YMMV / Midnight Horror School

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Do Tubee, Usop and Yumyum bully the students for kicks, or do they bully them because they're actually self-cautious with figuring out their own wonders? "YumYum's Wonders" seems to hint at that, given how worked up YumYum gets over trying to find a practical and visually appealing use for his wonder. "Tubee's Art Spectacle" shows Tubee suffering from a similar case, as despite his Wonder being flashy (and later shown to be quite versatile), he has a hard time finding a practical use for it at first.
• Awesome Moments:
  • Owl Sage saving Docky from falling out of the sky in episode 19 and scaring Johnny Crow off by calling him out for putting Docky in danger in the first place. Docky, despite having derided Goldeneye throughout the episode, is very impressed by this and switches gears to praising Goldeneye.
  • Inky's speech in "Teacher's Day" is this combined with Heartwarming Moments.
• Funny Moments:
  • Noisy reporting on Borocca's rain flooding the cafeteria... in a raincoat. And her reaction to Genie falling into the water.
  • The scene in Episode 4 where Genie does samba dancing after Spimon put the book in his head.
  • The noise that comes from Rosso after Juno jokingly suggests he has a crush on her.
  • Magnero accidentally shouting too loudly into Noisy while she's hooked up to Spimon, causing the latter to fall from his perch.
  • The Terrible Trio's triple-Spit Take after Noisy announces that she and Tubee are dating.
  • Though episode 40 is mostly quite tense, the scenes of everyone slipping on the frozen floor are quite funny, especially the ones involving the bullies; Tubee slips and falls on the ice. Usop teases him for it... only to then fall on the ice as well. Yumyum teases the both of them for it... only for he himself to slip and fall on the ice.
    • Yumyum has waaaay too much fun scooting around on the makeshift ice skates Hikky makes for the others, to the point Tubee and Usop chastise him for it.
    • It's at least a little funny that this whole thing started because Kocho-sensei, a freaking building, catching a cold, and the students mistaking his sneezing during the after-episode-short for it about to happen again, and rushing out in a panic, twice.
  • Tubee and Usop's fight in "Ampoo and Watt" where the pair argue over their drawing styles, and end up getting eaten by Eddie after they get paint all over his mouth.
  • The face Spimon makes after Liddy bumps into him in the penultimate episode of the show.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Any scene and episode Kabo and Liddy are in can come off as this, as their voice actress, Tomoko Kawakami, passed away seven years after the show finished from cancer.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Despite being a bully, Yumyum is shown to deeply care for his flies.
  • Juno and Rosso's overall relationship is very sweet as Juno is usually standing up to Rosso against Tubee, Usop and Yumyum.
  • Tubee and Usop playing together in "Yumyum's Reflection" comes off as this, as despite the pair being bullies, they surprisingly have a healthy(ish) friendship when they're not with Yumyum.
  • Ampoo and Watt's reconciliation at the end of their titular episode.
  • All of Kabo's focus episodes has the bullies interacting with Kabo in a much more friendly tone then he usually does with the other students, given that Kabo's implied to be the youngest. Such as when they called Genie and Vincent out when they gave them the behavioral adjustment candies in "Day of the Great Pumpkin" and when they helped him out with his jobs in "Kabo's Part Time Job".
  • The moment between Rosso and the usually mean Ms. Peginand at the end of "St. Elmo's Fire".
  • In episode 40, after Usop spots a frozen Yumyum, he immediately bolts to the latter's side, and is later shown happily rubbing his head and later dancing with Tubee after everyone gets unfrozen.
    • Tubee's Heroic Sacrifice so that the others can get into the boiler room in the same episode.
  • Owl Sage as Goldeneye saving Docky from falling in episode 19, even after the latter derided the existence of Goldeneye earlier. Docky is quite grateful for this and willingly calls Goldeneye faster than even him, while keeping Owl Sage's secret. The two exchange a knowing look as the episode ends.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: While Genie isn't really a jerk and Tubee, Usop and Yumyum are FAR from Villains, some of Genie's actions are notably a bit worse than the bullies. He caused two fires in 'Rosso the Crybaby', Went after Liddy in a creepy way in 'Genie in Love' and tried to curve Kabo's (who's supposedly a little kid) behavior by giving him behavioral adjusting jellybeans in 'Day of the Great Pumpkin' (Even though Chaps and Vincent were also involved, Genie was the one to put the plan in motion). Tubee, Usop and Yumyum meanwhile, while they are bullies, they never really delved into the aforementioned things Genie had done and never bullied Kabo whatsoever.
  • Docky can also fall under this trope via his stoic behavior and for raging out at the bullies in "Noisy Noisy".
