The official story of Nemare Academy for Gentlemen and Gentlewomen begins in 1973, when the school first opened its doors to receive its first group of uncertain freshman students. However, the events which led up to this day began many years before, when the existence of what were soon dubbed “literary reincarnations” first came to the attention of the American Central Intelligence Agency. These people had, up until this time, been diagnosed erroneously by psychologists as sufferers of schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder. What else could one conclude after speaking to someone who insisted on the fact that the spirit of Little Red Riding Hood lived in their body with them? It was only when someone joined the dots between the many occurrences of this phenomenon around the world that a distinct pattern was noticed: these sadly misunderstood people consistently believed that they contained within them the spirits of creatures and people from myths or fairytales.

The CIA began to look into the matter, and eventually formed the very specialized department that still exists today, to identify these literary reincarnations and safely take them out of harm’s way. This was all done under a blanket of secrecy, and so the world at large remains blissfully unaware of the CIA’s astounding research into the subject. It was only after the release of Disney’s animated feature film “The Sword in the Stone” in 1963, however, that the CIA were able to say definitively that the literary reincarnations they now encountered were no longer from the myths and stories of old – the spirits had increasingly come from the animated films produced by Walt Disney’s company. Nothing was said to anyone at Disney, as the CIA feared upsetting a delicate balance about which they knew very little – but the CIA did begin to keep a close eye on their movie releases, familiarizing themselves with the characters as rendered in ink so that they might better recognize their incarnations in the flesh. A machine powered by magic was developed by some of the older generation of literary reincarnations and presented to the department to ensure that never again would a literary reincarnation be locked up or drugged into oblivion by well-meaning relatives and doctors. No one outside of its creators have any idea how it works, and so it has continued to do its job without interruption for many decades.

Now that the CIA was able to keep an eye on the literary reincarnations, particularly those likely to cause a breach of the peace of presented a threat to those around them, before they were taken to mental homes or correctional facilities, they were unsure how to continue. Besides calling in the children and their parents when the machine gave the CIA their names to explain what was happening and to perform a few tests on the youngsters, they were essentially leaving the reincarnations to fend for themselves and deal with the spirits residing within them on their own. This is when Daniel and Clarissa Remi stepped into the picture. They were worried about their son and heir to their shipping empire, Kyprioth, who was displaying, amongst other things, a tendency to use military or naval terminology, and to refer to himself as a penguin. The CIA had seen cases like his before – spirits who had been reincarnated, they surmised, before their movie had in fact been created. When they contacted the Remis, the wealthy couple immediately decided that it was necessary to set up and establishment where their son could learn how to deal with the spirit within him. After gathering together as many specialists as they could, they set about creating the school that would be Nemare, going as far as purchasing the islands upon which it would rest to ensure secrecy and minimal government interference.

Thus, Nemare was born, under the control of Clarissa Remi, its first Headmistress. Then, after the deaths of his parents, the running and ownership of the school fell to Kyprioth, who recruited his best friend and fellow penguin reincarnate, Samuel Lindley, as co-headmaster. After running the school for many years (and finding out along the way that they were the reincarnations of the penguins from Madagascar, Skipper and Kowalski, respectively), the two suddenly disappeared, declaring that they wished to see the world. At present, the school is headed by the three women who have stepped forward to fill the positions of Headmistress: Arzu Parvana, Safira Emerald and Tanith Forsyth.