Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e

Please note this review assumes that you have already finished watching Youkoso and while care has been taken to minimize story spoilers there may be spoilers in character analysis In Society are humans really treated equally or are they treated according to the standards in society Based off a well-known light novel series of the same name Youkoso gives us the opportunity to ask one of the fundamental questions that most teenagers would ask as they enter High school. In society are all human beings treated equally and does this by introducing us to a prestigious high school that has an impressive record of providing excellent students for society. The first episode itself made a pretty good impression on me and looking back at it im glad that I decided to stick with it to the very end. Taking place in near future Japan the anime is centered on Koudo Ikusei senior high school a well-known and prestigious high school that was created by the government to help nurture and develop the next generation into skilled adults that will benefit the country. Having both state of the art facilities and freedom unknown to high school students the school can be said to be a paradise but this is far from the truth. But while having the best of facilities at their disposal the pressure that the school puts on its students that it sees as its lifeblood is intense and far more than what one would expect in a normal school. For the students that are lucky enough to get admitted into this prestigious school they must work twice as hard as their grades while also defining them also affect the amount of points that they get each month. In this school, full of elite student’s competition, subtle plans and mind games are rife where every mistake can cost you points or worst cause the whole class to be punished. In this environment where classes see each other as mortal enemies only those with conviction, creativity and adaptability can hope to survive and prosper. The overall story for Youkoso follows the life of Kiyotaka Ayanokouji a high school freshman that upon the start of the school year finds himself assigned to the schools Class D the lowest class of the school’s class system and widely regarded as the worst class and seen as a dumping ground where the school sends people that it has believed that it cannot control but cannot expel without good reason. Here he is joined by an intense and quiet girl named Suzune Horikita an ice queen that aspires to join the prestigious class A and Kikyou Kushida a popular and cheerful girl that’s widely seen as the class idol. Together these three and the class must do what they can to survive in the intrigue’s that take place between the classes. Kiyotaka Kiyotaka Ayanokouji voiced by new voice actor Shouya Chiba is one of the main characters of the series and is the main protagonist of the series. A high school freshman that in the beginning of the series was assigned to Class D Kiyotaka from initial appearances was a person that was quiet, laid back and indifferent and is someone that seems to be prefer to remain in the background and not draw attention to himself. Despite his moody and rather indifferent nature Kiyotaka is shown to be someone that can be responsible and kind and is shown to care a great deal about his friends and allies. Though not someone that has a sense of justice in him Kiyotaka is someone that hates seeing people that he knows being out in danger and would try to help them when that happens. While seemingly laid back and indifferent towards others it is noted that Kiyotaka when he becomes serious and motivated can come up with some really interesting and smart ideas that make use of his good perception skills and showcase one of his more prominent traits which is his cunning. Despite his averse to getting involved in troublesome situations Kiyotaka is shown to be very good at dealing with and managing various difficult situations which is an interesting trait about him that hints at his true personality. As the series goes on and as Kiyotaka and the members of his class deal with one crisis after another it becomes clear that beneath his normal self Kiyotaka also has a personality that he hides and conceals from the others including his friends. In this personality which is perhaps his true one Kiyotaka’s personality is drastically different from the one that he normally exhibits. In this personality Kiyotaka is shown to be a calculating and manipulative person and also a smart one that is not above using people for his own ends. In this personality Kiyotaka’s strong intelligence and observational skills that he had to keep hidden in his default personality is now much more visible and more readily used when Kiyotaka gets serious. As a character, I felt that Kiyotaka was an interesting character whose dual nature in the form of his two different personalities are what actually define him. The contrast between the two different personalities I felt were well done and while some of the traits of the two do pass between the two personalities from time to time like his fast thinking nature it’s when we see Kiyotaka in his true personality that his character truly shines. While Kiyotaka may have villainous tendencies due to his manipulative personality it’s important to note that this is a result of having an in-depth knowledge and understanding of how the real world actually works. Overall the character of Kiyotaka I felt was a well-designed one that showed that careful observation and rational decisions along with a little manipulation can ensure that what they all hold dear can be protected. I felt that Shouya Chiba actually did an excellent job in his first main roles for me. Suzune Suzune Horikita voiced by new seiyuu Akari Kito is one of the main characters of the series and is the main heroine of the series. A 16-year-old high school freshman and a member of class D Suzune is a quiet, well-mannered but distant person at the start of the series. In the beginning Suzune exhibited the classic ice queen type personality that’s commonly seen in animes. In addition to exhibiting the quiet and unapproachable nature that’s the key point of the ice queen persona Suzune in the beginning was also a thorny person that preferred to act using her own judgement than rely on others showing that she was also someone that did not trust others easily. In the beginning Suzune also had a rather curious view on friendship in that she did not see a need for it in the beginning. As a result of her ice queen like personality Suzune in the beginning was seen by many within the class as something akin to an oddball and not widely trusted by her classmates. Indeed, at this point in time she was also the same as well as she regarded friendship and bonds with something akin to disdain. As the series goes on though thanks largely to the efforts of Kiyotaka and Kikyou Suzune’s personality gradually starts to change as the class begins to suffer from assaults from other classes. Though reluctant at first Suzune gradually becomes friendlier to others but still keeps a certain distance from others. Though still dismissive about friendships Suzune begins to understand that friendship and unity within the class will be important if they were to endure within the school and starts to care more about her classmates advising and helping them when needed until she is satisfied that they are safe. In this we can see that Suzune’s starting ice queen personality gradually starts to be thawed out as she begins warming to several of her classmates and trusting them the most prominent of them being Kiyotaka. As Suzune’s ice queen personality thaws her true personality eventually is gradually revealed to us. While still quiet and preferring to stay logical Suzune is shown to be a very determined person that also has great conviction and is not the type of person that will back down from arguments especially when engaged in argument…

