic of the promise she made to Yuko under the blossoming sakura trees to find a reason to fight.
  • Teams Hormone, Fondue, and Hinabe are named after the meals they cook in class every day.
  • Yoshimune in season 5 likes to eat raw onions. A detective figures out that a bar doubles as one of his safe houses since it has crates of onions in storage.
• Treacherous Advisor:
  • Akechi seems all set to pass on leadership of his syndicate to Yoshimune as he's dying from cancer, until he conspires with the Triad to assassinate him. Then he personally murders the second in line, Urasawa, as well.
  • Principal Mori murdered Salt, his own student.
• Trolling Translator: In season 3, Sudachi serves as Jovijovich's translator, although she doesn't speak Russian and is simply making things up.
• Troubled Backstory Flashback: Nezumi remembers her father hitting her as she tried to protect her mother from his beatings and then her mother leaving.
• True Companions
• Truth Serum: Gekioko nursing students in season 5 interrogates a crooked lawyer using a truth serum.
• 20 Minutes into the Future: Season 3 is set in a juvenile prison in the future.
• Twist Ending: Season 5. Even after they defeated the Yakuza, everyone has been killed, and Sakura was shot down by the police. Center finds out the person who killed Salt was actually the principal and shoots and kills him in his own home, being the last one standing.
• Two-Teacher School: Somewhat justified since nobody seems to do any learning anyway. Apart from Maeda that is, but she still learns from a book that is not on the curriculum.
• Unable to Cry: In season 5, Antonio is unable to cry upon learning of Coby's death. Sakura, understanding that people like them can only mourn through their fists, offers to mourn with her. They fight, and only after that their tears come out for their fallen friends.
• Uninhibited Muscle Power: Due to her low intelligence, Bakamono's brain can be tricked into triggering the human fight-or-flight response at will, disabling the body's natural Power Limiter and giving her immense strength and endurance.
• Unwitting Pawn: By having Salt assassinated, Yoshimune manages to get both Majijo and Gekioko into conflict with Ryuutou clan, distracting the latter and allowing Akechi Clan and their Triad ally to destroy them. Except for Coby's killing of the hospitalized Yakuza, all the murders are still carried out by members of either the Akechi Clan or the Triad, including Yoshimune's own.
• Use Your Head: Daruma's signature move. She explains that it's because when she was in Shibuya's gal circle, she would be headbutted as punishment.
  • Because of this, Atsuko uses one to beat Shibuya.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: How Chokoku carries her 100 Poems by 100 Poets cards.
• Victory Is Boring: Salt spends her days sleeping in the Rappappa club room or wandering aimlessly around school and outside, waiting for a strong opponent to challenge her.
• Villainous Friendship: Sado and Yuko.
• "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: In season 4, Yoga knows that she's the weakest Rappappa and really seeks Salt's approval, and is devastated when Salt declines to punish her for losing to Sakura because Salt never expected anything from her anyway. Salt eventually expresses her appreciation to Yoga and the other Queens before her duel with Sakura.
• We Do Not Know Each Other: In season 4, Scandal and Sakura act like strangers, even though they're comrades in 0.
• World of Action Girls
• Worthy Opponent:
  • Maeda grows into this for Rappapa as they keep hearing about more of her victories.
  • Salt encourages Sakura to become one to her.
• Wham Episode: Miso stabbing Gekikara in season 2's episode 5.
  • Salt's death at the end of the first episode of season 5.
• While Rome Burns: In season 5, Detective Nirasawa, having been taken off the case and powerless to prevent the chaos, simply sits laughing outside the warehouse where the Final Battle is taking place while eating a snack.
• With My Hands Tied: The agile Magic manages to hold off a Triad member while tied to a chair for some time, until he finally knocks her out.

Cabasuka Gakuen

"The cabaret club world is one that is built on lies. Forget who you really are once you enter."

• Action Girl: Mostly averted since they're now hostesses. Outside the club, though, Sakura, Yoga, and Salt still have some moments.
• Acceptable Breaks from Reality: Many of the darker aspects of hostess clubs, such as alcoholism, drug use, physical and mental health issues, and Yakuza involvement, are not shown or are downplayed. Justified as the Aquarium girls are protected by Center/Kurage and are only doing it temporarily, except for Kurage and Sakura.
• A-Cup Angst:
  • A novelist customer is talking about women's breasts being his inspiration source, and proceeds to admire each of the hostesses' bosom... but skips over Uonome/Iwashi's. Kusogaki/Ankou makes fun of her by calling her Ghost Boobs after that incident.
  • Another customer self-righteously berates the girls about their revealing costumes, and flat out tells Katabutsu/Karei that she has nothing she needs to cover up.
  • Kusogaki herself is later revealed to have unwittingly bought a bra too large for her.
• Alternate Timeline: Cabasuka happens in one where the events of season 5 never happened (after all, Everybody Dies in that season).
• Animal Theme Naming: When they become hostesses in Cabasuka, the Majisuka students are given hostess names (genji) related to fishes and other marine life, as the club is called the Aquarium. Also Edible Theme Naming since most of the fishes are commonly used for sushi.
• Artistic License – Awards: A novelist customer visits the club with his entourage to celebrate his winning the "Johannesburg Prize". The University of Johannesburg Prize is only awarded to South African literary works written in English.
• Ascended Extra: Katabutsu/Karei has a more prominent role this season than in previous ones, having been crowned one of the Four Heavenly Queens and having her own subplot. This is very likely related to her actress's boost in popularity when the season was released in late 2016.
  • In the musical "Lost in The Supermarket" set after the events of season 5, she is a main character and becomes the new Rappappa president in her third year as the only strong Majijo student still alive. She also worked with Black at the titular supermarket until Center, whose family owns the school in that continuity, recruits Black as the new principal.
• As Herself:
  • Scandal is now publicly known as her actress, HKT48 Idol Singer Sashihara Rino.
  • Nishino Nanase and Shiraishi Mai are billed as Nogizaka46 members, although they appear as Nogizaka High School students instead of idols.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Sakura is being harassed by some thugs when Yoga passes by, and they fight off the thugs back-to-back.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: In Cabasuka, Jisedai/Fugu is seduced by Seiya, a host, into thinking they are in a relationship, which leads to her running a very large tab at the host club where he works. Scandal, now known as HKT48 idol Sashihara Rino, retaliates on her behalf by seducing him and running an even larger tab, forcing Seiya to take a loan to front the bill with the assumption that Sashihara will pay him back, before she moves to Jakarta to transfer to JKT48, leaving Seiya at his shady creditors' mercy.
  Sashihara: So, what now? Are you going to start with my nails? "Such pretty nails!" Or my shoes? "Cute shoes!" We both know that women are self-conscious about their nails and shoes. And when I start to feel uncomfortable, you're going to look into my eyes and say that I'm really pretty, and silently devour me with your eyes.
  Seiya: It seems like I'm the one being devoured.
• Book Ends: The story starts and ends with a Nogi High student/Nogizaka46 member apparently coming to challenge the Majijo leader, and ends up not fighting her (due to the scene in the first episode being a Fake Action Prologue, and Sakura postponing her re-enrollment and continuing on as a hostess in the season finale).
• Bullying a Dragon: A group of Yakuza visits the club and acts very rudely to the girls. Otabe/Maguro would have none of it and intimidates them back into leaving.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Saionji likes to strike weird poses, drinks a mysterious thick black substance, and is a legendary cabaret club producer.
• The Bus Came Back: Yoga/Iruka and Dodobusu/Namazu weren't part of the Aquarium at the beginning, since the former has graduated and the latter was reluctant to be a hostess, but were separately convinced by their friends to join later.
• The Cameo:
  • Torigoya/Konbu, Nezumi/Utsubo, and Salt/Plankton each appear as a guest hostess.
  • Scandal also appears, now known as Sashihara Rino of HKT48 as in real life and wishes to keep her yankii past under wraps.
