So, while it’s something of an informal genre, I’ve talked a good deal about “Battle School” shows in the past. Typically, these are shows where the characters are in school (usually High School), but the curriculum includes some degree of combat. Most typically, these are Shonen action shows, and on the more prototypical end tend to have harem elements. The Battle School theme can at times be compared to Isekai, in that both have an oft-repeated archetypal form that’s not generally regarded as being of particularly high quality, having more of a mass appeal than a depth of meaningful storytelling.
In general, if given the choice between a bog-standard Isekai and a bog-standard Battle School, I’ll usually pick the Battle School, since even at their weakest they usually have a little more creativity, and the worst reprocessed examples I’ve seen haven’t been as bad (After all, Isekai gave us In Another World With My Smartphone). However, even then most battle schools do play it fast and loose with the logic of their settings. Chivalry of a Failed Knight was a fairly good show, all things considered, but it didn’t really explain much about its universe because, to be entirely fair, it didn’t need to. You might get a paper-thin excuse as to why the world has children wielding kickass powers to battle… whatever the hell it is they battle (that’s something that can vary from show to show) but it’s typically set dressing to give us the cool action scenes the show knows you want.
While Myriad Colors Phantom World has the basic trappings of the Battle School show down, its tone and themes are actually very different, which makes it something that, in my mind at least, is fairly interesting to explore in terms of its ideas, whether or not that makes it actually any more watchable.
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