I'm not claiming to be a veteran when it comes to watching anime, but I've seen enough where viewing shows with a typical high school setting just doesn't cut it for me anymore. Of course a lot of the shows in this genre come with a twist or two, and Classroom of the Elite is no exception. However just because an anime uses the classic school life formula doesn't mean that it will be successful. While it's true that some shows are able to effectively pull off the school life setting, lesser anime, like Classroom of the Elite, fail right from the get go. Episode one dives right into explaining the setting and sets up the general story of the anime. Viewers learn that the school in which the characters are attending is a special academy where students are divided into four classes based off of skill and other criteria that is never really discussed (you'll soon learn that the lack of a proper explanation for things is a reoccurring theme with this anime). Unsurprisingly, the two protagonists, Kiyotaka Ayanokouji and Suzune Horikita, are put in class D, the lowest ranking class. The story is supposed to be about their rise from the bottom to the top of the academy's hierarchy, but there's one major problem; They make relatively no progress toward achieving this goal throughout the course of the anime. Before I go into more detail on this, let me explain an unique plot element that the author introduced for the anime: a point system. These points are given to students and represent multiple things, including currency and class ranking. The students lose points for bad grades, behavior, etcetera and earn them by achieving various things, many of which are unexplained. Points are allocated after each month, and one of the first twists in the anime is that class D failed to earn any points after their first month at school (pfft. What losers), thus throwing them into a state of turmoil. Now this system could have been used in so many ways that would have easily benefited the plot of the anime. However the distribution of these points is so convoluted and rarely touched upon that in the latter portion of the anime I felt like their importance completely vanished. Characters would just go up to a chart and say things like "Oh look, our class has X points and the others have Y points. Cool." and then move on. The few exceptions are when Ayanokouji actually uses the points in an inventive manner to do things like purchase old test answers and boost the grade of a classmate's exam. Unfortunately, the point system wasn't nearly as explored as it should have been, and it failed to reach its full potential. Remember when I said that the goal in this anime (at least from what I could discern) was for the core cast to strive to become the best in the school? While its true that class D (with the exception of Ayanokouji at first) desperately want to rise to the top, we rarely see anything significant done by them in order to achieve this goal. At one point Horikita gave a commanding speech in which she warned the other classes to look out for class D. From my perspective, this was just an empty threat. In fact, more often then not, the anime showcases the members of class D struggling to simply earn any points at all much less hoping to compete against their rivals. The anime constantly presented us with many "tough" scenarios that were supposed to leave viewers impressed with the protagonists for finding creative solutions to them. The problem is that many of these situations were too lackluster for me to even care about them in the first place. These mediocre events ranged from trying to have everyone in the class pass an exam without failing miserably to finding a panty thief. There are literally no stakes, and this was deleterious to the anime's success. On a positive note, I did sort of like Ayanokouji and Horikita at first. Ayanokouji's casual and disinterested attitude was sort of refreshing, and his along with Horikita's social ineptitude was interesting, especially when they were forced to interact with other characters. Now the primary issue that I had was that both of them have a similar personality. They're both social outcasts who have a hard time fitting in with the rest of the class. Granted, they each posses differing views on things like friendship and whatnot, but it sometimes got really boring hearing both of them talk to each other in their monotone voices all the time. Also, they each hardly interacted with the other characters (Horikita more than Ayanokouji) unless they were forced to, which left the rest of the cast terribly underdeveloped. To compensate for this, the producers would give the other characters (most notably Kikyou Kushida) random quirks in order to make them seem more interesting. This ultimately failed because I didn't really care for the characters too much in the first place. The majority of the budget went into eyes and fanservice. The characters' eyes always seem to shine bright with vibrant splotches of color. While high in detail, the focus on irises makes everything else seem lazily designed in comparison. The only exception to this is when a character is used for fanservice appeal. During these sacred moments, the characters' bodies suddenly gain a ton of depth, shading, curves, and enlarged breasts (unless they're male, in which case they become overly muscular instead). Hallelujah for these ecchi scenes, am I right!? Seriously though, if the animation quality was consistently like the short and almost always unnecessary fanservice scenes, then I would have been really impressed with the show's visuals. Don't get me wrong, I didn't despise Classroom of the Elite or anything. I was just disappointed by the show's laid back attitude. Everything felt anticlimactic or unnecessary and it seemed like the creators were too afraid to take any risks and instead chose the safe and easy path. And in doing so, Classroom of the Elite became yet another mediocre anime that will certainly be forgotten by most as time goes by.

