Afterschool Charisma

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
From left to right: Florence Nightingale, Ikkyu, Elizabeth I, Napoleon, Freud, Shiro, Marie Curie

Afterschool Charisma is a manga.

St. Kleio is, in every sense of the word, a special school. It doesn't just have great facilities and a high standard education - it's far more special than that. It's a school for clones. A group of scientists have decided to clone history's most brilliant characters (and not just the good guys, they've also cloned people who were morally ambiguous to say the least) to see if they would live up to their originals' standards - complete, of course, with Historical Beauty Update.

Enter Shiro Kamiya, The Everyman, Nice Guy protagonist, who is the son of the school's director and the only non-clone in a school full of clones. (Or is he?.) He immediately forms a friendship of sorts consisting of the clones of Sigmund Freud, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ikyuu, Elizabeth I, Florence Nightingale and Marie Curie.

All's fine and good, of course, until Marie Curie decides she wants to Screw Destiny and transfers out of the school to study music, the clone of John F. Kennedy is assassinated, Freud investigates a bunch of anti-clone groups, and there's a secret Cult devoted to the Almighty Dolly and is dedicated to screwing destiny over...

In the United States, Viz is releasing the manga online, and as each volume goes to print, corresponding online chapters are taken down. Similar in concept to Clone High (only with less humor and more angst).

Tropes used in Afterschool Charisma include:

Rockswell: I was just wondering because I figured you'd be bummed if I was the first person you ever kissed... I mean, you probably wanted it to be a girl the first time, right? I think kissing boys is just as fun, to be totally honest...