  • Kashiwagi Yuki appears as someone very different from Black.
  • Okada Ijilly, the host of Nogibingo (Nogizaka46's variety show), appears as a customer. Fugu is also heard inviting "Muramotocchi" by phone. Mouri Shinobu (producer of AKBingo! and a senior producer at Hulu Japan) and Aoki Hiroyuki (Chief Editor of Kobunsha Entertainment and huge AKB fan) also visit as customers in episode 9.
  • Nishino Nanase and Shiraishi Mai of Nogizaka46 appear wearing the Nogi High School uniform (but credited as Nogizaka46) in the first and last episodes, respectively, to challenge Majisuka Gakuen's top yankii.
• Celebrity Paradox: It is established that AKB48 and its sister groups, as well as Nogizaka46, exist in this universe; the Aquarium girls are disappointed when a customer won't tell them who his favorite member is. Only Scandal, who uses her real name Sashihara Rino in the group, is known to be a member after graduating from Majijo. Torigoya/Kojiharu/Konbu is also a member of an unnamed idol group for some time after graduating from the school.
• Chuunibyou: Saionji calls Nezumi one for her sulkiness and the existential rant she spouted when she entered the club. He does acknowledge her talents after watching her in action as Utsubo.
• Con Man: Seiya, a host from the club Dandy Magnum, pretends to be in love with Jisedai/Fugu to get her to be a regular at his club, despite knowing she has limited means and had to put everything on credit.
• Continuity Nod: Several Ike Ike Tattoo girls mention the altercations they've had with Majijo yankees in the past, implying that they're indeed the same people as their Majisuka counterparts and not identical strangers.
• Crossover: Detective Asaba Sho from Keishichou Nasi Goreng-ka appears in episode 9. Salt is also heavily implied to be the same person as the division chief from that show, Detective Kazahaya Kyoko, who is also played by Shimazaki Haruka. Kazahaya is a staunch Phone-In Detective and despises legwork in Keishichou, but it's reasonable to assume that she's making an exception for her juniors here; Saionji alludes to this after Salt apprehends his would-be killer, commenting that sometimes cases can be solved outside, implying that he knows her by reputation.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: The Aquarium girls perform the theme song, "High Tension", in the club and it goes viral.
• Dirty Cop: One of them attempts to kidnap Sakura to put pressure on Saionji. Luckily, Salt comes to save her. He's then summarily executed by another yakuza associate.
• Dirty Old Man: Sakura/Same calls Saionji one because of the promise he had her made. Subverted since he doesn't go through with sleeping with her at the end.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Unlike previous seasons, which theme songs are about yankee life, specifically written for the show, and released as B-sides, this time the opening song is the AKB48 46th A-side single "High Tension". Ironically, the song's center performer in the single, Shimazaki Haruka, was about to graduate from AKB when the season was first aired in late 2016 and her character, Salt, only appears in one episode (presumably to give the other cast members more screentime, but also because she was already working on other TV series). She also never performs the song in-universe with the other Aquarium girls.
• Dude Magnet: Kojiharu/Konbu attracts a huge number of customers, as well as tons of bouquets welcoming her to the Aquarium, in the short time she works there.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Otabe is slightly offended when Saionji gives her the name Maguro ("tuna"), as it is also a slang for someone who is passive during sexual intercourse.
• Engrish: Fugu's name is transliterated from its katakana, フグ, into Hugu in romaji (fu and hu has the same letter in both katakana, フ, and hiragana, ふ). Plankton (プランクトン) also becomes Purankuton for the same reason.
• Fair Cop: Salt is a police Detective Chief. Her subordinate Detective Asaba also counts.
• Fake Action Prologue: The first episode opening is similar to previous seasons where a student, revealed to be Nishino Nanase from AKB48's rival group Nogizaka46, demonstrates her strength and appears to seek to challenge Majijo's leaders, setting up a plot involving conflict with Nogi High School briefly featured in season 5... Until she simply walks away and an Opening Scroll appears to inform us that this season will be different.
• Feigning Intelligence: Nezumi/Utsubo enlivens the award celebration party of a novelist guest by pretending to have enjoyed his works, although she just Googled those before coming to his table.
• Flirtatious Smack on the Ass: Saionji gives one to Center/Kurage when she first comes to the Aquarium, implying that she fulfilled the same promise Sakura made to him.
• Fortune Teller: Dodobusu/Namazu worked as one before joining the Aquarium, and uses her (genuine) power as a hostess to entertain both customers and fellow hostesses. Somehow the power gets transferred to Satoshi at one point, which upsets her greatly.
• Friendly Rivalry: Despite their clubs being rivals, Kurage and Antonio have an amicable relationship, not least because they're both Saionji's protégés. In the season finale, Antonio and the Ike Ike Tattoo girls help out at the Aquarium for their final push to pay off Majijo's debt, the rationale being they couldn't crush them properly if they failed to settle their school's debt.
• "Friends" Rent Control: It is never explained how a high school student like Sakura could acquire the lot right next to Ike Ike Tattoo, the most popular hostess club in town, for the Aquarium. She also already has the blueprints lying around the Rappappa club room when Principal Mori brings the bad news.
• Genre Shift: The action-packed delinquent drama series becomes a comedy set in a Theme Park Version of a hostess club.
• Gratuitous French: While waiting as Sakura prepares for the night with him, Saionji ponders about the enjoyment of wine in French. It foreshadows his decision to not go through with her.
  De vin du déguster, petite quantité. Si vous buvez d'un coup, c'est ne vient alcool. (To savor wine, sip in small quantities. If you drink at once, it's only alcohol.)
• Hostess Club
• Hot-Blooded: Otabe, who is calculating and level-headed in previous seasons, is much more emotional in this one, easily triggered by rude customers and cries the most when they managed to save enough money to save their school. Justified as while everybody is a Fish out of Water, she has always has the strongest sense of duty as a Rappappa member.
• I Know Your True Name: Katabutsu/Karei messes up when she tells an awkward customer her real name, Nana (full name Okada Nana, the same as her actress's), in an attempt to break the ice, as this starts his turn into a Stalker with a Crush.
• Informed Ability: Ike Ike Tattoo is supposedly the #1 club in town, but most of the time it's empty and the cast just lounge around plotting to destroy the Aquarium.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Saionji may be a jerk, but he genuinely wants the girls to grow and save their school by their own efforts, to the point of discouraging Konbu's further involvement after a night.
• Kimono Is Traditional: Antonio wears kimonos outside of work and has the air of a traditional woman.
• Lighter and Softer: In stark contrast to season 5, Cabasuka focuses more on comedy and Fanservice and has very few fight scenes, although there's still a murder and prostitution ring subplot.
• Macguffin: The cops and the yakuza suspect Saionji of holding on to a client list of a prostitution ring run by the latter.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Same (shark) aims to be the top as usual. The shark is an apex predator.
  • Kurage (jellyfish) favors dresses with sheer parts and has fair skin.
  • Namazu (catfish) is said to be able to predict earthquakes, which fits Dodobusu's fortune-telling abilities.^note According to Japanese mythology, earthquakes are caused by the movements of Ōnamazu, a giant catfish who lives underground. Earthquake warning systems in Japan usually have the catfish as a mascot.
  • Plankton, like her namesake, is always drifting around looking for excitement.
  • Iruka (dolphin) is named after one of the most intelligent marine lifeforms, and the practice of yoga is also associated with (spiritual) wisdom. In addition, her actress was ranked the smartest girl in AKB48 after acing a test given to the members in a TV show.
  • While metaphorically the other hostesses are fishes and the customers are fishermen (hence the marine Animal Theme Naming), Konbu (kelp) turns the customers into fishes, attracting hordes of them to her like fishes hungry for seaweed.
  • Fugu (pufferfish) has chubby cheeks. Although not by her doing, the host who tries to swindle her also ends up being at the mercy of loan sharks, which may refer to the pufferfish's deadly toxin (aspiring fugu chefs are required by law to undergo a 3-year certification process before allowed to prepare and serve it).