When you think of the word ‘school’, the first words that come to mind might be textbooks, lecture, exams, and careers. Schools are designed to prepare for students for their future after all. However, that’s not entirely the case for Koudo Ikusei Senior High School, a school that tests their students beyond the academic level. Youkoso Jitsuroku Shinjou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e (also known as “Classroom of the Elite”) is an anime that explores how survival in the outside world depends much more than just your academic skills. From my early impressions, this anime stood out from some light novel adaptations as it deconstructs the educational system. This especially earns my attention as Japan already has a tough educational system so deconstructing that idea felt like a unique idea. In essence, this anime explores how the fictional Koudo Ikusei Senior High School takes initiative at preparing its students to survive in the real world. Granted by the government, the school has a budget system and students are supplied with points (100,000 every month). These points essentially translates to money as students are advised to use them wisely. The catch is that classes will receive points only based on their performance. Get the idea now? It basically exposes the idea of responsibility for these young teens as they realize what they’re in for. The first episode introduces some of the main cast including main male protagonist Kiyotaka Ayankoji. It won’t take long to realize that he has a rather dry outlook on life and often try to avoid being noticed. My impression of Kiyotaka reminds me of the main male protagonist from Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru as both him and Hachiman has similar personalities. His isolated personality doesn’t make him stand out as a character on the surface but it gets really interesting when you listen to his thoughts about others. It’s further evidenced by his poor social skills as he has difficulty making friends with others. As such, Kiyotaka’s role in this anime feels different than from the usual light novel stereotype. As the episode progresses, I feel like some people can relate to Kiyotaka as well. Then, there’s Suzune Horikita, the unfriendly cold beauty that gets involved with Kiyotaka from the same class. Similarly, she has a personality that also appears to be unsociable with others although she purposely tries to avoid making friends. In her mind, friends aren’t necessary and holds her back. On the other hand, there are also very social people in their class like Kikyou Kushida. She’s like the antithesis of both Kiyotaka and Horikita. Unlike them, Kushida is very good at communicating with others and has a friendly personality. Yet behind her bubbly appearance also lies a girl that masks her true image. Either way, it’s shown that the main characters in this series all have the same objectives and that’s to survive at their prestigious school. From the cast of characters, Class D’s students are easily the most prominent compared to the others as most of the series revolves around them. It’s ironic since Class D is often looked down upon because of their grades and performance. Nonetheless, we get to see how they adapt with the school’s points system. Some characters like Kiyotaka and Horikita manages their resources well while others carelessly uses it to satisfy their own desires. Not to mention, Class D seems to always get involved in some sort of drama from the very beginning. These include the plot involving Airi Sakura, an inspiring photographer and a stalker. Ken Sudou (one of the 3 Fools of Class D) even gets into a complicated drama that almost had him expelled from the school. The anime showcases these drama as any of these events can be relatable and happen in real life. Later in the show, the school even tests their students with an actual survival test that really brings the reality of what it means to survive. To be honest, I think all these concepts brings the potential of this anime to light. It highlights what some of the main characters are capable of and how they influence others. Unfortunately, this anime is presented as a distilled adaptation so don’t expect a complete series. In other words, it leaves some important territories unexplored such as Kiyotaka’s mysterious past, Kushida’s darker personality, and among others. Despite my interest of the main characters, the others in this series rarely stand out particularly those from Class B, C, and even A. The only ones that caught my attention occasionally are Mio Ibuki and Kakeru Ryuuen (Class C), Honami Ichinose (Class B), and Kouhei Katsuragi (Class A). Student council leader Manabu Horikita initially had my interest due to her relationship with Suzune. However, the anime doesn’t really capitalize on exploring their relationship. Most of Class A seems to stand out only by status as none of their key members gets important focus such as their leader, Alice Sakayanagi. There’s also not much focus on the school faculty except for Class D’s homeroom teacher Sae Chabashira. In essence, viewers coming into this anime will likely remember this anime’s characters mainly from Class D than any of the others. Background stories are vaguely delivered that holds characterization back as well. With such a premise, expect this anime to really dive into drama often. If you’re not a fan of such genre, then it will likely make your heads turn. By drama, this anime explores social problems such as isolation, fear of anxiety, identity issues, and fear of rejection. Even the simple concept of trust is tested in later episodes. Not to mention, this anime seems to have hidden dark intentions from its character cast. In addition, do expect lighthearted comedy to pop up from here and there. Unfortunately, this show doesn’t escape from light novel pitfalls such as panty jokes, swimsuit fan service, and generic misunderstandings. As I mentioned before though, the humor of this anime can get distracting at times although it doesn’t hold the show back in general. Oh and don’t expect any actual romance like some gimmicky shoujo anime. Adapted by studio Lerche, I must admit that the visual quality stood out compared to some of its other works. The characters look vibrant, colorful, and smooth with their appearances. This is especially true for Horikita as her character design matches those of a class beauty and Kiyotata’s stoic personality also matches perfectly with his face on most scenarios. Character expressions and body language is indeed important in this anime as it discreetly shows how characters behave. Luckily, the anime pulls that off. The setting also looks appealing as it looks visually impressive as an upper class community. However, the anime