Back at my old faux-European fantasy world high school, where we all suspiciously spoke Japanese, I remember attending a lecture on how to autopsy a Truck-kun. I drew black dotted lines across the metals and tires as colleagues and I discussed the best way to chop it up for parts. I bring this up, dear reader, firstly because I believe that my isekai by Truck is a karmic result of how I brutally tortured that innocent car to pieces, and second because when I first found myself suddenly jolted into being in the body of one of your high schoolers in the midst of an end-of-term math final, I was overcome with envy to be that Truck on the autopsy table rather than stare at x, y, and z values.

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Sara Mels, short for Sarangeral Melsekoimeran, and in my old world, I was an epic sword fighter who could perform magic transformations with the blink of an eye. Nowadays, I go by Ima Panek in your dilapidated high school, and my most epic transfiguration is being able to smile at my fourth-period class even after getting an F returned during period three. And reader, that F was handed even after I was knocked unconscious by a nosebleed, looking at the nonsense of variables and English that marred perfectly fine blank paper on a test that I did not know anything of (and Ima Panek apparently did not study for, as a quick memory scan revealed).

But since my abysmal entrance into your equally abysmal school, I have settled into a monotonous routine. For one thing, I have begun to learn the English language, which is distressing, but the subtitles that pop up whenever grotesque noises emerge from your mouths have aided me in this mission. Indeed, after knowing English, being privy to some of your internal monologues has also become more enlightening. Really, before, I was not aware that so many people could devote so long to running TikTok reels on repeat in their brains. Surely, there are better uses for that thing in your head? Such as monologuing all your evil (test) plans to wide-eyed mercury-poisoned teenage heroes, perhaps?

Honestly, I don’t even have all that many grievances against your school. Sure, your manners are coarse, the only place that smells nice is the bathroom when filled with strawberry smoke, you all have no uniforms, the fire alarm goes off like a dying parent in a first act flashback, and no one ever breaks into song while dramatically running through grass in an opening or closing episode sequence, but I’ve actually been doing pretty well! It’s nice having plot armor after all. Every bathroom stall I go to is magically clean, the Chromebook is always fully charged, and I make good impressions because apparently Californian screenwriters have never heard of the Mean Girl Archetype.

I worry sometimes that things are too boring around here. Maybe I’ve permanently left the world of exciting anime and entered cheesy Hollywood flops. No more soft-handed office hours, only cold and clinical flexes spent in dark, damp rooms, as I avoid having to fill out the electronic nightmare that is 5-Star (just slightly above having to use Aeries!). But then every so often, something does happen, and I’m relieved, sometimes excited, even! And I’m not just talking about your cookie fiascos (uniforms would solve everything, man, I’m telling you), or your teacher dramas, or your union squabbles. I mean, like, sometimes a curriculum or agenda actually interests me. On those days, I spew less blood. 

If you want my full assessment of your school, I’d honestly say it’s tolerable. Even your most dramatic, cruel, cheesy, cliché, or try-hard moments are admirable to watch (and trust me, I’ve watched them. Spin-off side character-focused series. Seriously, that much screen time?) and I enjoy (most of) the lessons and mundane adventures of your day-to-day lives. Homework. Classwork. Lunchtime. Talking with People™ and not just ChatGPT. Fantasizing about college in the same way that most of my past colleagues fantasized about defeating Dark Lords and becoming Vampire Hunting Host Club Attending Titan Ninja Sailors, and honestly? Those first ambitions are much more commendable than the latter. So keep doing what you do, Irvington High Schoolers. Maybe if I lose enough blood, Deus Ex Machina can drag me back to my real world.