  • Karei (flounder) is a homophone for "beautiful" (which she is) and "good example" (her actress is known for her desire to be a good role model).
• Mythology Gag: A number of events this season mirror those of previous seasons, some with a humorous twist.
  • There is a crime organization looking for a MacGuffin in the form of documents they suspect the protagonists are holding on to.
  • Otabe and her group stand up against a rude group of Yakuza and promise to retaliate if they try to cause trouble at the Aquarium, driving them away from the club, like they did to the Yakuza threatening Principal Mori in season 5.
  • Salt is still constantly bored and wanders around looking for excitement. Or so she said, as now she's an undercover detective investigating the hostess murder.
  • Salt saved Sakura from an attacker and offers her his gun, which Sakura refuses (a nod to Sakura assaulting a Triad hideout to obtain a gun in season 5).
  • Like in season 5, there's a maverick detective investigating a murder, but once again, the case ends up being solved by Center/Kurage, only this time the culprit turns herself in voluntarily after she's found out.
  • Before she leaves the Aquarium, Salt gazes at the Majijo flag in the club's break room as she often did in season 4.
  • In season 5, Sakura didn't get a rematch and Center never got to fight Salt before she was murdered. Here, the customers lament Plankton leaving the Aquarium before they can see her smile.
  • The Ike Ike Tattoo girls join the Aquarium for the season finale, like in season 5's final battle.
  • The murder also turns out to be committed by someone not part of the Yakuza and closely related to the girls.
  • Once again, Sakura couldn't overthrow the top, as the more experienced Kurage keeps being Aquarium's top hostess until the end. This motivates her to postpone her re-enrollment to school and continue being a hostess, although she retains her status as Majijo's leader.
• Never Gets Drunk: Salt/Plankton drinks alcohol like water, presumably in order to maximize the club's revenue since most of the other girls are not yet of drinking age (20 in Japan), but stays completely sober.
  Customer: Plankton-chan, this is already your fourth bottle of wine!
  Plankton: Didn't you say I can order anything I like?
  Tatsuno-otoshigo: Plankton-san, don't you feel dizzy?
  Plankton: Not at all.
• Nice Girl: Katabutsu/Karei, who went so far as to buy her customer a drink when he said he couldn't afford it, which unfortunately causes the awkward customer to become obsessed with her. Magic/Gari's regular also switched to Karei after she was briefly assigned to him as Gari's help, which greatly upsets Gari.
  Karei, when confronted by Gari: Why are you angry? Doesn't that mean I'm just cuter than you?
• Nothing Is Scarier: Center/Kurage, Otabe/Maguro, and Sakura/Same are invited by a group of customers to their apartment, but Kurage offers to accompany them by herself and sends the other two home to keep them safe. The next time we see her, she is walking away disheveled from an apartment building, and looks in terror as someone/something approaches her. She doesn't show up at the Aquarium the next evening and asks Nezumi/Utsubo to back up the girls in her place, and suddenly reappears on stage and joins the other girls in a dance number. No explanation is ever given about what happened, aside from Saionji asking on the phone whether she was attacked and telling her to lay low, although it is implied to be related to the murder investigation.
• Odd Name Out: Magic didn't like her first hostess name, Saba ("mackerel", but also a slang for someone faking their age), so Saionji changes it into Gari (pickled ginger usually served with sushi, not a fish but maintains their Edible Theme Naming).
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In episode 5's cold open, a pair of thuggish customers are rudely forcing the girls to go out with them, and Sakura/Same requests to "handle the negotiations". The next scene, they're seen limping away with bruises all over, implying the kind of negotiations they went through.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping:
  • Kagoshima native Sakura/Same speaks in her dialect by accident to a customer,^* She said oyattosaa instead of the standard otsukaresama, both meaning "you've been working hard" which pleasantly surprises him.
  • Katsuzetsu/Tai tells someone to shut up by using the Fukuoka word "shekarashika!" (which is also the title of Majisuka Gakuen 0's theme song and the name of her previous school in Hakata as mentioned in that show) instead of the standard "urusai!".
• Overly Long Name: Bouyomi's hostess name is the seven-syllable Tatsuno-otoshigo (seahorse).
• Perpetual Frowner:
  • Salt/Plankton toward the Aquarium's customers; in fact, the reason she doesn't want to continue helping out as a hostess is because she's tired of forcing a smile, although Sakura notes that she never seemed to smile anyway. She does have a soft spot for her juniors, especially her former rival Sakura, and gives a smirk too when Saionji compliments her on her detective work.
  • Nezumi is normally one, but can put on a very cheerful act when working as Utsubo.
• Portmantitle: The season title is a portmanteau of kyabakura (cabaret club/Hostess Club) and Majisuka Gakuen.
• Pungeon Master: Kamisori/Ika likes to make puns with her name. For example, when a customer invites her to go out after hours, Kamisori/Ika declines by saying "kyou wa ika-nai!", a play on "kyou wa ikenai" ("Today, I can't"). A fansub translated this as "Today is ink-possible!" (ika means "squid").
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Okada Nana (Katabutsu/Karei) broke into the elite Senbatsu ranks in 2016, which is why her character became an Ascended Extra. She also revealed that she's more interested in women, which is why Karei pretends to be lesbian and kisses Gari.
• Sabotage to Discredit: Some Ike Ike Tattoo hostesses organize smear campaigns against the Aquarium by planting customers who run without paying and spreading bad rumors online. Antonio and Shirogiku are not happy about this as they want to beat them fair and square.
  • Later, a hostess, Wakasagi, was revealed to be underaged and planted by the Corrupt Cop as pretext to arrest Saionji.
• Sacred First Kiss: Dodobusu/Namazu foresaw that Katabutsu/Karei would soon have her "first experience". It turns out to be her first kiss, which she shared with Magic/Gari when they pretended to be lovers. The sheer awkwardness of the realization makes them forget their disagreement after previously quarreling over a customer.
• Saving the Orphanage: They set out to save their school by opening a hostess bar.
• School Uniforms are the New Black: Although it has been a few years since Salt and Yoga graduated, they still go around wearing their Majijo uniforms.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: A timid young woman named Kashiwagi Yuki (whether she is Black or an Identical Stranger is not made clear, although she denies being a Majijo alumna and has a different personality and background) visits the Aquarium looking for her fiancé, who has been taking loans to afford going to the club, and is heartbroken when she sees him enjoying himself there. The girls argued that her fiancé might be bored with her being too nice and self-controlled (and that deep down she herself is also tired of acting that way), and then they trained her and let her be his hostess under the name Anago ("saltwater eel") in order to win back his heart.^trivia A member of Team Hormone from seasons 1 and 2 is called Unagi, which means "freshwater eel". In real life, Kashiwagi is the one who gave the nickname "Unagi Inu" to Unagi's actress, Kitahara Rie. Also, both later became members of NGT48.
  • All the Majisuka girls count since they are originally high school yankii. Despite their lack of experience, not only do they quickly grow to become pretty decent hostesses, they can also sing and dance as good as AKB48 idols. Bonus points for Nezumi/Utsubo as she transforms completely from her usual unfriendly loner personality, which was initially a cause of concern for Saionji. Salt, on the other hand, sticks to being her salty self, yet the customers find it appealing, just like her actress's fans in real life.
• Shout-Out: When a group of customers left without paying, Katsuzetsu/Tai pursues them declaring that she'll "cwush them" (sounds something like "bu-thu-bu-thu", the thu like in Thursday, which should be "buttsubusu") due to her lisp. This also happened in real life when she declared that HKT48 would surpass AKB48.
• Shower Scene: Sakura is shown showering to prepare for her night with Saionji.
• The Social Expert: Nezumi/Utsubo brings her people skills and book smarts with her to the Aquarium, the same skills she used to manipulate entire schools in previous seasons, and shares some tips to her juniors.