still relies on some fan service from the old book. Kushida and Honami are the guiltiest of these examples as the camera seems to focus on them suggestively at times. Oh and before you forget…swimsuits. While it can be overlooked on occasions, character voice mannerism is an important part of the show especially with the main cast. Kiyotaka is perhaps the most noticeable as we observe his thoughts and words. The way he talks often lacks emotions but noticeable for the way he speaks. Similarly, Horikita’s cold personality is easily reflected by her tough voice and attitude. However, there are some character voices that I found annoying to the ears in particular with Kushida and occasionally the nicer guys in this anime. The theme songs has a J-pop style tune that while doesn’t stand out too much is stylish enough to carry themselves. OST of this show balances between its eerie and lighthearted tone depending on the circumstances. To be honest, this anime can be a hit or miss for people. Some will enjoy it with the ideas it has to offer while others will discard it from their memories. However, I think this anime does do well to deconstruct the school system. Too often these days, our society relies…

I'll get this right out there, this is without a doubt my most disliked show of the season and I believe it to be an objectively bad show. Here's why. Before I start ragging on it, I'll say I don't mind either of the main characters too much (that said, I'll still tear them apart). Main characters referring to Ayanokouji, and Horikita. My problem lies with the pretentious attitude of the show, the frankly laughable story, and the down right cringy characters and character interactions. Due to the main characters being a carbon copy of the more famous Hachiman / Yukinoshita (which certainly were not the first couple of characters like themselves) and the awkward introductions with famous quotes, I get the feeling the show is trying do a few things. Be relatable to students, to be profound enough to spark critical thinking, and then the actual story itself is trying to be grandiose and dramatic to force a sense of excitement. School settings are popular because everyone has been, or is a student. Everyone can relate to being in school. This anime has done nothing wrong with trying to use a school setting to be relatable. The problem is the pathetic drama, and the narcissistic attempt at philosophy. This show is far too melodramatic. It's trying to cram too many settings into one anime. I can't take anything the characters do or say seriously. The school setting itself isn't an issue. Nor are the unoriginal, less interesting (than others of their kind) main characters. The issue is the drama. It's trying to hard to force drama and some great big power struggle, which would never, ever happen in any kind of high school. It's that kid in the 8th grade trying to act like an adult. It's pretending to be serious, mature and edgy. The only settings you MIGHT seeing something even remotely close to this is in some American Ivy League college. Not in some Japanese private school. Sure you might get some pretty hard core bullying or rich kids throwing money around, but you'll never see some billion dollar completely self sustainable campus. That is because there is no return. If you're going to try and force this kinda conflict down our throats, at least have it be a college / university. This kinda thing doesn't fly in a modern day setting. No way in hell is any country, or business entity going to blow literal billions of american dollars on HIGH SCHOOL. Not to mention a high school with a bunch of luxuries for pretentious teenagers. Things like malls, pools, luxury cruise ships, fucking islands. If you're going to try and be relatable through something like a school, keep the setting realistic. Otherwise you get that contrast of putting a Picasso next to fucking Jimmy who's failed to get a engineering degree and is now trying for an Art degree in modern painting. It's laughable, and completely incompatible //Excuse the rhyme. The next problem is the point system. There is literally zero risk involved in having zero points. The school gives out everything you need to survive for free at a no cost. Obviously it's not as nice as the higher priced things, but it's by no means inhumane or even of "bad" quality. The threats and repercussions of having zero points, and going against school rules seem to be non-existant. Everything that is a hard no in the school's rulebook get's brushed off by some bullshit teen logic or some all power Student Council. The only incentive to have higher points is for vanity and to ascend to 'A' class, which itself seems to have little incentive other than bragging rights and the aforementioned vanity. As I said, the philosophy is down right pathetic and narcissistic. The first episodes opens up with the everlasting "Are humans truly equal" and then breaks into a poorly thought out monologue that the 14 year old high school kid posted on r/im14andthisisdeep. Each episode opens with some profound quote and then proceeds to have an episode completely unrelated to that quote. Every attempt this show makes at being profound, philosophical and mature breaks down to some poorly though out drama between 'D' class and their oppressors which has practically no relation to the quote at the beginning of the episode. The characters are a travesty. And while I don't dislike them, this complaint encompasses each and every character in the show, including the main characters. All these characters, from class 'A' to class 'D' all fit some boring archetype or stereotypical image. They are completely flat in both dimension and character. They're boring to say the least. From having 6'10 pure muscle bald monks who act like Yakuza, to 5'3 big boobed redheaded airheads that are secretly evil back to 6'10 black men who only speak broken english. The characters are laughable. Everyone praising Ayanokouji as the second coming of Hachiman is wrong. The only relation they have is their intelligence. Ayanokouji is nothing more than your average self insert protagonist. Sure he's more enjoyable than your average lucky pervert harem protag, but he isn't any more complex or better written. Horikita on the otherhand is just a poor attempt at Yukinoshita. Her 'cold attitude' is actually a facade to cover up her incompetence regarding human relations, and her own emotions. Comparing Yukinoshita and 8man is like comparing a Porsche to a beetle. Yea they're both cars, but the difference is jaw dropping. This story's pathetic attempt at stimulating intellect, refined philosophy, and exciting drama is down right insulting. This show started bad, got worse and ended horribly. It's a failure through and through.

