Regal Academy was created by Iginio Straffi and Joanne Lee for Rainbow SpA. As Rainbow's first entirely 3D CGI television series, it had an exceptionally long pre-production time, with about ten years passing between when pre-production materials were first spotted at MIPCOM and its broadcast debut on Rai YoYo on May 21, 2016. In the United States, it debuted on Nickelodeon on August 13, 2016, and since then it has appeared on Nickelodeon in many international markets.
The show follows Fairy Tale fangirl Rose, who falls into the Fairy Tale World just in time to be revealed as the long-lost granddaughter of Cinderella and enrolled in the titular school (which is really more of a Wizarding School than a Royal School despite the name) alongside team members Hawk SnowWhite, Travis Beast, Astoria Rapunzel, and Joy LeFrog. In season two, their group gains a new member, Ling Ling IronFan.
Together, they challenge their fellow students in a variety of assignments - especially local mean girl Vicky Broomstick - unless a fairy tale villain shows up. The show also spends a lot of time on the relationships between the characters and their famous Grandparents, especially focusing on the generation gap between them. Both the villains and the relationships are mostly Played for Laughs. Until they're not.
This series provides examples of:
- Action Mom: Clara seems to be one of these.
- All-CGI Cartoon: A rarity (at the time) for Rainbow S.p.A., considering most of their previous shows were hand-drawn or flash animated.
- All Myths Are True: Baked into the premise of the series.
- Alpha Bitch: Vicky is a particularly fun-to-watch example of this trope.
- And Now You Must Marry Me: The Bridge Troll plays this trope straight in Season 1. Justified in Season 2 with Ruby capturing Hawk and trying to get him to marry her. Because family magic seems to literally be connected the family name, she will get access to the Snow White family magic. Although, those cursed wedding rings might be the real cause of the Power Parasite effect.
- Art Evolution: Notably the animation in season 2 ditches the faux hand drawn effect from season 1 becoming more inline with traditional CG animation.
- Ascended Fanboy:
- Rose was obsessed with fairy tales before she learned that she was one. The best part is that she never loses her fangirl nature, even after meeting hundreds of fairy tale heroes she's just as excited to meet the next one.
- Hawk to some extent when he becomes a student of his hero, Sir George. That goes bad real fast.
- Animesque: The animation is heavily based on anime, such as the use of large eyes, speed lines, and the fact characters’ mouthes tend to expand when shouting.
- Badass Bookworm:
- Astoria is a top student, practically lives in the library, and can speed-read so fast she has to be careful not to destroy books by flipping the pages too fast. She's also easily the most combat-effective character in the beginning, and even by the end she's probably tied for first or second.
- Ling Ling also qualifies.
- Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: Vicky and her team play this up all the time. At one point they even have to find an evil farmer to get some seeds, because a good farmer wasn't their style.
- Ballet Episode: "Swan Dancing with the Stars" focuses on a ballet class assignment that threatens to go awry when Vicky gets Rothbart involved.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
- Vicky acts like a normal student in the company of the staff, but it isn’t until they’re not around that her true colors appear.
- Ruby the ditzy Hawk fangirl is actually a competent villain in league with her aunt and grandmother, the Wicked Stepsisters.
- Bumbling Dad: Rose's father, Dave, is a textbook example, complete with Amazingly Embarrassing moments.
- Butt-Monkey: Poor, poor, Ruby Stepsister. It gets to the point where she's expelled from the school in the season 1 finale because Vicky lied about being brainwashed by her grandmothers.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Vicky again!
- Cel Shading: The series is 3D animated with use of cel-shading.
- The Chew Toy:
- Travis. Dragons and monsters can't help but pound him! Invoked when Travis actually uses this special ability of his to distract a dragon. It even happily yells "I just can't help stomping Travis!" Also occasionally drifts into Born Unlucky territory.
- Cooking Duel: The class assignments often take this form. Sometimes literally.
- Custom Uniform: Aside from a striped necktie and either a purple blazer or vest, none of the students uniforms match.