• Stalker with a Crush: One of Katabutsu/Karei's regular customers, Fujimoto Tatsuya, is obsessed with her. He has a Stalker Shrine full of her pictures in his home and physically assaults her other customers out of jealousy. When she pretends to be lesbian to get him to stop, he attempts to strike Magic/Gari, her supposed lover, but Karei covers Gari with her body and takes the hit, and almost returns the blow in rage if not stopped by Sakura/Same. He is then arrested, but returns as a customer a few days later, apologizing profusely to Karei who's still fond of him and seems to have Easily Forgiven the outburst.
• Theme Tune Roll Call: For some reason, their yankee names are displayed instead of their hostess names, even though the latter is used more often this season.
• Time Skip: All Majijo students who become hostesses are now 18 or older due to repeating grades. Several of Sakura and Katsuzetsu's classmates in Fukuoka have transferred to Majijo. Scandal has become the famous idol Sashihara Rino. Salt is now a police detective and has achieved the rank of Detective Chief, as her subordinate Detective Asaba addresses her.
• Totally 18: Although they're high school students, the girls have repeated grades so often that all of them are 18 or older. The Aquarium later gets in trouble when a new girl turns out to be faking her age and is actually still 17.
  Katabutsu: At this point, all of us are just cosplaying as high school students.
• Tsundere:
  • Salt/Plankton comes across as one when working as a hostess, which many customers find appealing. In reality, she just doesn't like the job and quits after one night, although she seems to like the hostess name she picked for herself. Her customers lament her leaving before they can see her smile.
    Salt, identifying herself to a man holding Saionji at gunpoint before taking him down: I'm Plankton.
  • Ike Ike Tattoo's Tsun, obviously.
• Twist Ending: The Matsumura Kaori murder case turns out to be not related to the Yakuza at all, but committed by another hostess, played by Furuhata Nao, who was jealous of her popularity; after confronted by Center/Kurage, she peacefully turns herself in. The detectives investigating the case are in the Yakuza's pocket and use the murder case as leverage to pressure Saionji to hand over the incriminating documents in his possession related to their prostitution ring.
• Waxing Lyrical: Many 48 Group song lyrics are slipped into conversations.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Magic/Gari is by no means a minor character, but she disappears without any explanation after Saionji announced that they managed to gather enough cash to pay Majijo's debt. Yoga, who was implied to have graduated, shows up later at the school instead.
• You Are Not Ready: After they successfully earned enough to pay the school's debt, Saionji took Sakura to a hotel suite to fulfill the deal of sleeping with him once the target is reached. Saionji stayed in another room in the suite while Sakura prepared until she finally fell asleep, and she woke up to find a letter from him comparing her to a young bottle of wine not ready to be uncorked, and asks to meet again in about five years.

Majimuri Gakuen

"This is a story of revolution in a small world."

• Absurdly Divided School: The Arashigaoka Gakuen student body is divided into elite and commoner social classes. See also Fantastic Caste System below.
• Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Made up of students with the most influential parents with Kaiser, daughter of Gosaki Land's owner, as the Student Council President. Among other things, they have Secret Police squads that enforce their rule and can arrest and imprison students with impunity. They are the main antagonists of this installment.
• Adaptation Distillation: The stage play has the same general plot but is much more streamlined. Comparisons of Lily to Joan of Arc are completely removed and she also doesn't die in an explosion, so she can continue finding her mother's killer while resisting Kaiser.
• Adults Are Useless: The teachers do nothing to stop Kaiser's tyranny since her father owns the town. Averted with Ero-sensei, who helps the Hana-gumi.
• Alliterative Name:
  • Shin Shi'eitai, the student council enforcer squad. The alliterative translation is Shin Schutzstaffel.
  • Lily's real name is Shimizu Sayuri.
• Alternate Character Reading: The second stage play's Word Sequel title, RAI (蕾), is normally read with the kunyomi reading, tsubomi. The romanized reading is included in the title card. "Rai" can also mean "thunder" (雷) and "upcoming" (来).
• Alternate Universe: Unlike those of Majisuka, the stage plays are set in a different continuity to the TV series.
• Animal Theme Naming: Kaba ("hippo"), Kyouken ("mad dog"), and Gigant Kong of the Strongest Men.
  • The stage play has Queen Bee, Dragon, Hyena, Akainu ("Red Dog"), and Zombie (no relation to season 4 and 5's character of the same name) on the Arechi side. The second stage play also has Adler (eagle) and Falke (hawk) as the new student council enforcers.
• Anti-Hero: Lily initially only came to Arashigaoka to find her mother's killer and expects payments when fighting on others' behalf.
• Arc Words:
  • "I want to make the flowers bloom again."
  • "This is the story of revolution in a small world."
  • RAI refers to the characters being "flower buds" on the verge of adulthood, while LOUDNESS is the voice of the impoverished Arechi people calling out Arashigaoka's indifference.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Kaiser is the daughter of the city's owner and acts like a princess.
• The Atoner: Ero-sensei was the advisor of the photography club. She disapproved when its members decided to found an opposition student council and didn't support them, and eventually the movement died. That's why she is supportive of Hana-gumi's efforts to do the same.
• Ax-Crazy: Nero, like her namesake.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: Seems to be averted, as Drei is easily defeated despite having his minions. Eins is also easily taken down by a handcuffed Lily. Played straight with Bismarck and Muskel, who can hold their own in the fight against Arechi.
• Badass Boast:
  • Kaba, when Muskel and the Arechi yankees compare him to hippos.
    I'm not like a hippo. Hippos are like me!
  • Lily, to her friends before facing Shinigami.
    I'll show you what true strength looks like.
• Berserk Button: Lily despises knife wielders since her mother was murdered by one.
  Lily: Fighting using knives is cowardly. The moment you hold that knife, you're going to become a murderer!
• Bifauxnen: Nero, the co-protagonist (along with Lily) of the stage adaptation played by Okada Nana of AKB48 and STU48, is thought by fans to be a boy until her actress confirmed that she's a girl. Her real name is Houjou Saori.
• Big Brother Is Watching: The Shin Schutzstaffel attempted to arrest Hina, Bara, and Sumire only because they complained once about having to go to school. Luckily, Lily is nearby.
• Bilingual Bonus: Each lesson at the school seems to end with a prayer for Kaiser in Gratuitous German, "Gott erhalte den Kaiser" ("God save the Emperor/Kaiser"). The nicknames of the top student council members are also in German.
• Bound and Gagged:
  • Hina in Episode 2.
• Break the Cutie:
  • If her time in Tokyo is any indication, Lily hasn't always been brooding and aloof.
  • Nero was a normal schoolgirl (and looked like pre-2016 Okada Nana) before the death of her parents.
• Bright Is Not Good: Kaiser wears an all-white Custom Uniform.
• Bully Hunter: Despite her claim that she doesn't fight for justice, Lily tends to accept jobs that involve beating up bullies. The student council is also a form of organized bullying.
• The Call Knows Where You Live: Shinigami allegedly set fire to Bara's mother's tailor shop (it was actually Zwei) to provoke Lily. As Mrs. Kuwabara has been kind to her and fixed her skirt for free, Lily considers it a payment in advance.
• Captured on Purpose: Lily, Bara, and Sumire got themselves captured by Eins so they can get to the basement prison and confine her there, and then rescue Zwei as well since even they think her imprisonment has crossed a line.
• Catchphrase:
  • Lily has several.
    • "I have taken on your fight" when she agrees to take on a job.
    • "Don't stand in my way!" as her Pre Ass Kicking One Liner.
    • Her Pre-Mortem One-Liner is "Take one last look at the lily... and go to hell!" before high kicking the opponent and exposing her lily symbol.
  • Manji has "Majimanji!" ("Totally awesome!"), which is a popular Japanese schoolgirl slang as of 2018.
  • The student council often repeat Kaiser's standing order, "Don't look up! Look down!"