okay, first of all, this is the first real review I have written and I will use DeepL translate due to my bad english, I apologise if you notice any spelling or semantic errors, so let's start. First of all, what is cote or also known as classroom of elite? As the name suggests, the anime takes place in a school of elites, I don't know much about this school, so I won't talk much about it, but I remember that it was founded with the money of the state or something like that, which means that almost everyone in the school should be the best in their field in a certain field, but since I'm writing this, it's not hard to guess that this is not the case, if you've been to school even once in your life - which I have - you've noticed how simple and ordinary students this "school of elites" has, Actually, this is not the problem, the problem is that these students are in such a school, I swear to you, in my middle school high school years, I knew people whose future was brighter than the students in this school, well, maybe there may be 2 or 3 or even quite a lot of idiots, there is something called torpil, after all, maybe these idiot students entered this school by torpil, but there is no mention of such a thing in the anime, this is literally a dead end, so I'll leave this part here. So let's take a look at ayanokoji, the main character of the anime, which is the most important factor in the series becoming a popular series, ayanokoji is an intelligent, cold-blooded, organised and in many ways charismatic character and that's what makes him one of the shittiest main characters I've ever seen, but why? There are many reasons but probably the biggest one is that the story doesn't focus on ayanokoji when it should focus on ayanokoji, it's hard to explain since I don't know technical terms, you'll probably understand what I'm talking about better when I talk about episode 12 but for now I'll keep talking about ayanokoji, the most important factor that makes ayanokoji boring is that he is predictable, yes, an anime main character who is both mentally/intelligently and physically superior is strangely rare, usually either his intelligence or power level is cut down somewhere, I don't know what the purpose was, but these do not change the fact that ayanokoji is a predictable and therefore boring main character, I might even be exaggerating a bit, but ayanokoji is no different to me than an isekai main character who doesn't get flustered when he sees a woman, he's not as deep as most people talk about because he's so simple, what he says is just rhetoric, and once you realise that, he becomes an even shittier main character, I have no idea what kind of character ayanokoji is in LN, and although I don't want to be prejudiced, if the story processing is even remotely similar to the anime, then probably the "ayanokoji is better in LN" comments people talk about are just an illusion. Then the other thing I didn't like and even openly hated was the ending, the 12th episode. episode, the last episode of the anime, which was obviously made just to increase the popularity of the novel, should naturally leave an atmosphere like "holy shit that was so good" or "omg I have to read the rest of this" in the viewers, and the anime did the cheapest thing it could do to do this, leaving everything to the last episode, briefly like this, nothing is told until the last episode and suddenly everything turns out to be ayanokoji's plan, ok, first of all, this is literally insulting to the viewer, not showing anything until the last episode and at the last moment the story says "ha ha ha actually everything was his plan", I would like to talk more about it, but I'm tired of writing and as I said, I don't understand technical terms. pros and cons (this part was added later, most of the things I wanted to tell but could not tell because I could not create the correct sentence structure and my technical knowledge was low). pros: +fantasy of non-phenomenal power +although the characters are poor quality and poorly written, some scenes are entertaining +the scenes where the characters interact with each other are not boring + the background of the main characters is intriguing cons: -both ayanokoji and suzune (I may remember the name wrongly) are boring, monotonous and predictable characters, there is no surprise elementary -the story is monotonous, predictable and very repetitive -characters are not introduced properly due to poor story presentation -the fact that almost every character shown has a middle school level vision and behaviour destroys the believability of the setting and story -the fact that the main character is perfect in every respect makes the plot unexciting, for the same reason the viewer does not get nervous or excited -simple problems that arise in the story are conveyed as if they were very complicated and inextricably difficult, similarly, all kinds of events are magnified and unnecessarily complicated -characters are either stereotypes or do not even have enough character traits to be a stereotype, or their screen time is too short to decide which of these is which. -empty scenes that pretend to be clever but are meaningless and unnecessary for the story, characters and plot -unnecessary fanservice -that no-one is as clever as they should be -no credibility or realism (because it does not contain any magic-like fantastic elements in it, even if it is fictional, and because it tries to have a realistic universe). -no character development, the main character does not learn, realise or discover anything, we only learn that he knows these things, this is not character development. I'll be honest, even I didn't think I could find such a bad direction, if I push myself a little more here I could probably find more bad points, but I'm tired Of course there are many more things that could be mentioned, side characters, suzune who is the second main character or enemy characters that I haven't mentioned so far, but no, enough of this hate spewing, if you, the person reading this review, my advice to you is to either watch the anime at all or watch it with zero expectations, assuming that it is just a shitty power fantasy, I wish everyone a long life, a healthy and happy life.

I think that this anime isn't very newbie friendly. The story is pretty confusing, there is no the usual "OP character" or main stream background like magic,etc. Story. I think they really miss this one. Usually the Story revolve around the MC, but they only scratch it. They tease about each MC backstory but give a full story about it. I hope they wait for enough material from the LN to make it a 25 episode/2 season. It's like watching the first SAO and end it at Aincrad Arc. Art. Tomose Shunsaku, if you play some VN or eromanga you might know this person. I got to say the art is very good. Sound. There is really nothing worth mentioning. Character. Each of the MC have pretty interesting history, and some...twist. Enjoyment. You should probably watch it in one go. The story is pretty slow and there is no interesting episode. Most of them relied of next episode explanation about what the hell happen in the last episode. Overall it should be a good anime but they rushed it and just destroyed potentially a very good anime. If you're haven't watch it, I recommended to hold it and wait the 2nd season.

