Shin Hyakuji High School

Hyakuji High School is a long running anime based RPG game, based, believe it or not, on High School life. Unlike normal high schools in Japan, the students have various gifts. Typically in the forms of superpowers. Students from across the world (and sometimes even further) come to learn how to control their gifts, and Hijinx naturally ensue.

Running for 6 years, this Play By Post RPG has a long history, and is always accepting new members. It has no set genre, allowing for everything from Mad Scientists to Kamen Rider to Magicians of many types to be played.

Tropes used in Shin Hyakuji High School include:

• Aborted Arc: Wo Shing, the crime syndicate that didn't really do anything.
  • Last year's Halloween plot.
  • A number of rumors and personal plots end up like this because of inactivity.
• Academy of Adventure: The titular high school of the site.
• Action Girl: Female students are usually some form of this if they don't rely heavily on their powers.
• All There in the Manual: The backstory of the site, as well as records of everything from the past, is contained within the History.
• After the End: Season 2 basically takes place after the entire Hyakuji universe went bye-bye, and the Season 4 gaiden covers character stories that explores the world in the aftermath of a robot apocalypse.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: Barring some exceptions, teachers are generally stronger than students.
• Badass Biker: While the Kamen Rider characters are mostly this, there are also some relatively non-Kamen Rider characters who are also badass and ride bikes like Nickle to name one.
• Badass Bookworm: Jennifer Chase, who is also known for her lack of superpowers.
  • Hiro Tsukasa, who owns a bookstore, teaches supernatural studies (A.K.A. Collateral Damage 101) and is very possibly the strongest character on the site.
  • Damon Ark, overlapping with Casting a Shadow, Red Eyes, Take Warning, Squishy Wizard, and Glass Cannon. Do not press his buttons.
• Bad Future: The premise of Season 4, the Future Seven Saga essentially revolves around this, and it's up to those in the present-day to avert it.
• Badass Long Hair: Damon Ark and Nickle Ryuko, among others.
• Badass Normal: Though rare, there are some relatively normal characters with little or no powers at all that sometimes shares the limelight with their super-powered friends.
• Battle Couple: Tends to happen to most couples at some point. Examples include Meglumar and Star and Nickle and Chizu.
• Beach Episode: The WDA'S [V] threads were this. A number of players did try to use it for actual character development though.
• BFS: Mayu's Axebreaker and Nickle's Kaneryuu, as well as the claymore wielded by Selene's summoned Valkyrie.
• Big Damn Heroes: Often, whether with Humongous Mecha, or through their own abilities, students at the school have an uncanny nack to arrive just in the nick of time to save the day. However, given the variance on this site, its easily subverted by the Big Damn Heroes not quite proving to be as useful as one would hope.
• Big Good: While the site doesn't have any single main character, Hiro tends to be a central figure in most plots and is the founder and original leader of Arcadia.
• Break the Cutie: inVERsion, and its effects are shown clearly in its aftermath. Good lord...
• Broken Ace: Rin Kimiko, also known as the Kaimu Student Council President. Not only did she have high level psychic powers, but she designed a machine that was, from a statistical point of view, not only more powerful than Hyakuzor, but was constructed in a significantly reduced time scale. Unfortunately for her (and everyone else of course), she was batshit crazy.
  • And in a sense, Star Ricci. Beautiful, intelligent, and good with people, but often suffers from self-worth issues due to her inability to control the more potent aspects of her powers, which sometimes lead to her being more of a burden than a help. But she hides all of these issues behind her smiles and cheerful, energetic demeanor.
• Bullying a Dragon: Some characters are victims of this, although the late Rozanny Katar seemed to have had it especially hard for her. Those poor sods really don't know what's good for them...
• Canon Discontinuity: Shinya High. The other Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo to the original site. Showed up during the Crisis Crossover.
• Cape Busters: Tarin Richards is being trained from childhood as one, courtesy of her father.
• City of Adventure: The adventures don't simply limit themselves to the school. Hyakuji itself is also quite the adventure magnet.
• The Corruption: The orange materia in the Elemancer mission. Grants great power, but at the cost of one's sanity and the strain it puts on the body eventually kills the (unwilling) user.
• Crapsack World: The Bad Future of Season 4.
  • And the "Last Days of Planet Earth" chapter? Even more so...
• Crisis Crossover: Shin Season 2, The Kingdom Hearts season, used a number of other sites the admin and/or member-base had founded or played on as the other worlds.
• Determinator: A good number of characters get things done by sheer force of will.
• Darker and Edgier: Season 2 was often said to be such by many veterans of the site; it originally opened in the same lighthearted tone as the preceding season, although Cerebus Syndrome quickly set in after a couple of Event topics.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Various extra dimensional entities have gotten this treatment, up to and including Cthulhu himself.