• Celebrity Paradox: Inverted. In the stage play, several non-AKB48 actresses of the TV series guest star as themselves while their characters become The Unseen (all the regular cast in the play are AKB48 members, except for HKT48's Kojina Yui). For example, Takino Yumiko becomes an idol who recently transferred to Arashigaoka Gakuen and has to convince the Hana-gumi that she isn't Manji.
• Character Narrator: Hina does the narration, sometimes while recording a Vlog Series about her life and the town. She continues to do this after her Face–Heel Turn. Strangely, she sometimes refers to herself in the third person while narrating.
• Childhood Friend: Nero, Hyena, and Dragon.
• Clear Their Name: Lily's brother is accused of murdering their mother and she has to find the real culprit to clear his name. Turns out Manji's brother witnessed what happened and agrees to testify.
• Code of Honor: Lily and her mother adhere to "The Pledge of The Lily", so called because lily is a symbol of purity and dignity.
  Lily: To help the weak and agitate the strong. That is the Pledge of the Lily. The sky is above all of us. We will take back the sky of this school.
• Co-Dragons: Bismarck and Muskel are respectively the student council vice-president and secretary. Garake and Hakase are these to Manji.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • Female commoner students wear sailor uniforms with green scarves. Male Shin Schutzstaffel members wear black long coats over their standard gakurans and the females wear red scarves. Top female student council members wear black scarves and individually customized uniforms.
  • Lily's Tokyo friends wear shirts with similar colors to their namesake flowers. Lily herself wears a black hoodie when not in uniform, but whether coincidentally or not, "black" lilies do exist.
• Company Town: The whole town of Utopia Arashigaoka is owned by the Gosaki Land company and most of the residents work for them. Kaiser, real name Gosaki Aran, is the daughter of the company owner.
• Creepy Blue Eyes: Bismarck has these. Her actress is wearing color eye contacts, since her natural eye color is black.
  • Kyouken also has these.
• Culture Chop Suey: Joan of Arc comes to a modern city in Japan with a social structure resembling Ancient Rome, and her school has an Absurdly Powerful Student Council inspired by both Imperial Germany and Nazi Germany.
• David Versus Goliath: Lily, a normal-sized schoolgirl, regularly defeats huge fighters played by professional martial artists, although she usually can barely stand after the fights.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • The regular cast of the first stage play were exclusively AKB48 members, save for HKT48's Kojina Yui, so many characters were replaced or only mentioned, including main antagonists Kaiser and Manji.
  • The second stage play is in commemoration of Team 8's anniversary and the entire cast consist of members of that team, relegating even more prominent characters into cameo or mentioned roles, including Nero, Zwei, and Ero-sensei.
• Do It Your Self Theme Tune: The opening song "Yuri wo Sakaseru ka?" ("Will you make the lily bloom?") is a Bragging Theme Tune in which Lily warns her "annoying" and "lame" potential bullies not to mess with her unless they want to get beat up; since Lily has a lily patch on her skirt inseam which is visible when she does her Finishing Move, the title is also an Unusual Euphemism for getting beaten up. The chorus ends with Oguri Yui (Lily) singing the line "atashi ga Lily" ("I am the Lily").
• Drink-Based Characterization: Lily likes black coffee, emphasizing her badassery (and Innocence Lost, as her three friends remark that it's an adult drink). Even better, the first time we see her ordering one is shortly after the three other main characters expressed their disgust of the beverage, preferring sweet drinks instead. Meanwhile, Kaiser is often shown drinking English milk tea from elegant china, displaying her Wicked Culturedness.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Zwei is banished after evidence of her arson is discovered, as being involved in a crime would threaten the Student Council's reputation.
  • Kaiser's group, in turn, is shocked when she orders Zwei imprisoned for a month after she attempted to expose Kaiser's relationship with Eins. And this is after Kaiser flogged her in anger.
  • Kyouken was fired from the Shin Schutzstaffel by the previous administration for being a violent kife nut. However, Kaiser calls him back to deal with the Hana-gumi.
• Everybody Calls Him "Barkeep": The owner of I Love You cafe is called Master (in English).
• Every Man Has His Price: Kaba Wouldn't Hit a Girl until Kaiser slips him an envelope of cash.
• Evil Laugh: Kaiser loves to do this. Null also attempts one, although it feels more forced.
• Evil Makeover:
  • Hina, now known as student council 0th lieutenant Null, is reintroduced wearing a sleeveless Custom Uniform with corset, long leather boots, and BDSM-style choker.
  • After she becomes Nero, Hojo Saori cut her hair short and wears all-black outfit and trench coat.
• Expy: Garake is very similar to season 1's Gakuran, although in-universe he's actually a guy. Manji, a Tanktop Tomboy who's a third party in the main conflict, is like season 5's Katsuzetsu.
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • Hina is abducted by Gigant Kong and is then persuaded to become an honorary elite and join the Shin Schutzstaffel. After Lily moved back to Tokyo, it's revealed that many former Hana-gumi supporters have also joined Kaiser's side with the same offer, including her classmate Kotaro.
  • Some of the Hana-gumi suspect Lily of doing one after she made a deal with Kaiser to take down Manji.
• Fantastic Caste System: The school has a strict hierarchy of elites (senmin) and commoners (heimin) determined by each student's parents' occupation and standing with Gosaki Land, somewhat like the patrician and plebeian classes of ancient Rome (although unlike in Rome, apparently the commoners have voting rights), and it's implied that the entire town also implements this to some degree. Commoner students are required to pay tribute in coins every morning before entering the school grounds. It gets worse when Kaiser declares in her speech to open the academic year that commoners are not fit to look at the sky and should cherish their feet, "the only form of freedom they have", and henceforth should keep their heads down at all times. After the Time Skip, there's a new "honorary elite" (meiyo senmin) class to attract commoners to support the student council's side.
• Firing Squad: Parodied; after the last of the Hana-gumi supporters are captured, Kaiser has them tied onto wooden poles at the school grounds, but instead of being shot, their sentence is humiliation by being doused with sewer water. Fortunately, Ero-sensei steps up and calls the student council using the school PA system, allowing Lily, Bara, and Sumire to free the captives and escape before the sentence is carried out.
• Floral Theme Naming: The main protagonists, the Hana-gumi (lit. "flower team"). Each of the members' aliases/nicknames relate to flowers, i.e. Lily, Bara (rose), Sumire (violet), and Hina (short for hinagiku, daisy). They're later joined by Ayame (iris) and Tsubaki (camellia).
  • Lily's Tokyo friends are called Mizuki (dogwood), Rira (lilac), and Kasumi (baby's breath).
  • Kaiser's real name, Gosaki Aran, also contains ran (蘭, orchid).
  • The new Hana-gumi in RAI are Sakura, Aoi (hollyhock), and Karin (angsana).
• Foreign Exchange Student: Raizanmaru, the sumo wrestler of the Strongest Men in History, is a foreigner and played by the Estonian sumo wrestler Baruto Kaito (born Kaido Höövelson).
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: According to Bismarck's dossier, Lily's birthday is on August 17, which also happens to be the feast day of Saint Jeanne Delanoue of France (Saint Jeanne d'Arc's is May 30) and the independence day of Indonesia.
• A Friend in Need: After Lily left their group in Tokyo to return to Arashigaoka, Mizuki decides to follow her and help her out. She manages to help Lily catch Garake after he attempted to assassinate Mr. Gosaki, although he escapes shortly after.
• Friendship Denial: When the Hana-gumi drop by the Kuwabara shop and Bara introduces Lily to her mother, Lily tries to convince Mrs. Kuwabara that she's a total stranger, even though they're visiting together and wear the same school uniform.
• Funny Foreigner: Rin, the assistant at the I Love You cafe, is Taiwanese and speaks broken Japanese.
  • In the stage play, she takes to calling the Hana-gumi "You bastards!" in Japanese as a joke.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Hakase built himself a number of handheld shock devices to incapacitate enemies, and later a lethal shock projectile launcher concealed in a trumpet for Garake and a powerful satchel charge for Manji. Drei is also good with spy gadgets.
