If a show has scenes featuring a school, the easiest way to drop a new character into the cast is to have that character enter as a transfer student. This is usually done by the
Second Episode Morning. If the transfer student is the main character, the series will usually begin on his or her first day at the new school. This will always happen around mid-semester, so the other characters can exposit at them.
Often this ignores the inherent problem of characters with no credentials or information (since a lot aren't even human) being able to sign up for a school within a week or so after getting the idea. See
Undead Tax Exemption.
This is a common way to introduce the mysterious stranger who'll become a character's
Magical Girlfriend. Conversely, it's a way to have a character who is initially severely irritating to another to force them to deal with each other. In both cases, they'll end up sitting next to each other.
Note how long they wear their
old uniforms tells whether they assimilate.
Examples:
Anime
- Mone in Yumeria is registered and attending Tomokazu's high school almost within minutes of exiting the dream world and showing up in his bed.
- Ann and Ail in the "Doom Tree" Story Arc of Sailor Moon effortlessly masquerade as normal middle schoolers.
- Makoto and Ami were also new transfers in the first season; Ami wore the new uniform, Makoto did not.
- Arika's enrollment in Garderobe Academy in Mai-Otome isn't exactly a transfer, but it has all the other symptoms of the trope, including having the one student who knows (and dislikes) her being assigned as her roommate and guide around the school.
- Mai-HiME's Mai Tokiha and her brother Takumi, on the other hand, are. Their arrival at the school was planned well ahead of time, however.
- Nerine and Sia's transfer gets the ball rolling in Shuffle!
- Belldandy from Ah My Goddess had to go through some shenanigans so that she wouldn't be revealed as a fake student.
- In Zatch Bell, the character Shion (partner to the momodo Nia) is introduced as a transfer student to Kio's high school. When her mini-story-arc is completed, she exits with the excuse that her transfer stay was over.
- The ever-Genre Savvy Haruhi from Suzumiya Haruhi No Yuutsu goes looking for a "mysterious transfer student" to complete her club -- and latches onto Koizumi, who's just tickled pink to join the SOS-dan.
- Rukia did this on the Second Episode Morning of Bleach. This one's more plausible than normal, as she has no problem altering the memories of others to suit her purposes.
- Including the new characters in the filler arc, eight more Shinigami have since posed as transfer students, though many of them are clearly too old to be in Ichigo's class.
- 'Tessa' Testarossa from Full Metal Panic:Fumoffu, a Whispered prodigy and submarine captain, decides to take a holiday as a transfer student at Sousuke and Kaname's school. Sousuke (himself an ostensible transfer student) nearly has a breakdown ensuring she comes to no harm.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's didn't even show the school that often, but Fate transferred in and became friends with Nanoha's groupies effortlessly anyway.
- Happened to both Bakura and Kaiba in the manga and first series of Yu-Gi-Oh!. (Kaiba is already a student at the beginning of the second series)
- Actually happened to Tenchi, the main character, in Tenchi In Tokyo, after he moved to Tokyo.
- Kanon, Yuuichi -- another main character.
- Sara in Soukou No Strain, who managed to get into military school under a false name and raise no eyebrows.
- Aiko and Onpu came in to the first Ojamajo Doremi series as transfer students. In the Motto series, Momoko would come in this way as well.
- Negi Springfield from Mahou Sensei Negima is essentially a New Transfer Teacher.
- This particular trope is a major plot device in Gakuen Heaven. Not only is Keita Itou a transfer student as there is a lot of speculation concerning his particular transfer to Bell Liberty.
- Strawberry Panic hinges on the experience of a new transfer student, Nagisa Aoi, at a prestigious academy. Which is pretty much an excuse for Schoolgirl Lesbians to rule supreme.
- Azumanga Daioh starts with two transfer students. Chiyo is introduced right away, but Osaka's entrance is delayed until the first episode afternoon to give Chiyo some screen time.
- Both Seto No Hanayome and Sumomo Mo Momo Mo feature new students transferring in without delay throughout the series, as the main cast slowly accumulates not just into the same school, but also the same class.
- In the latter series, Koshi wonders how a dimwit like Momoko passed the entrance examination. Turns out she went to an interview with a school official and her battle aura frightened him so much that he admitted her immediately.
- In the first episode of Futari Wa Pretty Cure Splash Star, Mai is the New Transfer Student, having just returned to the area after leaving years ago. Until Urara a year later, Mai was unique among transfer students in the Pretty Cure franchise in that she does not start out with a bad attitude, gradually improve while becoming friends with main characters, suddenly turn out to be evil (though the audience knew this all along), fight the main characters, change affiliations during the fight, head off to apparent death, and then reappear near the end of the season.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion subverts this trope, while touching all the normal bases with impressive grace. Each of the children/pilots has a different “first day” and covers a different “transfer student” plot.
- Shinji gets the “main character is starting a new life bit”. He’s ignored worshiped and beat up by turns on his first day. Most conventionally, he becomes friends with Those Two Guys.
- Asuka’s first week of school is played and shot like the “hot new girl in school” from countless romantic comedies and love sims, more specifically a “returned overseas student” (someone who lived abroad because of daddy’s job). Actually, she was born overseas (given her citizenship, in the USA most likely), and has never lived in Japan. It immediately becomes clear that Asuka doesn’t care anything about “fitting in” or academics, and all those star struck boys are just dirt under her shoes. Interestingly the story never tries to make this an Aesop . She does show a little humanity by making friends with Hikari.
- Rei doesn’t get her transfer day until Shiji’s dream in the last episode. This time it’s the “love triangle from out of town” bit (with Rei moving in between Shinji and Asuka). This lets Gainax show how much broader they could have played some of their already broad humor and let Megumi Hayashibara really cut loose. She’s also the only one to wear a different fuku.
- Loveless Aoyagi Ritsuka begins as a transfer student both in the manga and the anime.
- Ai Haibara in Detective Conan is introduced as "the first transfer student since Conan arrived". It's not a coincidence. Conan seems to have picked up on this as he is immediately suspicious when he hears of a new exchange student in Ran's class who soon becomes the focus of his plot investigations.
- Masayuki from Ghost Hound
- Both Yasako and Isako from Denno Coil
- Suzaku transfers in early on in Code Geass. Not the first time the viewers have seen him, though.
- He does it again in the second season, and there's a marked difference in how the students treat him, since he's gone from being "that Eleven who they say killed Prince Clovis" to "ace pilot and war hero".
- Syaoran in Card Captor Sakura. In the anime, Meilin as well.
- In the first episode of Digimon Adventure 02 Takeru (TK) transfers to the school where Hikari (Kari) and most of the new Chosen Children are enrolled.
Western Animation
- Invader Zim slips seamlessly into Dib's elementary school despite having a Paper Thin Disguise that doesn't even change his skin color from its normal green; claiming it's a skin condition and also why he doesn't have ears. Or a nose, for that matter.
Webcomics
- Alistair transfers to Gunnerkrigg Court... for a week. He doesn't even bother with a uniform.
- It's mentioned in passing that Antimony also came to the school late. (Word Of God puts the time at about halfway through the first year.)
