Gakuen Alice (学園アリス, Gakuen Arisu), also known as Alice Academy or Alice School, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tachibana Higuchi, was serialized in the shōjo manga magazine Hana to Yume. It was adapted into an anime series produced by Aniplex and Group TAC which originally premiered on NHK BS-2. It spanned twenty-six episodes, between October 30, 2004, and May 14, 2005. The anime was translated and dubbed into English by the anime television network Animax and broadcast on networks throughout Asia. At Anime Expo 2008, The Right Stuf International announced that its Nozomi Entertainment division had licensed Gakuen Alice for the North American market.

Kinniku Banzuke (筋肉番付, lit. Muscle Ranking) a.k.a. Unbeatable Banzuke was a weekly Japanese television program and the premier sports entertainment variety show of the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS). Its successors were Taiiku Oukoku (体育王国, Physical Education Kingdom) and Ougon Kinniku (黄金筋肉, Golden Muscle). They succeeded by Muscle Musical. Several seasonal specials were also made, such as Pro Sportsman No.1 and Sasuke. Originally a late night Friday broadcast, the television special was popular and started airing in prime time on October 14, 1995. It was broadcast every season and gained popularity as Sportsman No.1 Ketteisen (スポーツマンNo.1決定戦, Sportsman No.1 Playoffs). Through various games reverting to the origins of sports, professional players and general participants challenged the limits of physical strength and technique, winning prizes if all targets were successfully destroyed. Kane Kosugi's Shaolin Temple training and Akira Oomori's Muay Thai bouts were also documented in the broadcasts. The popularity of the displays of amazing physical strength and technique by professional players and luck of general participants drove TV Asahi to move its anime time slot up one hour and caused the cancellation of Heisei Kyouikuiinkai (平成教育委員会, Heisei Board of Education) on Fuji TV. The use of the program's mascot, Kongou-kun (金剛くん, Adamantium Boy), originally only featured during the broadcast, expanded in 1999 into the program's opening sequence and every game's introduction. Simultaneously, a brandmark for the program, different from its logotype, was created: the English initials, "MR". However, that same autumn, only the mascot remained, and the "MR" brandmark vanished, having only appeared for that brief time.