• Gainax Ending: Lily's wish to "make the flowers bloom" (i.e. let everyone live happily) is fulfilled, as the epilogue shows the Arashigaoka students happily living normal student lives. However, Lily is killed by the bomb detonated by Manji in the final battle. Her mother's murderer is still at large but she found an eyewitness, so there's hope for her brother to be acquitted. Meanwhile, Bara moved out of the town with her mother. Bismarck, Muskel, and an unseen third person become candidates for the next student council president as Kaiser is forced by her father to move to Tokyo to attend university to prepare to take over the family business. About a dozen characters are introduced after the Time Skip and never fleshed out, and the fates of all the other named characters from both Arashigaoka and Arechi are not mentioned. For some reason, the story also ends with a flashback of Lily walking to the school.
  • A behind-the-scenes photograph shows everyone who fought in the final battle standing in a circle around Lily's corpse, implying that she's the only one who perished in the explosion, despite its loud noise and thick resulting smoke.
• Geek Physiques: Hakase ("professor") is of the overweight type.
• Girly Bruiser: Lily is named after a flower and looks quite feminine, and she fights head-on with Good Old Fisticuffs.
• The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: Respectively, the Hana-gumi, the student council, and Manji/Nero. Lily's Black-and-White Morality cannot deal with this and she falls into Heroic BSoD as a result.
  • In the stage play, Zwei, Hundert, and Tausend attempt to arrest the Hana-gumi after they defeated Nero's forces, as Kaiser had planned all along.
• Good Parents: Bara has a good relationship with her mom. Her father is in prison for reasons yet to be explained, though.
• Gratuitous German: Muskel pronounces Null and Acht's names the way they're rendered in katakana, nu-ru (ヌル) and a-haa-to (アハト). See also Bilingual Bonus above.
• Growing Up Sucks: Early on, Bara often expressed her desire to grow up quickly until Master describes the realities of adult life, which makes her and her friends even more depressed. One of the reasons they want to overthrow Kaiser is to have a teenage life free from oppression before they grow up.
  • Ero-sensei gives a Rousing Speech near the end of the story to this effect, to motivate her students to make the most of their youth.
• Hair-Trigger Explosive: Hakase's satchel charge detonates just by being slammed to the floor by Manji.
• Heel–Face Turn: After being banished and completely rejected by Kaiser, Zwei eventually joins the Hana-gumi's side. Eins was later convinced to do the same after she realizes that Kaiser has lost her way.
• Heh Heh, You Said "X": Kotaro is excited when Ero-sensei tells Lily to sit "over there" on an empty desk since it's also a Sexual Euphemism.
• Hime Cut: Kaiser and Bismarck have this hairstyle.
• Hired Guns: Kaiser employ several yankees from the neighboring Arechi High yankee school to thwart Lily, as she considers directly fighting a commoner beneath her and her group.
  Kaiser: To deal with animals, we send animals of our own.
  • Lily herself also asks for compensation before (or after) helping her classmates. She needs the money to help pay for the legal expenses to free her brother whom has been wrongfully accused of murdering their mother. As she only accepts jobs she feels good about, from fighting bullies to finding missing cats, this fits more with We Help the Helpless. During the first resistance congress gathering, the attending students collected a canful of money for Lily, both as payment for her leadership of the opposition student council and to help her out.
    Lily: Everything needs money. This isn't my fight, but yours. If you want me to rescue your friend, please pay up!
• History Repeats: Ero-sensei and Master are familiar with a past incident involving an opposition group similar to the Hana-gumi, which disbanded after its members were violently assaulted by Kyouken.
• Honorary True Companions: Ayame and Tsubaki look up to Lily and are later inducted into the Hana-gumi, help with running the opposition student council as well as rallying the other students to their cause, but their namesakes are not included in the opposition insignia, probably because they're not founding members.
  • Mizuki also joins the Hana-gumi after Lily left their group in Tokyo.
• Hot Teacher: General manager Yokoyama Yui's character, Noriko/L'Amant, is considered one. Her students call her Ero-sensei and Kotaro particularly has a crush on her.
• I'm Cold... So Cold...: Subverted after fighting Kaba, when Lily mentions that she's sleepy and falls asleep and her three friends mistake it for dying (she was beat up in the face pretty badly).
• In Name Only: Mensur was originally a Sword Fight duel tradition carried out in some European schools, but in LOUDNESS it's a free-for-all fistfight between Arechi thugs.
• Iron Lady: Kaiser and Manji.
• It's Personal: Bara and her friends begin to fight alongside Lily after Bara's mother's shop was torched.
  • Lily finally decides to take charge in opposing the student council after Sumire was stabbed and hospitalized.
• I Work Alone: Lily is initially unwilling to form a friendship with the other three main characters. She eventually grows out of it.
• Japanese Delinquents: There are a few yankee schools around Arashigaoka High from which Kaiser gets her hired muscle.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: Manji takes Lily down before she could finish her plea to stop the war.
• La Résistance: The opposition student council led by the Hana-gumi seeks to replace Kaiser's student council.
• Large Ham: Muskel is the loudest member of the ruling group and carries an ornate walking stick.
• Last Stand: Since Kaiser is forced to leave town to attend university by her father, she decides to mobilize the entire student council for one Final Battle against Manji's forces.
• Liberty Over Prosperity: The opportunity to become honorary elites and improve their lives under Kaiser's regime is tempting enough for many commoners to abandon the revolution. Including Hina.
  Null: (to Lily) Our future is guaranteed! They'll even pay for our college!
• Like Parent, Like Child:
  • Lily's mother was also a powerful fighter and had her own lily embroidery inside her old school uniform skirt. Lily often has flashbacks of her mother's teachings and takes them to heart.
  • Being the only child of a self-employed artisan mother and imprisoned father results in Bara having the strongest desire for independence among her friends.
  • Mr. Gosaki taught his daughter since childhood that they stand above others.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Lily is a Jeanne d'Archétype and her namesake is associated with the historical figure. She also follows the "Pledge of the Lily" which is passed on from her mother.
  • Bismarck shares her name with Otto von Bismarck, a Prussian statesman who served under three Kaisers.
  • Arashigaoka, a hilly town with brewing class struggle, means "stormy hills" or "wuthering heights".
  • Arechi, the yankee school on the poor outskirts of town, means "wasteland".
• Mêlée à Trois: After the Time Skip, Manji's group have become the top of Arechi and are set to attack Arashigaoka, while Lily also returns to continue the fight against Kaiser.
• Missing Mom: Lily's mother died after she was stabbed during a break-in at their home and Lily came to Arashigaoka to find her killer. In a flashback, it's revealed that her mom's uniform skirt also beared a lily embroidery.
• Mythology Gag: In the first stage play, Ero-sensei reveals that she went to Majisuka Gakuen.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Strongest Men in History have monikers like Shinigami ("grim reaper"), Kyouken ("mad dog") and Kairiki ("super-strength") Gigant Kong. Raizanmaru can be translated as "excess thunder". Kaba ("hippo") doesn't sound too scary until you consider the hippo's immense strength and territorial behavior.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: The Gratuitous German names of the student council members, the banners with off-color Balkenkreuz pattern displayed at the school, the black long coats worn by male members of the student council enforcers (called the Shin Shin'eitai, which literally means "New Protection Squad" or alternatively Shin Schutzstaffel), their obsession with social classes, and Kaiser's admiration of Richard Wagner (a very nationalistic German composer and Hitler's favorite) and A God Am I thought process.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: After the previous fights against the Strongest Men and Zwei, you'd expect Lily's duel with Eins to be epic, especially if you consider that Eins's actress is an accomplished baton twirler (a form of rhythmic gymnastics). Lily curbstomped her in about 15 seconds.
• Never Bring a Knife to a Fist Fight: Lily curbstomps Kyouken despite his knife use, and thinks nothing of grabbing the knife by the blade.
