Transformation Academy

Transformation Academy (Japanese: トランスフォメーションアカデミー) is a Japanese-El Kadsreian kadsreanime series created by Hideto Aramaki and Steven Arisawa.

The anime takes place in a world where shapeshifting is a recessive human trait, humans that are born shapeshifters are trained at the Transformation Academy, and is based around the adventures of recently-enrolled student, Hatsumi Ayukawa, an 11-year old orphan student who discovers her ability and is enrolled in the school. While she tries to blend in with her new peers and control her new shapeshifting abilities, she winds up having to face against evil demons who suddenly begin intruding the school, and has to battle against the demons with her friends, Eiji Fukisawa and genderless magician, Jun Korowa.

An English dub of the anime, a joint production between Power Network, who dubbed the secondary English cast in the Japanese dub, and Funimation, premiered on Toonami in the United States and the English version of Prime in El Kadsre.

Plot summary
"See also: List of Transformation Academy characters"

Main
In a world where shapeshifting is a recessive genetic trait in humans, and humans with the shapeshifting trait are taught how to use their abilities at the Transformation Academy. Hatsumi Ayukawa, a 12-year old orphan girl who woke up one morning discovering her ability, is enrolled into the school to learn her abilities. There, she meets and becomes roommates with 12-year old 3-month student, Eiji Fukisawa, who occasionally takes the form of an anthropomorphic wolf, and they both try to blend into the school together. However, they and gender-neutral shapeshifting magician, Jun Korowa, and later Janna and Clara Modanci, taking forms of an animated 4-tailed kitsune and feline respectively apparently discover that demons have been attacking the school and possessing its inhabitants, and they set out to find where the demons are coming from and how they keep coming back. They also deal with terrorist attacks from the Anti-Shifter League, a terrorist group bent on terrorizing shapeshifters, whose leader, Daku Shonugate, may be the cause of all the demons and monsters seeping into the school, alongside other enemies hired by the ASL, many of which are, ironically, shapeshifters themselves.

Orientation Week arc
One day, 12-year old orphaned girl Hatsumi Ayukawa, wakes up one morning finding her hand randomly morphing, discovering herself to be a shapeshifter. Since the orphanage she lives in does not accept orphaned shapeshifters, she is banished from the orphanage and is immediately enrolled into the Transformation Academy. There, she shares a room with Eiji Fukisawa, a 12-year old kadsresatsu and wolf-loving student who's been at the academy for 3 months. Hatsumi befriends him as the inhabitants of the orphanage she used to reside in, even her counselor, were always mean to her. She later befriends a genderless shapeshifter named Jun Korowa, who has the uncanny ability to use magic, which she keeps a secret and often appears in a cat girl form, mainly a cat tail, whiskers and ears. Near the end of the arc, Hatsumi deals with school bullies like Namiko Hayama, who often shapeshifts into other people for taunt, alongside terrorist attacks by the Anti-Shifter League (ASL).

Demons & Spirits
During an ordinary day at the Transformation Academy, Hatsumi and her friends are suddenly attacked by demons known as the Mogunake, alongside spirits of deceased members of the ASL. Seeking out where the spirits are coming from, they seek the help of paranormal investigator students and twin sisters Janna and Ciara Modanci, respectively taking forms of 4-tailed kitsune and a feline in animated form. On a Halloween dance, they are attacked by the Super Mogunake spirit, Mokira, who dons the symbol of the Angelic Devils Society, a cult consisting of utopianist shapeshifters who take unique forms donning abilities of a devil and angel respectively, hence their name. Throughout the last 3 episodes of the arc, Janna and Clara begin interviewing members of the Angelic Devils Society, both former and current, alongside Hatsumi and Eiji. The interviews help boost their popularity online, but it doesn't deduce how the demons and spirits keep entering the school. Meanwhile, Nathani Walct, the current leader of the cult, calls a mysterious person and tells them about the interviews online he's been seeing by Hatsumi and her friends, which angers the mysterious voice, who had been spying on the four at the Academy, and tells him to ensure that Hatsumi and her friends are stopped. The end of the third episode, which the call takes place, reveals that Nathani has the ASL logo tattooed on his shoulder, assuming that he is somehow associated with the group, though he is a shapeshifter.

Flight of the Angelic Devils
Continuing from the previous arc, Janna and Clara are given permission to interview the Angelic Devils' leader, Nathani, who resides in the Comoeys in his private mansion and theatre hall. Arriving at his manor, Janna and Clara interview Nathani and discuss the report of Mokira with him. Nathani, however, passes Mokira donning the ADS symbol as a huge coincidence. Though skeptical, the two are dissapointed with the information they have and decide to leave. After they both leave, Nathani calls his mysterious partner again and tells him that they are both onto him about Mokira and that they need to do something about it. His assistant, Daku Shonugate, who is actually the current leader of the ASL, tells him to order his goons to capture them, and tells him that should they try to intervene, they will be killed., and reminds Nathani that, "[he] is one with the League". Sometime after Janna and Clara return back to the Academy, they are knocked out and captured by members of the ADS and are locked up in a transparent sphere protected by a magical seal inflicted on by Nathani, revealing himself to be capable of magic like Jun. Back at the Academy, the two have been reported missing, which makes Hatsumi, Eiji and Jun suspect something.

Production
Hideto Aramaki and Steven Arisawa began production of Transformation Academy in November 2013 after they met each other during the first KadsreKonEK convention in Capulco, a convention celebrating El Kadsreian pop culture and history. According to an interview, Hideto and Steven were inspired to make Transformation Academy after watching the El Kadsreian print of. They were also inspired to base the show around shapeshifters after watching reruns of Manimal on BTV's Throwback Thursdays block. After pitching a 2-minute short film, which would later be used as the show's first episode's intro to Toei EKI, Toei's El Kadsreian division, Toei EKI executives liked the show and pitched it to become a full anime series.

Most of the characters' traits were inspired by Arisawa and Aramaki's childhoods, both in design, personality, and appearance.

In popular culture
In 2017, Japanese-Israeli-Australian YouTuber/VidSpacer, Rog the Best, creator of other abridged series such as Bluewall, created an abridged parody series called Transformation Abridgedmy.

In 2021, Vanbutese comedy group and VidSpace channel, P.R.D. released a video part of their Literally Every... series of VidSpace videos poking fun at kadsreanime series, Transformation Academy is referenced in one scene of the video, and the video features animation by Hideto Aramaki.

Prequel films
On August 2015, Hideto Aramaki and Steven Arisawa announced that they were working on a theatrical film quintology preceding the series, the first one being The Lost Past of Korowa, which is focused on Korowa's forgotten past life in another dimension and was released on January 15, 2016. The film was released by PPE Pictures in Japan and the El Kadsreian Islands, whilst the film was distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures in North America and 20th Century Fox in Europe.