• Doing It for the Art: Remember, this site has been running for six years now, and features a wide array of plots and character archetypes. Whilst some members do it solely out of fun or wish fulfillment, others work painstakingly to craft a truly good narrative, managing to tie various ideas together into a coherent plot, despite so many things that might otherwise conflict with each other.
• Dysfunction Junction: Most characters come in with issues. Those that don't usually get them.
• Elaborate University High: Goes without saying.
• Elemental Powers: The Elemancers, of course.
• Expy: Takamachi Miyuki shares a host of appearance and personality traits that are clearly inspired by several established characters, but most notably Archer, Bazett and Ein.
• Extranormal Institute: Of the Super-Hero School variety.
• Eyepatch of Power: Part of Jameson B. Willicott signature outfit, along with his Fedora.
• Fantastic Racism: A few characters are victims of this in their backstories, but again, Rozanny seems to a poster girl for this trope.
  • And in an interesting inversion to the trope, humans aren't always perpetrators when it comes to Fantastic Racism. An example of humans being on the receiving end of said trope? Meet Valentine Enigmata Necroelle Malevelencia, a sufficiently advanced human alien from the future who somehow gets pulled out of her own time and space by a freak accident and deposited in our world, in the present. Suffice to say, she isn't impressed (to say the least) by what this Insignificant Little Blue Planet has to offer and certainly thinks even less of its inhabitants, finding them to be unbelievably primitive by her species' standards. Dull and uninteresting at best, and downright annoying at worst. And she feels that she knows it. Whether or not her attitude changes depends on what Character Development plots her creator has in store for her.
• Facing the Bullets One-Liner: To put it in the words of Jameson B. Willicott - "If the power of darkness is a million times stronger than I am.. THEN I'LL INCREASE MY POWER BY INFINITY!"
• Fan Service: Almost certainly present, given how heavily influenced by anime the site is. Just how much depends on the roleplayers and characters involved.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: The very nature of the setting where Hyakuji High School takes place is an embodiment of this trope.
• Flash Step: Kinclex and Chizu are notable users.
• Great Detective: Who else but "Jameson B. Willicott! Hyakuji's Number One Detective!!!"?
• Harbinger of Asskicking: Any plot thread that starts with the words "Season Finale".
• Heroes-R-Us: Arcadia, which serves to not only recruit new members, but train, equip, and use them to fight supernatural menaces in Japan. The BPRD is their American counterpart. It helps that many of its members are either students or teachers at the High School.
  • There's also BOARD, which designs, tests, and utilises Kamen Rider suits that are used to help save the day by many a character.
  • For a smaller scale operation, there's the Willicott Detective Agency. Whilst probably not as well funded as the previous two examples, they've still got enough skill and equipment to be of help if one needs it.
• Heroic RROD: Some characters have a Finishing Move that plays out like this.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Sometimes justified, sometimes not. Due to there being no real main character for the site, and thus no guarantee someone will get to save the day, its indeed quite possible for some characters to prove themselves unable to help, as was the main source of Angst for Star after the end of Season 3. Whether or not they do anything about it, or if anyone tries to show where they actually have helped, of course, depends on the writer.
• Hiro Did It: The explanation of how everyone forgot about Arcadia between the Kingdom Hearts season and the current one.
• Hot-Blooded: Several characters, to the point that amongst the awards given to members, there is one for the most testorone prone poster.
  • Hyakuzor meanwhile just seems to make those piloting it suddenly get immensely hotblooded. Perhaps its a requirement to move it?
• How Do I Shot Web?: New students tend to have this problem.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Subverted. The setting itself portrays humanity itself as neither intrinsically good nor evil, but many characters who are victims of Fantastic Racism at the hands of Muggles, or abandoned or abused by their (often) Muggle parents in their backstories certainly hold such a notion. Often, a key Character Development plot for such characters is coming to learn, via The Power of Friendship or The Power of Love, that Humans Are Flawed rather than being outright bastards.
• I Am Not Shazam: Take note people - the site is called Shin Hyakuji High School, not the school itself. That's just Hyakuji High School.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Wakamurasaki Fuu. One could never help but realize how little she cares about how much her skirt flies, when she even wears one. Also, her power happens to be Victoria's Secret Compartment.
• Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons: Selene Frostfire is able to summon a wyvern to serve as her mount and Cool Pet.
• Instant Awesome, Just Add Mecha: The high school has an adjoining Photon Laboratory holding several mechas of both Super Robot and Real Robot varieties, just for kicks and the occasional mecha related battles.
• Joshikousei: A good percentage of the female students.