  • Blood-Splattered Innocents: Ikkyu and Florence get covered in blood when the Evil Knockoffs are gunned down in front of them. Ikkyu closes his eyes, but poor Florence has hers open.
  • Break the Cutie: Hitler is starting to lean towards this after Rasputin and Einstein reveal that the Almighty Dolly and the rituals late at night are, in fact, propaganda they both developed to prove a point in an experiment. Poor guy. Perhaps more alarmingly, he's beginning to show signs of being like his original.
    • Not to mention all the crap Shiro goes through.
  • Character Development: Particularly evident with Mozart. Perhaps to the point of Taking a Level In Badass, considering that despite his earlier desire to die, Mozart personally manages to not only receive acknowledgement of his skills from the previous Mozart clone, but in this way keeps from getting shot by him at a time when a good number of previous clones were killing (or attempting to kill) their current counterparts together with themselves.
  • Cheerful Child: Hitler. No, really!
  • Clones Are People, Too: Shiro and Kuroe take this view.
  • Cloning Blues
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Rockswell, Director of St. Kleio, is introduced as a ditzy, easily-bored man who seems to have little interest in actually running the school. In addition, his philosophy and tendencies towards clones are akin to that of a child who likes to 'torture' their toys.
  • Dark-Skinned Blond: Director Rockswell looks like one, but it's hard to tell without color.
  • Driven to Suicide: Mozart can't take the pressure of living up to his original. His attempt to hang himself fails.
  • The Everyman: Shiro.
  • Erotic Dream: Shiro has one of Marie Curie at the start of chapter 4, he gets rudely and amusingly awakened by Ikyuu.
  • Expendable Clone: Rockwell takes this view against clones. To the point that he strangles his adopted "daughter" Pandora/younger Marie Curie because he thinks that Shiro doesn't like her. Hell, he even states that watching clones suffer is something he finds arousing.
  • Evil Knockoff We find out that almost every clone has one in volume 3 and 4. Except for Joan of Arc, whose clone is actually a good person.
    • The truth is a little more complicated than this, for as we see in volume 5, most of the predecessor clones seem to have been living the same sort of day-to-day student lives that the current are living now (to the best of their abilities, of course, since psychological effects are evident in both groups), before it was...disrupted.
  • Fan Service: Shower scenes, anyone?
    • Also, (young, prettier versions of) Elizabeth I and Florence Nightingale shirtless. And Florence and Elizabeth bathing together. And generally more Ho Yay than you can shake a stick at.
    • Hell, Einstein grabbing Shiro's crotch has got to count for something.
    • In one chapter Freud and Shiro are shoved into the girl's changing room. Fanservice and Hilarity Ensues.
  • Fantastic Racism: Shiro seems to be the only non-clone who considers the clones to be fundamentally the same as other people. Likewise, some of the clones, particularly Mozart, consider non-clones inferior to themselves because they don't have the DNA of a proven genius.
  • Fish Out of Water: Shiro.
  • Five-Man Band: Shiro and his friends.
  • Full-Name Basis / Last-Name Basis: A lot of the clones are referred to by what they are commonly called today - eg. Marie Cure, Mozart.
  • Hates Being Touched: Mozart, at least by non-clones. As the only non-clone around, Shiro's the one most likely to be hit. Once he discovers that Shiro might be a clone after, Mozart's sense of personal space goes out the window in order to taunt him.
  • Hime Cut: Himiko, being a clone of the Queen Himiko (who was a Japanese shaman queen) would of course wear her hair like this.
  • Historical Beauty Update: Explained/lampshaded at the end of volume 3.
  • Historical Domain Character: Sort of.
  • History Repeats: Something a lot of the clones -- particularly Adolf -- really, really want to avoid. Played completely straight by Joan and her predecessor clone, who are both burnt at the stake. John F. Kennedy's clone is also assassinated, though Freud notes that the circumstances surrounding the assassination are different.
  • Hospital Hottie: Florence Nightingale.
  • Innocent Fanservice Girl: Oh, Florence Nightingale.
  • Insufferable Genius: Mozart, although his belief in his own genius turns out to be the source of the insecurity that drives him to suicide.
  • Irony: Bucketloads.
  • Laughing Mad: Mozart, several times. Particularly after his suicide attempt.
  • Locked in a Room: Shiro and Mozart (plus Pandora), before the expo. It's more to keep them safe than to force them to get along, though.
  • Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Mozart.
  • Mad Artist: Mozart.
  • Marshmallow Hell: Innocent Fanservice Girl that she is, Florence Nightingale probably didn't get that she was subjecting Shiro to this.
  • Meaningful Name: Shiro's name is written with the characters for "history" and "good". It's not yet certain exactly what it means, but in a series with a lot of characters trying to either force history to repeat itself or prevent it from doing so, it can't be an accident.
  • Megane: Ikyuu and Einstein.
  • Mirror Match: Napoleon and Dr. Kamui. Joan's Mirror Match is a good person, Florence Nightingale's is taken care of before she can do much, and Mozart doesn't fight his. Shiro, on the other hand, has lots of them.
  • Miko: Himiko.
  • The Napoleon: Actually inverted with Napoleon Bonaparte's clone - he's a cheerful, easygoing guy. Shiro also comments that he gets taller every physical exam.
  • Odango Hair: Marie Curie.
  • Pimped-Out Dress: Elizabeth during the expo.
  • Proper Lady: Elizabeth may be a little too forceful to be a textbook example, but all she really wants is to be a housewife and settle down with a husband and family the way the original Virgin Queen never got to.
  • Replacement Goldfish: The clones, arguably, for their originals. Hinted in a lot of ways with Shiro.
  • Say My Name: JOAAAAAAAAAN!
  • Scholarship Student: Shiro fills this role in a lot of ways: he's allowed to attend the school only because his father is headmaster, he's a bit of an outcast amongst the students, and he provides an everyman for readers to identify with. However, obviously, this isn't because of money but because he's not a clone.
  • School Festival: a festival is planned to showcase the talents of the clones, and to raise funds.
    • Apparently the festival's purpose is to help the rich decide which clone they want to buy. What for, we'll just have to see...
  • School for Scheming: There's definitely something fishy going going on at St. Kleio Academy, especially after Marie Curie "transfers out".
  • Screw Destiny: The attitude of those of the clones who reject the idea of being bound to the fate of their originals. The Almighty Dolly cult devises a ritual to liberate a clone from his or her original's destiny, involving a symbolic death.
  • Stranger in a Strange School: Shiro's the only non-clone in a school for clones. Or is he?
  • Sugar and Ice Personality: Joan of Arc, hinted. She even gets a When She Smiles moment!
  • There Are No Therapists: Flat-out stated by Dr. Kamiya. Shiro is basically the closest thing they've got.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: In the outside world, especially within the research field and high class societies, clones are considered 'property investments' at best, and novelties at worst.
  • You Can't Fight Fate: Some of the clones believe that they are destined to live lives analogous to those of their originals, even down to the lifespan.
  • You Cloned Hitler: A shy student is revealed to be a clone of Hitler.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: "Shiro says you're not Marie Curie, Pandora. That means you're not needed anymore."
  • Young Future Famous People: All clones are high schoolers. Except for the unspoken-of graduates. One of the first "successful" clones, though, was seen in the first chapter: Kennedy.
  • Yaoi Fangirl: Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shonagon in the Afterschool Charichuma omake.
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