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While the high school may have the usual principal and faculty, all the real power resides in the hands of the Student Council. These four (or more) teenagers -- sometimes elected, sometimes (self-)appointed -- oversee all manner of functions that you would think would be handled by the adults at the school: security, discipline, sometimes even hiring.
This power gives them unparalleled freedom -- they do as they please on the campus, and no member of the staff dares rebuke them. In fact, the staff may rarely appear at all. (See Two Teacher School.) Only occasionally will their power be checked by others, such as the School Newspaper Newshound or an activist viceprincipal.
Naturally, led by the Student Council President.
Examples:
- Revolutionary Girl Utena.
- Mai-HiME.
- Kingyo Chuihou: the president literally owns the school.
- Clamp School Detectives; note that this series has absurdly powerful student councils for each grade division, leading to (say) the chairman of the Elementary Division Council consulting with the chairlady of the Kindergarten Division Council over plans for festivals that shut down all actual schoolwork through to the University level for weeks.
- Gokujou Seitokai: This trope is pretty much the premise of the show. The titular seitokai (student council) has military, law enforcement, and intelligence/ninja divisions, and is pretty much hand-picked by its president, Jinguuji Kanade, for reasons that she mostly keeps to herself. President Kanade believes in not restricting the freedom of the students, which limits the near-absolute control the council could otherwise exert.
- Chou Kuse Ni Narisou.
- Kujibiki Unbalance, in which the entire premise of the show consists of a group of students trying to become this, by either competing against a bunch of other teams (in the original fake TV series/real OVA) or just training (in the real TV series).
- Live action example: in the feature film Pinch Runner (starring the J-Pop group "Morning Musume") a character fakes a suicide attempt in the girls' bathroom. She is "treated" in the school nurse's office by a classmate who is a sort of junior-trainee doctor, with the rest of the Track & Field Club Nakama in attendance. Despite the gallons of fake blood splashed all over the bathroom, the nurse's office, and three different girls' uniforms -- not to mention the fact that all seven students apparently skip class for the rest of the school day -- there is no indication that the adults at the Two Teacher School (or the girls' parents, for that matter) ever learn of the affair.
- The Grace organization in Red Garden.
- Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu
- Strawberry Panic takes this one and runs with it: the setting involves a complex three-schools-in-one situation, and the student councils and their goings-on are given a great deal of ceremony, and the members are treated like royalty, with just getting to see the Etoile (the one who is above the three Student Council Presidents) up close being a longtime dream of many students. When power struggles happen, it is Not Pretty, in a way that's much darker than the show's usual lighthearted tone.
- Subversion: Manabi Straight is a deconstruction of this, about a group of girls Twenty Minutes Into The Future who are newly forming a Student Council. A theme of the series seems to be that kids aren't allowed to be kids anymore and the notion of an Absurdly Powerful Student Council takes itself far, far too seriously.
- Parodied in Karin with the three student council presidents of Ren's boarding school.
- The student councils in Tenjou Tenge and the very similar Dragon Destiny are literally at war with one another, and are so powerful they can even kill students without repercussion (except revenge killings).
- Subverted in Haunted Junction, in which the Student Council President can literally summon and command the school principal (who is a ghost) via a magic amulet...but is kept so busy with ghost-hunting in general that he has no time to attend classes or interact with the other students at all, much less wield authority over them.
- In Code Geass, the Student Council President's family runs the school; this means that the average students are subject to her playful whims like Complete Silence Parties and the Crossdressing Festival. And this all is before we get into the School Festival where they use a decommissioned Humongous Mecha to try and make the world's largest pizza.
- Non-anime example: The trope is subverted in the obscure Peanuts television special, "You're (Not) Elected, Charlie Brown," when Linus runs for class president (bear in mind he's assumed to be in second grade or so). He makes all sorts of outrageous promises and manages to win, but then meets with the pricipal and discovers he has no actual power whatsover.
- A similar situation occured in one episode of Invader Zim, but with the level of control ridiculously present throughout the whole episode, and the winner of the election had his mind controlled anyway.
- Occurred in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, when Jenny found she could not fulfil any election promises after the election.
- El Goonish Shive has averted this; the duties of the student council so far seem to be announcing rules the principle made.
- Parodied on Clone High: the most important decisions that the Student President made were the placement of rugs in the library.
- X Middle School in Fillmore has its own student-run police force that enforces all of the school rules and runs like a real world police force. They pretty much take it upon themselves to make sure their fellow classmates play nice.
- Though it's made clear on multiple occasions that they answer to the teachers, or at least the principal.
- Possibly parodied in Final Fantasy VIII. Balamb Garden has a "disciplinary committee" composed entirely of antagonist Seifer and his henchmen, Fujin and Raijin. Considering their own disregard of authority and lack of the same, it's likely they appointed themselves.
- Subverted in Weiss Kreuz Glühen: Koua Academy seems to have an Absurdly Powerful Student Council in the form of "S Class," an elite group of students who, led by Enfante Terrible Toudou, literally get away with murder and at one point openly declare their control over the school. They get a rude awakening six or seven episodes in when Toudou discovers he is the Tomato In The Mirror, has a Freak Out, and is murdered by his creator, after which the protagonists get down to the business of ferretting The Man Behind The Man and The Man Behind The Man Behind The Man out from among the faculty and founders of the academy.
- Played with in Yes! Precure 5. Karen, the Student Council President for the school's realistically (i.e. not at all) powerful student council, spends a whole episode trying to meet the requests of the student body, who seem to think they have an Absurdly Powerful Student Council that can acquire money and resources at will.
- This seems to be common in yuri. Maria-sama ga Miteru revolves around one.
- American university example: Revenge Of The Nerds.
- The Flash series Xin is a good example of this trope in the last half of the series, the first half dealing with a completely anarchical school.
- Real Life subversion (!!!): One of the class officers at this editor's high school claims that the administration sometimes makes unpopular decisions (like the horrible class shirt design) in the name of the class officers, to deflect blame.
- The middle school this troper went to had the exact same system: the "school council" (elected by the students) had no real power, however any possibly controversial (and/or popular) decisions were often said to originate from the school council.
- Real Life subversion: This troper teaches in Japan, and one of the first things he was told by his company was this: you may make unintentional faux pas in the schools, or even with the Board of Education staff, but Do. Not. Piss. Off. The PTA.
- This applies to many places in Real Life America as well (the specific PTA version, not the student council itself).
- Real life example: I served on my school's Student Faculty Administration, which acted as my school's legislature, with our only limitations being a rarely used veto power by the principal and the fact that we were about as productive as a real legislature. Among the things we passed in my senior year was a bill that allows students who take AP tests to take excused absences for the whole day, which the principal had to veto and institute as unofficial policy because it might have caused some students not to meet state requirements for minimum class hours per year. That's right, we overruled state regulations.
- Shugo Chara!: The student council have their own private garden and tearoom which other students need an invitation to get into, and are apparently exempt to dresscode.
- In Haruhi Suzumiya, Itsuki created one to fit this trope. The Student Council President actually laughs about how ridiculous the premise is...while slowly getting sucked into acting this way for real. (This happens a lot in the show.)
- Deconstructed in The Lottery where the council uses threats, bullying, blackmail amongst other methods to maintain its absurd power.
- Gakuen Heaven
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