• Knight Templar: The Machine Empire of Season 4 is essentially an embodiment of said trope. Has an ultimately noble goal for humanity to free themselves from the misery of aging, sickness and conflict by having humans trade in their flesh and blood bodies for robotic ones. Never mind the fact that any human who thinks otherwise are instantly branded as retrogressive, and an enemy of progress, and will take extreme measures to eliminate all dissidents, and are essentially racist towards all sentient organics.
• Late for School: Averted. Due to rules stating that people who miss the start of topics should act like their characters have been there all along, nobody is EVER late for school. (Granted, this may just be because detention is a very scary place.)
• Lighter and Softer: Season 1 in comparison to Season 2. And as of Season 3 till the present, the site seemed to have returned to the same lighthearted tone of Season 1.
• Mad Scientist: The science class is TAUGHT by one. Naturally.
• Magical Girl: Quinn Bailey and Setsuna Higashi.
• Mega Manning: Currently banned as an actual power, though only for new characters. Preexisting examples of this include Yuki Unsere, a demon that is currently bound as Hiro's servant, who can learn any spell, so long as she watches it long enough.
  • The trope is also how Hyakuzor tends to even the playing field against tougher opponents. Sure, the machine itself can't really take on people's powers (not unless that is part of the powers themselves), but that doesn't mean people can't up the scale of how they use them to Humongous Mecha size.
• Memetic Mutation: A number of in-site ones:
  • Noone trusts Hiro around the female gender. Noone.
    • Similarly, never expect him to make a relationship work.
  • Breasts being referred to as bounce. Yes, more often than not in red. Often in capitals too.
  • Any mention of Jonny's plot whilst Hiro is within earshot will prompt JUSTICE RAEG.
  • If someone has the motivation to post, then what they really have is Winzy.
  • Rumors will fail. Its a law of the Hyakuverse.
  • BATISTA BOND IS A DEBT YOU CANNOT REPAY
• Minored in Asskicking: You get all your high school education...And...let's just say that instead of issuing safety warnings saying not to walk home alone at night, the city has to send the gangs safety warnings saying you will be walking home alone at night.
  • Though not always played straight; see Super Loser below.
• Mood Whiplash: Due to the way IC time is being handled on the site and the rules allowing multiple RP topics by the same character that aren't running concurrently, it's very possible to experience this by having both comedic threads and dramatic ones to post in. At the same time.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Happened twice to Erin during the prologue to inVERsion - first after realizing what she did to the squirrel, and a second, more severe one that was nothing short of a complete emotional breakdown after beating Chizu to within an inch of her life whilst under the Orange Materia's influence, only to experience a brief moment of lucidity that lasted just long enough for her to realize what she had done.
• Nakama: Most long-running characters have some (equally long-running) form of this.
• Never Found the Body: Jameson invokes this trope during the Kingdom Hearts season. He gets better afterward.
  • A good number of inactive characters are assumed to be dead since The Heartless attacked. Their bodies were never found, making this a convenient Hand Wave if they ever decide to come back.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Played painfully straight many a time. Where shall we begin? Despite being at the forefront of many potentially apcalyptic scenarios and narrowly saving the world, the school was considered a danger to the city by Japanese authorities, who saw it fit to slash the government budget for Hyakuji High, eventually setting into motion the events of Season 3.
  • And in Season 4, finding a town that was besieged by pirates our heroes tried to do the right thing and stand up for the townspeople, only to be mistaken for pirates by the marines that arrived shortly after and hauled off to prison for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: To the original Hyakuji High
• One-Man Army: Any sufficiently powerful character probably qualifies as one.
• Overly Long Name: Star's full name is Salvatrice Tatiana Annalisa Rosabella Ricci. And she introduces herself like this more often than not.
  • And while we're at it, teen prodigy deejay Dominique's full name is Dominique Quintessa Reine Dieudonnee Rosenblade.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Selene Frostfire's bodyguards. Their job is to keep their charge safe and often show up in threads from time to time, but they're never around when actually needed, such as in serious battle threads. So their job in a sense is pretty much just to stand around and look badass in their Armani suits and Cool Shades.
• Poor Communication Kills: Played for Laughs just as often as it's Played for Drama, and is often a major driving force behind much drama in plots.
• Power Incontinence: This trope tends to happen to new students, particularly those who have just discovered their powers. Pyromancers are frequent targets.
• The Power of Love: One of the Humongous Mecha stored at the school runs on it. Naturally, its based off designs from the Dannar base.
• The Psycho Rangers: The Hellfire Club is this to Arcadia.
• Rasputin the Mad Monk: Not only is he here, but he's working for Cthulhu.
• Shout-Out: As a play by post anime RPG, there are numerous.
  • Arcadia contains many references to supernatural anime, such as D.Gray-man, Bleach, and Shin Megami Tensei.
  • The Elemancers have numerous references to Final Fantasy.