• New Transfer Student: Oguri Yui's character, Sayuri/Lily, is this.
• Non-Uniform Uniform: While the commoners wear proper school uniforms, the student council members are free to customize theirs, especially the females. Styling inspired by the Bavarian dirndl dress is particularly commonplace.
• Odd Friendship:
  • In Loudness, Bara moved to Arechi and received help from a Reluctant Warrior Nero, and they become friends.
  • After Null joined the student council, she eventually becomes tight with Tausend, although Rai and Loudness depicted it differently.
• Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: The stage play sequels, RAI and LOUDNESS.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: Kaiser offers to pay for Lily's brother's lawyer expenses if she stops opposing her. Subverted as Lily refuses, since she wishes to uphold the Pledge of the Lily to protect the weak.
• One-Steve Limit: The stage play has a new character named Zombie, which is a different character from the one in Majisuka 4 and 5.
• Plot Device: Lily transferred to Arashigaoka to find the owner of a stained Utopia Arashigaoka loyalty card in her possession, which was left at her mother's murder scene.
• Police Are Useless: The Arashigaoka police won't treat reports from commoners seriously.
• Precision F-Strike: Lily doesn't talk much and is quite polite when she does, except before and during a fight when her speech pattern becomes much rougher, e.g. saying "janee" instead of "janai" ("not").
• Product Placement:
  • In their stage play guest appearance, Suda Akari and Onishi Momoka show off their real-life photobooks to the Hana-gumi.
  • In RAI, Lily is reading a book titled Yasushi Akimoto's Work Study (秋元康の仕事学), which is about the AKB48 Group producer's work methods.
  • In LOUDNESS, Bara plugs the first stage play DVD. Tausend also mentions AKB's latest single at the time, Nemohamo Rumor, and she and Schnabel perform some of the choreography in-character.
• Psychotic Love Triangle: Kaiser, Eins, and Zwei are in a love triangle. Kaiser is a delusional tyrant and Zwei would commit arson to get noticed by Kaiser.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: The hired fighters employed by Kaiser's group are collectively known as "The Strongest Men in History" (Shijo saikyō no otoko-tachi). They serve as Monsters of the Week, being defeated one after the other by Lily, and consists of a man with bowel issues who patterns himself after hippos; a dreadlocked kickboxer; a white sumo wrestler; a knife nut; and a middle-aged looking violent cat lover.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • Lily's actress is enjoying a huge marketing push when the series is produced, which is probably one of the reasons she's the main character.
  • Actresses of three of the four founding Hana-gumi (Lily, Sumire, and Hina), as well as Tsubaki, are from AKB48 Team 8 while the student council members are from NGT48 (except Zwei and the men), leading the two groups' fans into seeing it as representative of their perceived real-life rivalry. Because of this, a few Team 8 fanatics objected to the inclusion of Mukaichi Mion, who is of Team B, as Bara.
    • Possibly, Mukaichi is brought in to represent the elected Senbatsu (top 16 from the annual 48 Group Senbatsu elections, one of their most iconic events), since each major faction in previous seasons have one or more of them (season 1's main protagonist and Rappappa are all elected Senbatsu members). Kaiser and Bismarck's actresses are Senbatsu, respectively rank 16 Honma Hinata and rank 4 Ogino Yuka, while Mukaichi is rank 13. Arechi don't have any in the TV show as they're the underdog, but in the stage adaptation, the main Arechi character, Nero, is played by Okada Nana (rank 5).
    • Another consideration might be because Mukaichi and Taniguchi Megu (Zwei) have more acting experience. Taniguchi's portrayal of Head in Majisuka was relatively well-received, and Mukaichi has been an actress from an early age. They arguably get most of the best lines in the series because of this.
  • Lily is the only founding Hana-gumi who's from Tokyo. Her actress, Oguri Yui, is also the only founding Hana-gumi actress from Tokyo; Mukaichi Mion is from Saitama, Kuranoo Narumi (Sumire) is from Kumamoto, and Okabe Rin (Hina) is from Ibaraki.
  • Meanwhile, Manji's actress, Takino Yumiko, is a member of STU48, the newest 48 group in Japan (during the show's production) based in the mostly rural Setouchi Region who are trying to make a name for themselves, just like Arechi itself. Okada Nana (Nero of the stage adaptation) is a member of both AKB and STU.
  • RAI was part of Team 8's seventh anniversary celebration, so characters portrayed by non-members of that team were written out.
• Real Men Eat Meat: Averted with Kaba ("Hippopotamus"), played by kickboxer Kido Yasuhiro, who is a vegetarian and as powerful as his namesake.
• Real Name as an Alias: Lily's real name is Shimizu Sayuri, where yuri means "lily". Bara's nickname is also taken from her real name, Kuwabara Ikumi. Sumire, Hina, Ayame, and Tsubaki are their actual given names.
  • Kaba's real name, Kōmoto Kazuma (河本 一馬), happens to start and end with "river" and "horse", which are read as "kaba" ("hippo") when combined.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The highly structured Arashigaoka Gakuen is blue and the chaotic Arechi is red. Manji wears a red top to look the part.
• Regretful Traitor: After her Face–Heel Turn, Hina/Null still wears her standard skirt with the daisy embroidery as part of her Evil Makeover, hinting that she still cares about the Hana-gumi. Later her skirt has been tastefully ripped at places, though, so maybe the daisy is gone.
• Reluctant Warrior: Shinigami Joe and Raizanmaru only follow Kaiser's orders because she promises to help their struggling dojos (and further hinder their operations if they disobey).
• Rousing Speech: Lily gives a few of these to rally the Arashigaoka students. Bara and Ero-sensei do the same in the final episode.
• Series Continuity Error: While the events of both RAI and LOUDNESS take place two years after the first stage play (LOUDNESS in the summer and RAI in the winter), the relationship between characters are quite different in each of them and it makes more sense to assume they're in different continuities.
• Serious Business: Kaiser is entirely convinced that she can expand her student council to take control of the town and eventually turn Utopia Arashigaoka into its own independent state.
• Shout-Out:
  • Arashigaoka is the Japanese translation for Wuthering Heights, which also has revenge and class struggle as its themes.
  • The flower theme may also be inspired by Crows. There's a Hana-gumi in the sequel series Worst, although it's named after its leader Tsukishima Hana. That series' main school is called Suzuran, which is Japanese for the lily-of-the-valley (not closely related to the lily, according to modern taxonomy).
  • The prayer for Kaiser, "Gott erhalte den Kaiser", is very similar to the title of the anthem for Emperor Francis II of the Holy Roman Empire and Austrian Empire, "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser". The melody is still used for the current German national anthem.
  • L'Amant ("The Lover") may be named after the movie of the same title.
  • Manji gives Garake a trumpet case containing a trumpet rigged to fire the shock device meant to assassinate the Gosaki patriarch. This is probably a reference to the Rappappa (rappa means "trumpet") of previous seasons and the fact that Manji's actress can play the saxophone, another brass instrument.
• Similar Squad: Like the Hana-gumi, Lily's Tokyo friends are also named after flowers, although they're less about toppling high school dictatorships and more about having fun as runaway teenagers.
• Spark of the Rebellion: Initially, most commoner students see Lily as a troublemaker who will cause the student council to further tighten their grip, especially after Majin-G starts assaulting them in the streets. Seeing the defeated Majin-G's mask displayed in the school courtyard convinces them that defeating the student council is possible.
• Speak of the Devil: Sumire is walking home while reading a report from the old opposition group describing how they disbanded after Kyouken, a knife-wielding member of the school Secret Police, assaulted them, and then the real person appeared out of nowhere and stabbed her.
• Standing Between the Enemies: After learning the truth about Gosaki Land and Manji's backstory, Lily interrupts the Final Battle and appeals to both the student council and Arechi to start a new "revolution" by making amends with each other and avoid further bloodshed instead of fighting. Manji will have none of it and detonates her satchel charge, but Lily somehow makes a Heroic Sacrifice and is the only one killed in the explosion.