People often think that because an idea seems uncommon on paper, it is already good. No, it's not. A plot may seem to be as attractive as possible, a character may appear to be interesting for not following a common stereotype, but if those are not developed correctly, or at least, they are not well used in the universe that the same serie proposes, then can’t be said they are good. This is the case. Two things to keep in mind before continue reading: 1. Minor spoilers ahead. 2. This is an ANIME ONLY review. Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e, also known as "Classroom of the Elite", this name already summarizes what the series is about: a prestigious school where only "the best of the best" attends, students are separated by categories (classes) and a score system is managed according to the test results, which are necessary to literally survive on this island/school. Of course the best class usually has most of the points, while the worst, that is, the D class (where the series focuses) have few to none, so the goal of these students is to improve on their exams in order to get more points and survive, even thinking ambitiously and trying to get down the other classes. If we ignore the fact that no one in the D class except the protagonist group was so smart to not see the obvious working of this system that promotes competitiveness and instead they all believed they would earn 10.000 points at the end of the month just for their pretty faces (was not supposed to be a school of elites?), we have a plot that, on paper, sounds very good, and can lead to a story with an interesting development. Among other positive aspects, animation is very good, has enough fluidity and is very colorful, character design is generic but well done (especially girls design). Soundtrack is not bad but it's very forgettable, and there were few times where it actually stood out, however, the serie has a good handling of audiovisual quality and a decent sound direction most of the time, they really knew how to make the few scenes where the sound is important (intrigue or "revelations" scenes) able to impress and engage the viewer. And those are the only good things I can say about the serie... Now, what's the problem with this show, having so much potential? Just the fact that they don't take advantage of that potential, and instead, the series focuses purely on exposure: they show MC analyzing and understanding how the school system works, and then acting when it's required; but not the reason of his acts. They show several background characters moving around and prowling, as if they had some evil plans (even with funeral background music included!); but in the end, little or nothing happens. They show how protagonists pretend to make their class climb ranges; but they are so rough and socially inept that they don't even bother to relate with their classmates, classmates who are shown as mere extras or victims, in order to make protagonists shine even more. This is not a story about "how the D class improves and climbs ranks", protagonists go on their own way, and the rest of the class have little to zero presence in the plot. Then, when the show tries to give them characterization or at least some screen time in the moments where they were meant to be important, it isn't even done well, just extra dialogues that mean nothing and call it a day (Sudo, Ichinose, Sakura, the sensei, etc.). Characters remain plain and dull all the plot. Another aspect is that most arcs feel disconnected, add little to nothing to the plot, or are unnecessary. In some cases it's not even explained how things turned out like that (survival test arc, for example). It almost feels like most arcs were only introduced to force the plot and create artificial drama, because at this point it's hard to feel something for such a shallow character cast. With all this, the central issue in this serie is practically lost, it's unknown what is the point the serie tries to reach. Everything ends up being boring and disinterested. The worst part is this: The serie pretends to be a serious and dark story, with discrimination and arrogance from high-ranked classes issues, people prowling in the shadows, and D class being victimized by being the lowest rank. But then, the series resorts to exposure of this arrogance and this "dark atmosphere" (the high-ranked classes bullying Sudo, Ryuuen punishing members of his "gang", the almost rape scene, the president plotting things, cane girl and bald guy talking cryptic nonsenses so they appear to be planning something "interesting", etc.), everything in a really exaggerated and nothing subtle way, to the point where the series ends up being immature, bordering on stupidity, instead of being serious and dark as they would have wanted. Inmature and stupid, for not knowing how to handle such issues with the seriousness they were meant, and instead, the serie just uses them to pretend to be intellectual and interesting, or in the worst case, to "shocking" the viewer and thus disguise the poor writing and development, even resorting to cliches and fanservice situations that just buries even more the serie's real pretentions. It's not really bad to have cliches and fanservice, as long as you make use of them in a way that are acceptable to see, this is not the case. Hell, even the fanservice is explicit to the point it's just ridiculous! Other series show you subtle, fleeting or according to the situation scenes: falls, wind raising skirts, rays of light coming out of nowhere, etc. Here, they throw out tits in the whole screen just because, without conceal, without having nothing else to show in the scene, not even people talking, and with no other goal but to appeal otaku pandering. Yes, even fanservice in this serie is shallow and dull! The real issue is that this actually creates a contrast to what the series is trying to achieve, and instead of being serious and interesting, ends up being ridiculous. At this point, the serie is just pretending to be something that it will never be, resorting to exposure to hide its failures and showing exaggerated