  • Liddy can also sometimes fall into this trope via her treatment of Spimon and her raging out at Yumyum in "Yumyum's Wonder".
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: There appears to have been a Spanish dub of the show, but only one episode has been found.
• Moe: Surprisingly plentiful, given the cute art style for the students and the show's general light-hearted and wholesome tone. The Biggest ones being Ampoo, Chaps, Kabo, Onpoo, Rosso and Watt.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The fire Genie caused near the end of episode 4 can be considered this, as despite the fact that Genie already caused a fire earlier, this one is much more dire. The book in Genie's head is on fire (again), Piranin, Tubee, Usop and Yumyum get partially burnt, Spimon becomes overwhelmed and faints, Liddy's running frantically, Rosso is scared stiff by the whole fiasco, Hikky is freaking out and Juno's plant caught fire and she's screaming in terror (and possible pain). Had it not been for Rosso, the plant would've died and Genie, Piranin, Tubee, Usop and Yumyum would've suffered from worser burns.
  • Yumyum's head getting accidentally erased in episode 30.
  • The pseudo-Dwindling Party situation that happens in episode 40 due to the school slowly freezing over. Especially since, if it weren't for that icicle falling and causing the frozen Hikky to fall on to the boiler room's switch, the school would have been stuck like that permanently.
    • Even more horrifying is just how fast it spreads. It starts as just the school being cold with one of the water fountains frozen over, then the main quartet steps out for a bit, and by the time they get back inside, the entire school is covered in ice.
  • In episode 46, a weed sucks up Inky's ink causing it to grow into a monstrous tree and cause major destruction to the school. Kinda looks scary if you think about it, especially since Inky is a child.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The Aiko Kayō version of the ending theme "Children of ABC", sounds a lot like "You Got A Friend in Me" from Toy Story, due to the jazzy flavor and key.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Near the end of Episode 30, Casey does a Heroic Sacrifice to save the school from getting destroyed by a doodle monster, leaving his friend Hikky in tears. It especially stings because the creation of the monster was partially Hikky's fault.
  • In the episode 'Ampoo and Watt', the titular duo has a minor falling out due to the latter wanting to help the former with his drawing but keeps getting in the way. After Docky used his whirlwind to send Ampoo into the crypts, Watt goes looking for him and after the two of them get out of the crypts, Watt breaks down in tears because he thinks Ampoo is still mad at him.
  • Some of Spimon's focus episodes fall under this, particularly in 'Fountain of Sorrow' where he becomes depressed due to the titular fountains influence and all the brash remarks from the other students, over a game of kick the can.
  • Chaps getting scolded at by Juno for associating herself with Yumyum's flies.
  • Although Yumyum initially tried to one up Hikky in "Yumyum's Wonder" the scene where Liddy bad mouths him for faking his wonder ended up coming off as sad (and a little harsh), it even bothered Yumyum so much that he ended up going to the school's roof crying.
• The Woobie:
  • Inky considering his shy and odd behavior seems to make him a bit of a Bully Magnet.
  • Hikky when he's teased for his lackluster first attempts at using his "Wonder". It just feels horrible seeing the usually cheery boy upset, especially during episode 24 and at the end of episode 30.
  • Yumyum, Tubee and Usop could be considered this at times when the stuff they get put through seems like too much.
  • Watt ends up being this in the episode "Ampoo and Watt" where he keeps trying to help Ampoo with his painting, but the latter keeps not wanting his help, it wasn't until the end of the episode that Ampoo realized what Watt was doing.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Although what the bullies did in the episode "Noisy Noisy" was bad (via throwing books off the library shelves and trying to get Docky blamed for it), it wasn't the worst thing that they did, but it's hard to actually hate them after the way all the students enrage at the bullies for what they did, complete with Docky using his whirlwind on them to send them back to the elevator.
  • Yumyum even comes off as this in "Yumyum's Wonder" after he gets bad mouthed by Liddy for failing to present his Wonder properly and he runs off to the roof in tears.
  • Tubee, despite being one of the bullies, is at least a tad nicer than his two buddies, which can make him suffering alongside them seem a bit overboard, especially in episode 3, where he didn't purposefully do anything wrong, yet he's punished at the end, alongside Docky, the actual person at fault, for messing up the school grounds. And this is after he spent most of the episode stuck in a tornado, getting horribly motion sick in the process.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Docky in the episode "Noisy Noisy" where he lashes out at Noisy for trying to keep him from entering the library and for raging out at the bullies for trying to get him framed as mentioned above. We're supposed to sympathize with him for what the bullies tried to do to him, but the way he raged out at them and Noisy makes it difficult.

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