Supernatural Academy review: A tween cartoon from steamy romance series

Even before Harry Potter, magical schools have been a staple of fantasy stories — and they continue to be a tried and true setting for fantastical adventures. To The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’s Academy of Unseen Arts to Brakebills University for Magical Pedagogy in The MagiciansThe following is a list of upcoming events. The Owl House’s Hexside to Fate. Winx Saga’The concept of Alfea, a school for students learning the magic arts at boarding schools is a constant in fantasy fiction.

Peacock’s newest animated series Supernatural Academy fits that idea to a T — heck, it’s even in the title. Supernatural Academy hosts a variety of magical beings. This is in contrast to other similar shows. The show’s first episode struggles with establishing the intended audience and the characters could be more compelling, but dammit if we aren’t suckers for “boarding school, but make it magic.” The concept is rich, even if all the pieces don’t quite mesh up just yet. It could be an entertaining ride if the show can identify its intended audience.

a group of magical students sit on the lawn

What does it mean? Supernatural Academy?

Supernatural AcademyPeacock animation show that follows the story of two identical twins. Jessa, named Mischa, were born separately and now come together at the Supernatural Academy. They are determined to save the planet.

While the show seems geared towards a teenage audience, the book series is described on Eve’s website as “sexy urban fantasy book series recommended for readers aged 17 and up due to language and sex scenes.” The books share the supernatural school setting, but the main character is a girl named Maddison, who is in her 20s, and even without the sex scenes and language the books seem to deal with more mature storylines. A quick browse of Eve’s website reveals that Jessa and Mischa are characters from Eve’s Supernatural Prison series — maybe the show is a crossover?

Who’s behind Supernatural Academy?

Supernatural Academy41 Entertainment has the Super Monsters. Netflix has many titles. The animation itself comes from Icon Creative Studio, which also did the animation for Disney Junior’s Elena of Avalor and Disney Plus’ Monsters at Work.

What’s the pilot about?

Jessa Lebron, one of Supernatural Academy’s most loved girls is Jessa. She is a werewolf and enjoys being with her cool friends. They have a mutual agreement that they will never be in sex relationships. Jessa can be seen walking all over her tight-knit group of friends, made up of many supernatural beings. She’s a rule breaker and while cavorting out in the woods with her dragon-shifter friend, Braxton, she sees the headmaster of Supernatural Academy attack a teenager and then take his unconscious body through a mysterious door.

Mischa, a misfit, continues to have strange visions in her human world of a wooded door. She transforms these images into beautiful drawings. Urged by her new friend to turn those drawings into a comic, Mischa believes that maybe she’s finally settling in somewhere — but her anxious mother notices the drawings and begins to fret. Mischa brushes her off, but after a vivid dream where she turns into a wolf, she wakes up to find the couch in tatters…

What’s it It is really about?

The battle between the supernatural and human worlds, as well as the internal politics among the magical races! It is a rare species of dragon shifter, as centuries ago the Dragon King tried take over the Fae realm. People hunted them down out fear. Some dragons may treat Jessa like wolves, as wolf-shifters have a higher status in the supernatural realm and are more prestigious. The headmaster seems to have it out for Jessa — and his shady actions in the woods certainly don’t help his case. Dragon shifters don’t all hate wolves. Despite the pact not to start a romance among the friend group, Braxton has it pretty bad for Jessa — how do interspecies relationships even work in this world?

Even though the world itself is quite compelling even though the 22 minute episode only covers so much. However, enough is known to understand that even in the supernatural realm, tension exists between various beings. It’s made all the more interesting by the school setting, which brings various magical species together for some good old-fashioned learning.

It is Supernatural Academy good?

Supernatural AcademyIt is caught up in strange dissonance. Animations for young audiences are reminiscent of Elena of Avalor, Miraculous Ladybug, and Monster High — shows where the audience dips as young as age 2. But the characters say “sexy” and “ass” and “pissed”, and seem generally more mature than the animation would suggest. To make matters worse, the source material was a collection of adult novels. It’s hard to figure out what the audience of this show is: Fans of the book, who may be expecting a steamy reverse harem romance? A magical school is a popular choice for teens. The Owl HouseOr even My Hero Academia? Younger children who may recognize the style of animation as familiar to shows they’ve watched before?

Because of that, it’s a little strange to say it’s succeeding after just one episode of the full 16-episode season. Although the characters are promising, their first impressions may prove to be disappointing. Jessa in particular — a wolf shifter with blue hair who has an army of boys in love with her and whose father’s status as a high up official gives her instant popularity — feels like someone’s first DeviantArt OC.

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing (Hey, we’re all for self-indulgent OCs here at Polygon dot com). But she doesn’t really feel like a hero we’re rooting for yet, since she basically has it all already. Mischa, who was raised in the human realm, is more like an audience surrogate. It is still fun to see the magical creatures interact with each other in school, even though a lot is about Jessa being so popular and cool.

The inner politics of the supernatural world is fascinating — they’re not just hiding from humans, but navigating tense relationships between the species. Jessa and Mischa learn about each other in the last few moments, but Mischa’s strange visions about the magical world heighten the intrigue. Since it affects Mischa’s character only her scenes really dive into it, which is a shame because Jessa is the one in the cool supernatural world. Hopefully, though, Jessa and Mischa will connect and grow as characters and really get to explore the magical world — without constant reminders of Jessa being adored and wonderful.

It’s not the best pilot in the world, but it is intriguing enough if you’re looking for a fun series about supernatural beings in a school setting that could build up to some epic fantasy adventures — if it doesn’t spend the entire time on Jessa’s circle of admirers.