and unnecessarily explicit situations in an attempt to simulate maturity, which ends up being the opposite. Pretentious, that's the perfect word that describes this trainwreck. Yes, this is a term often used as a "generic argument that people usually use to denigrate a job they do not like", regardless of if it really applies or if those who use it know what it really means, but personally, I wouldn't use it if in this particular case it doesn't apply, and DOES apply. With all the issues previously mentioned, the series insists that those points must be taken completely seriously; despite the big failures in development, despite their cliche characters and exaggerated situations, bordering on ridiculousness; all this creates a big contrast with the heavy atmosphere. If one tries to take the serie seriously, it's not possible, because the atmosphere is very forced and doesn't go according to everything that happens on the screen: complete arcs that contribute little or nothing, cliches in the middle of a plot that tries to be dark, irrelevant characters doing nonsense here and there and "serious" situations so anticlimactic and explicit that they end up being simply stupid, so the seriousness the show tries to transmit is not given. And if one tries not to take the serie seriously, it's not possible either, because the plot tries to convince you that EVERYTHING that goes on screen, including the most insignificant nonsense and the most exaggerated situations, is serious and dark, situations that obviously you can't take as such. They went to far to even try to put comedy, which was so dry, forced and simple that ended up being shameful and cringy. In more than one occasion I ended up banging my head on the keyboard, because I couldn't bear the cringe of those pathetic attempts to be "comic." Another ne…

Classroom of the Elite Story: 2/5 - At first interesting idea of a school that is based on the idea of wealth and money being determint through money(but this is barly touched upon) - certain things feel extremly forced - There are a lot of plotholes - Two episodes are complete fanservice, while one is more like a filler episode rather than being in the actual plot - The last arc is kinda interesting - "Read the light novel for more"-type, cause the goal is too far out of reach - the title of the show makes no sense. Characters 2/5 - main character Ayanokoji is the center of the show. The story is mostly told through his Point of View and most of the important characters talk a lot about him in the story - he is a self insert main character, that utilizes machiavelistic tactics to get what he wants. Other than that he has a lot of elements of a Gary Stue. He is good at martial arts and always seems to be ahead of things, which reduces the tension in the story by quite the large margin. - Kushidas charaacter also has issues cause there is no explanation to the way she acts. - Horikita starts of strong, but becomes more unlikable as the season goes on. Also her motivation makes her look weak. - On the other hand Sakura feels like a generic character that you can find in every harem anime too. - antagonist characters like Katsuragi or Ryuuen are cliched to the point of being laughable, with no deeper motivation at all - Characters like Kouenji completly miss the point of what a comedic character is supposed to look like in a more serious setting. - Sudou is a generic troublemaker that mainly serves as a plot device to get the story going, however there is barly any explanation of who he got through the entrance exams or what a character like him does in an "elite" school. - other than those most of the side characters barly get any screentime and are not worth mentioning, the group dynamic of the characters is ok, yet predictable in a lot of ways. Soundtrack: 3/5 - Songs for the Opening and Ending are quite catchy. Yet the visuals for both are heavily lackluster. - For the Opening we have mostly style over substance. A lot of random philosophic quotes paired with characters standing around in a well shot scene. - The Ending on the other hand is just lazy consisting of two images were one is an empty Classroom - The rest of the soundtrack is mostly forgettable, yet it still is in some scenes overbearing. The only scene were that worked for me was on Episode 8. Visuals 3.5/5 - uncreative character designs - female characters have too much fanservice, while male characters look mostly generic or overdesigned - There a lot of different backrounds and most of them are pretty solid. The lightning effects are mostly good too and the animation is fluent. - Some scenes and have specially colored lightning effects and they put a lot of effort into making the eyes of the characters stand out. Overall 2/5 Ok now to sum up all the things that I said up and give a last insight. First this show is NOT like Oregairu, yet it TRIES to be like it. However in doing that it completly misunderstands the core elements of it. You can see this the most in the main character of Ayanokoji. He is more of a Tatsuya Shiba from The Irregular at Magic High School than a Hikkigaya Hachiman. The difference is here that Ayanokoji feels like someone that is above the entire cast so far. On the other hand Hikkigaya stood out through his alternitive view points, which made him different from the rest of the cast. Also through the entire show all the characaters felt more like they would come from a show like Asterisk War rather than Oregairu. In terms of storytelling I like the way the setting is meant to be a "survival of the fittest" type. Yet the comedy and the huge amount of fanservice ruin the serious nature of it. In the end I think Classroom of the Elite is a pseudo-intellectual bait show for people that do not understand the basics of storytelling or characterization. It can be a good time if you can identify yourself with the power fantasy which is the shows MC. If you don't you will have a hard time liking the show and I would not recommend it. In the end Classroom of the Elite is my disappointment of the season, that, after a solid start, got worse with each passing weak.