  • Most seasons have a common theme. The most recent season was based off of Kingdom Hearts.
  • Hiro's bookstore, Eldritch Influence, sells Duel Monster cards. Cue many, many references to children's card games.
  • Kaneryuu looks a lot like the Buster Sword. Nickle looks and acts a lot like Zack. Cue Nickle passing Kaneryuu onto his shorter, angstier girlfriend for a plot.
  • In this thread it was decided that if Jonny was ever voiced, both his English dub actor and Seiyuu would be the men who voice Simon the Digger. Subsequently, Jonny can be found quoting or adapting some of Simon's best lines.
  • Hiro is stated at one point to have been a member of Fairy Tail. Which explains a lot.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Whilst the site as a whole currently sits towards the idealistic side of things (The Power of Love and Heroic Willpower are often more than capable of getting a job done), it has and still does swing towards cynicism. Indeed, struggling to decide where exactly one sits on the scale is often a plot for characters.
• Super Loser: See Dysfunction Junction as above, which is a very common cause for this trope. But kinda expected given the nature of a school setting, since everyone knows that in a school setting, you will always see your fair share of cool kids and losers.
• Super Weight:
  • Type -1: Normal Humans in general, Gag Characters - i.e. Suzumiya Kamu aka. "Kyonka", any Mook NPC that players are allowed to auto-hit in fight threads, Hiro Tsukasa with Worf Effect on.
  • Type 0: Humans with combat training (such as police and army), "Weak" Students - i.e. Student Characters who are non-combat capable due to varying factors ranging from having non-combat orientated powers (i.e. Fuu Wakamurasaki), inability to utilize their powers in a consistent and reliable way (i.e. Star Ricci in her debut during Season 2 and a good part of Season 3), or simply not trained for battle (i.e. Yuki Tsukiyoru, Erin L. Oasella).
  • Type 1: Spike Ito, Jennifer Chase - as well as any human who fall under the Badass Normal category, Riotroopers (for a Redshirt Army they are immune to Conservation of Ninjutsu and Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy), most of the combat-capable Student Characters.
  • Type 2: Most Hyakuji High teachers, Student Characters with more than one season's worth of upgrades (i.e. Chizu Yamamura, Damon Ark, Hajime Go, Otoha etc.), most villains on the C to B threat level.
  • Type 3: Hiro Tsukasa (without Worf Effect) and some Teachers, Nickle Ryuko, most seasonal Big Bads, or any villain that falls under the A to S threat level, Humongous Mecha such as Hyakuzor and King Kaimu.
  • Type 4: Aeons, Zorc, any villain that hits the S+ to L threat level, Cthulhu
  • Type 5: Dieu, Kingdom Hearts, Kyonka's Mother, Meta Characters; i.e. RP'er self-inserts, Kamen Rider Kabuto, Otoha (when Breaking the Fourth Wall)
• There Are No Therapists: There was one once. She's not here anymore. Nobody knows where she went.
• The Spartan Way: Archimedes Myridden seems to have a fondness for teaching in this manner; as shown here.
• The Worf Effect - Hiro Tsukasa is possibly the strongest character on the site. So when a threat shows up for the students to deal with, it's either this or he happens to be conveniently elsewhere.
• Tournament Arc: The fundraising tournament.
• Transformation Sequence: Yes, some Kamen Riders or other such heroes do manage to have sequence that occurs every time they Henshin. For some, its simply the picture of their transformed state, whilst others actually have bits of soundtrack in the post, along with special sprites to simulate the show's own effects.
• They Clean Up Nicely: The prom held to celebrate the school's continued survival after a series of financial troubles and rival schools is this for many of the students, and even a few of the teachers.
• Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: Given the site's 'anything-goes-rpg' status, and how a number of anime characters are used as the basis of profiles, there's a lot of room to work with. Would you like to see Zorc versus Granteed? Zack Fair versus The Heartless? Its happened folks!
• Villains Act, Heroes React: Lampshaded by Lavender during the Hyakuji Festival as she muses on why the heroes are always the ones taken by surprise instead of the other way around.
• Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World: Applies for most characters, given that a large number are students at the school, and a fair few others are teachers. The two sides aren't always mutually exclusive either.
• World of Badass: Whilst by no means are most, or even the majority of the cast fighters, a good portion of the site's IC population are certainly good at kicking ass and taking names. And as for the exceptions? They learn, well at least most of them do. It's almost like if you aren't a badass when you enrolled, you will almost surely become one by the time you graduate.
• Whatevermancy: In addition to pyromancers, cryomancers, etc, general mastery of elemental powers is referred to as 'elemancery' as an umbrella term.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Rasputin has clearly been taking lessons, if the recent string of Arcadia missions are any indication. Man's certainly determined to bring about The End of the World as We Know It.