- Damsel in Distress: Both subverted and played straight with Astoria and Rose. Played straight with secondary characters on a pretty regular basis. Travis occasionally plays the damsel in distress to Ling Ling.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Both Travis and Rose have some luck defrosting Ling Ling.
- Evil Plan: Vicky’s lifelong goals, though they’re always thwarted by Rose and her gang, thus her goal is for Rose to be expelled.
- Fairy Tale Free-for-All: The characters are the descendants of several fairy tale characters attending school.
- Foreign Queasine: Joy and her extended family - which seems to include people, frogs, people who can turn into frogs and possibly also frogs that can turn into people - seem to only eat bugs.
- Genre Savvy: Considering Rose's nature and the rest of the cast being self-aware of their status as fairy tales, a lot of this is thrown around.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Played straight with Rose. Minor subversion with the Rapunzel family, who have pink hair.
- Handicapped Badass: Grandpa Beast may have a bad back, but he can still one-punch golems and shatter an army of magic flying hammers when he has to.
- Instant Costume Change: The academy uniforms magically appear on the students when they enter the campus.
- Nice, Mean, and In-Between: Vicky’s trio. Cyrus is lazy and naive, Vicky is mean and aggressive, and Ruby is Brilliant, but Lazy but is constantly being manipulated into helping Vicky.
- Never Mess with Granny: Many of the grandparents live up to this trope. Granny SnowWhite shows off a level of magic head and shoulders above the main characters' when she takes out Clara, but she's got nothing on Granny Cinderella when someone has the bad idea to challenge Rose to a magic duel - and then cheat.
- Official Couple: As of the second season, Ling Ling and Travis.
- Orbital Shot: In "Song of the Sea Witch", Rose gets one just as she is about to sing her song for the school.
- Noodle People: It is a merchandise show, after all.
- Pink Means Feminine: This show has an insanely girly color scheme, sometimes contrasting with its borderline slapstick physical humor and the dark comedy of characters like the Evil Queen.
- Powers in the First Episode: The first episode features Rose enrolling in Regal Academy, receiving her Pumpkin Magic powers, and learning she’s Cinderella’s granddaughter.
- Put on a Bus: Ruby gets expelled from Regal Academy in the Season 1 finale and is replaced with new girl Kira by Season 2.
- Really Royalty Reveal: Rose learns she’s the granddaughter of Cinderella in the first episode.
- Scenery Porn: Every Establishing Shot of Fairy Tale Land is exquisite, especially the castles.
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Travis the artist and Hawk the knight-in-training, respectively.
- Series Goal: For Vicky, to become the best villain and to get Rose expelled from Regal Academy so her plans don’t get thwarted.
- Spin-Offspring: Focuses on the offspring of various fairytales; Rose in particular is the granddaughter of Cinderella.
- Status Quo Is God: Vicky’s evil plans are always thwarted, especially by Rose, even by accident.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Travis' face right before he gets clobbered. Happens about once an episode. Sometimes a lot more.
- Token Evil Teammate: Interestingly despite all of them being antagonists, Vicky is this for her team as she's the only one with actual malicious intent whereas Ruby only goes along with her plans because she thinks it help her get close to Hawk and Cyrus is too lazy to care much either way.
- Becomes averted after Ruby gets expelled in the Season 1 finale; she is replaced with new girl Kira, who is as stuck-up and evil as Vicky is, leaving Cyrus as the Token Good Teammate.
- Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Ling Ling can outfight all the boys and first appears in a school uniform complete with pants. On a mission to find her weakness, Rose discovers a fascination with girly ball gowns.
- Toyless Toyline Character: The doll line was discontinued before Ling Ling, Travis, or Hawk could get figures.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Hawk SnowWhite and... apples, obviously. To the point where he will dive across a room to catch one rather than let it fall on the floor. "Apple in danger!"
- Unknown Rival: The staff are unaware of Vicky’s evil nature. The only ones who know are the students.
- Rose doesn’t know Vicky is out to get her expelled from the academy.
- Villainous Crush: Ruby for Hawk. Seems to be a simple background joke, until season two when Ruby gets an upgrade to The Dragon her crush gets an associated upgrade to And Now You Must Marry Me.
