In your average high school drama manga series, you'll find the usual cast of characters: the jock, the brain, the bully, the sensitive artist, the prissy girl, and the hussy. Kumiko Suekane's Afterschool Charisma has these archetypal characters, but with a twist: they're all teen clones of historical figures. The brainy kid has the same DNA as Albert Einstein. The girl most likely to succeed? She's the clone of Queen Elizabeth I. And the bully is... Mozart?
It'd be entertaining enough to see teen Sigmund Freud, Florence Nightingale and Rasputin deal with the everyday drama of high school, but Suekane takes it to the next level by injecting sci-fi/psychological suspense into the plot. The clones of St. Kleio Academy are already struggling with meeting their teachers' expectations when one of the school's most famous graduates, a clone of John F. Kennedy is assassinated on live TV. This turn of events sends a ripple of fear throughout the school. The clones begin to ask themselves: are they doomed to repeat the lives and deaths of their predecessors?