• The Stoic: Lily, like all the series' main protagonists before her.
• Story Branching: The stage play version has different guest stars each showing, which slightly changes the storyline, but the general plot is the same.
• Struggling Single Mother: Bara's mother runs her own tailor shop, but her husband is in prison and business is slow since people have started leaving town. And then said shop gets torched.
• Symbol Motif Clothing: Lily's uniform skirt has a lily image embroidered on the inside, which is visible when she high kicks. After Lily warmed up to them and they Took a Level in Badass, Bara, Sumire, and Hina made their own according to each of their namesakes, forming the Hana-gumi.
• Sympathy for the Devil: The Hana-gumi frees Zwei from captivity as they refuse to be as cruel as the student council. This motivates Zwei's Heel–Face Turn.
• Taking the Bullet: Bara jumps to protect Mr. Gosaki from Garake's shock device. Fortunately, she isn't too heavily injured although she has to use crutches after she left the hospital. The silver lining is that she manages to talk to Mr. Gosaki about the school's situation as they originally planned, even though he has already ordered his daughter to move to Tokyo anyway.
• Taking Up the Mantle: When checking out the deserted photography club room for their new student council home base, the Hana-gumi find a letter from their seniors explaining that they tried and failed to take down the school hierarchy and offering the resources left in the room for whomever their successors would be.
• Team Power Walk: The first direct confrontation between Hana-gumi and Kaiser is when they (minus Sumire, who is hospitalized), in contrast with the other students, ignore her order to look down and kneel and simply power walked past her.
• 10-Minute Retirement: After their attempt to storm the student council failed and Hina defected to the SS, Lily moved to Tokyo where she joined a new group of friends, lives together with them in a manga café and enjoys an otherwise normal teenage life, while consulting with a lawyer about her investigation. However, she still keeps tabs on the Hana-gumi, and eventually Mizuki, her closest friend of the group, finds out about them and informs them of her whereabouts. Bara and Sumire manage to track her down and successfully persuade her to continue the fight.
  • After Hina became Null, Bara got injured by Hakase's electrocution device and is leaving town, and Lily goes into Heroic BSoD, Sumire removes the Hana-gumi nameplate from their classroom door and declares their group dissolved. She gets better after listening to Bara and Ero-sensei's speeches and continues the fight with the remaining members.
• Textile Work Is Feminine: While mending Lily's skirt, Mrs. Kuwabara discusses how girls are always excited about textile work, as her daughter, Sumire, and Hina are engrossed in some needlework of their own. It's later revealed that they're making flower embroidery for the Hana-gumi.
• Theme Music Abandonment: LOUDNESS doesn't feature the series' theme song, "Yuri wo Sakaseru ka?", instead opening with AKB's classic Music for Courage "RIVER". This is probably because the song is written from Lily's point of view and she doesn't appear in this installment. The cast does perform it in the closing act, but with the line "Atashi ga lily" ("I am the lily") unsung (except when Oguri Yui appeared as a guest star).
• Theme Music Power-Up: Happens at least once per episode.
• Theme Naming:
  • The student council members have German words and names as nicknames: Kaiser, Bismarck, and Muskel. The three student council captains' names, Eins, Zwei, and Drei, as well as their lieutenants (Vier, Funf, and so on), also count as Numerical Theme Naming.
  • Unlike Hakase ("professor"), Garake (short for the old-school "Galapagos" feature phone) is bad with tech.^note Ironically, Galapagos phones used to be the envy of the world for having features like video streaming and TV receiver before modern smartphones existed.
• Theme Tune Roll Call: A tradition since Season 4.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Heard several times, such as when the Kuwabara tailor shop is torched and when Tsubaki, a classmate of the Hana-gumi's, was assaulted and had her hair cut off by Majin-G.
• Time Skip:
  • After the rebel group's attack failed, the story jumps to three months after the incident, at which point Lily has moved back to Tokyo and Sumire has fully recovered.
  • RAI is set two years after the events of the first stage play.
• Trailers Always Spoil: The teaser shown at the beginning of the series spoils a few plot twists such as Hina's betrayal and Eins's Heel–Face Turn. The character list during the opening theme also shows characters that only appear later in the series. Media coverage of the show also sometimes displays scenes from later in the series.
• Traumatic Haircut: For some time, there's a mysterious figure known as Majin-G who knocks out female students walking home at night and cuts off their hair. He's actually Raizanmaru working under orders from Zwei.
  Ayame: Tsubaki was very proud of her long hair. Destroying a girl's pride... What Majin-G has done is unforgivable.
• Undercover Cop Reveal: In the stage play, the cameo characters that consult the Hana-gumi are all revealed after the climax as undercover cops investigating juvenile delinquency in Arashigaoka and Arechi.
• Underestimating Badassery: Despite having been disarmed and cornered by three Hana-gumis, Zwei still gloats and insults Bara's commoner parentage and boasts that she's the one who torched the Kuwabara shop. The next second, she's on the ground with Bara's hands on her throat, and she could've choked her to death if not stopped by Lily. She's the only major villain who's not defeated by Lily.
  Zwei: Don't get cocky, you're just the daughter of a tailor and a convict!
• Utopia Justifies the Means: The city is called Utopia Arashigaoka and Kaiser wants to make it a real one for herself and her followers, at the expense of the commoner students who aren't even allowed to look at the sky. Because of the Hana-gumi threat, she later revises her stance and allows commoners who are willing to support her to become honorary elites, causing many of them to betray the Hana-gumi.
  Kaiser: Utopia is like Noah's Ark. Only the chosen shall survive.
• Villain Protagonist: Two of the main characters of LOUDNESS are the antagonists of the first two stage plays.
• We Help the Helpless: The Hana-gumi helps classmates in trouble for however much they can afford to pay.
• We Used to Be Friends: In RAI, Sumire has reinvented herself as Yaksha and formed her own team, while Hina becomes Null and is the student council president.
• When She Smiles:
  • The stern Lily smiles for the first time when she noticed that her new friends have imitated her Symbol Motif Clothing.
    Lily, lying exhausted on the floor: The flowers are blooming... within Bara, Sumire, and also Hina...
    Bara: Did you peek underneath our skirts?
  • Eins and Zwei decided to join Kaiser in her mission to build a utopia after she recruited them with a beautiful smile on her face shortly after they enrolled in the school. Zwei, and later Eins, choose to defect to the Hana-gumi's side after they realize that she has lost her way and no longer has that smile.
• Whole Costume Reference: The Arashigaoka Gakuen uniform is very similar to the one in Crows Blood, a high school horror drama also on Hulu Japan and starring AKB48 members (the Crow's Blood uniform has a lighter brown collar and tartan skirt).
• Wicked Cultured: Kaiser and her inner circle, with their luxurious student council room constantly blaring Wagner and her philosophical rants.
• Would Hit a Girl: The male enforcers don't hold back against Lily.
• Would Not Shoot a Good Guy: After investigating Manji's father's old factory, Lily comes across Manji who challenges her to a duel. Since Lily just learned that she's also a victim of Gosaki Land's actions and that they're both orphans, she refuses to fight back and is defeated.
  Manji: My happiness is the destruction of Arashigaoka. Your happiness is if you defeat me. There's no other way but to fight!
• You Have Failed Me: After his defeat against Lily, Drei is removed from his position, stripped of his Shin Schutzstaffel attributes, and has dirt smeared on his face to symbolize his disgrace. Later, a group of Kaiser supporters throw pebbles at him on the street. He is later reinstated after he provided intel about Hana-gumi to Kaiser.
  • The same thing later happens to Zwei, with the addition of being flogged and Locked in the Dungeon in the school basement.
    Bismarck: You are hereby dismissed from the Shin Schutzstaffel and your status is reduced to beneath commoner, equal to that of animals!

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