Is it dread; is it disappointment? No, it's even worse. It’s welcome to the classroom of the elite’s opening line: “If I may, I’d like to pose this question: Are human beings truly equal?” In a single moment, the writer has already shown that he is a talentless hack and has exemplified in a neat sentence why this show is awful. He began with this line thinking that it would make him look intelligent, but all it did was make him look edgy and stupid. Starting a story out with an obvious, rhetorical question shows that you want to show off how cool and smart you are touching on “deeper” theme like you ever even knew what that meant. And the way the show precedes every episode with a title card displaying a quote of a famous philosopher makes me want to take the author with me to the grave from how disappointing it is to see the names of people whose intelligence not just dwarfs, but annihilates the “intelligence” of this clueless writer of this light novel on his piece of shit that he cobbled together. Another thing this awful opening line tells me is that the author is not discrete at all - not one bit -, and he has to constantly shove everything down the audiences’ throats because not only is he not good enough to show instead of telling, he has to make sure that they don’t miss of spoonful of shit going down their throat. The final thing this line tells me is that this show will take itself to seriously and be even worse for it because the writer probably can’t write well enough to make serious scenes that are both well crafted, smart, and engaging. Let’s talk about how this man knows nothing about writing characters. It’s obvious that if you took a picture of the cast of My youth romantic comedy SNAFU and pit it against this shlock, you’d see the blatant “influences” (borderline theft) that come from that other, better show. He thought that he was fit enough to also write a smart, cool show. Little did he know that not knowing what makes a story work when trying to incorporate elements of it (or the whole thing) into your own show, doesn’t turn out very well. While the main cast of My youth romantic comedy SNAFU has some level of depth to them. Like Hachiman, the main character of the show, being both lazy, when it comes to what he wants to do in life, straight-forward, cutting to the chase when most people would fluff things up, and a loner, not working well with others and preferring to do things his own way and not really meshing well in groups. This show has none of that. All the characters can be boiled down to one thing. The main guy is “mysterious”; The main girl is “uptight”/“straight-forward”; the secondary girl is “cutesy”/”friendly”. The author seems to look over the fact that people are more complex than this. How many times do you find someone that when you get to know them really, that all they have for personality is one trait and one trait only. None. When every character only has one-character trait, they become boring and predictable because they only react one way to everything, they resemble a computer more than a human, and they’re not layered enough to be relatable and engaging to watch. Even the main character, who we follow around the whole time and are in his head constantly, has nothing more too him than a guy who doesn’t talk much whose “mysterious”. The author tries to write him as badass, intuitive, and analytical, but he’s none of those things. Even if there are a few scenes of him being kind of aggressive, he’s too passive most of the time for it to matter. He’s not intuitive because what the author passes off as smart is average or below average ideas. I’ll leave the last point for later. Another thing that gets on my nerves is how serious the tone tries to be. Every character takes things way and I mean wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too seriously. They’re all in high school, they act stupid, and they’re all boring and edgy as fuck and the author expects that I take this seriously and be engaged? Hell no. They act so serious and so gangster to the point where it’s not only fake but childishly fake. They might as well all be playing pretend. Actually. If they were all playing pretend, I’d be more engaged. At least then I’d know the characters weren’t taking this seriously which would lift off some of the disappointment. The characters may act like rocks, but the crap that leaves their mouths… It’s all a big mesh of boring blah. I don’t know how else to describe it. Most of the show is boring, pseudo-intellectual dialogue that makes my brain go blank from all the stupid. Dumping piles and piles of information with no interesting visuals, scenes, facial expressions, body language, or anything of the sorts. Just really, really bad dialogue that is supposed to be deep, philosophical, and important. Too bad he can’t write anything resembling that if his life depended on it. About how I was talking about how the main character was “analytical” earlier, well I feel that it’s only fitting here. When we are treated to dialogue by our lord and savior, the great Ayame, our main character, it is… awful. Our author decided that stating the obvious passed for analytical. I don’t even think he understands what it means to analyze something because all that happens is the audience sees something and our main character states exactly what just happened because we're all mentally deficient… Whoops, I spelled the author wrong. The other thing our main character does beside stating the obvious is spouting vague crap about friendship, equality, innocence, life, and other topics as if they were valuable words of advice. HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA HAHAHA. Yeah right, try again next time when you can actually write worth a damn. A little interjection here. I want to say how most to none of the logic adds up in the show when you think about it for more than a second. He doesn’t know how to write and he also has no grasp on the concept of logic. I think it would only be fitting to close with the structure. The one that this show lacks. Scenes in this show just don’t mesh together. Not once scene. For instance, in the beginning of the show, there’s a bus scene, and it’s completely pointless. The scene is already stupid on its own, but it serves no purpose other than to show the authors point about people not being equal, I guess? I don’t know, but this goes for a lot of what happens in the show. It’s usually pointless and not only that but boring. Scenes are just hobbled together like nothing and were expected to just go along with it? Another thing is the pacing of this show. It’s horribly slow. Scenes go on for way too long. They get their point across, like in the first scene, but then they overstay their welcome. Once the audience gets the point, there’s no more reason to keep on going. Does he want the ideas to stir? Does he think after he gets his point across he can try and instill some emotion in the audience? I don’t know, but I think people are smart enough to get the point once it’s presented, yet I don’t think you're good enough to instill any other emotion than contempt, disappointment, boredom, and unintentional laughter. So that concludes my taking a dump on this offensive, wasteful piece of media that should be burned in the flames of hell as to never come back. If you want to watch this, at least ditch it for My youth romantic comedy SNAFU. I may have problems with it, but it's still a trillion times better than whatever this writer shat out of his miniscule mind. So have an awful day and welcome to the classroom of the brain-dead.

Intro: This show is really something special, and I don't mean that in a good way. I truly don't recommend getting into this show, because there are countless other shows that you could watch instead that would be a far better use of your time. I made the mistake of watching this as one of my first anime, and at the time I was blinded by all the big words and simple minded concepts that they threw at me, so at the time, I believed this show to be really good. After a rewatch, I realize, this show is definitely not good. Concept: The concept for this show is that the most elite and prestigious students attend a super advanced high school. Most of the individuals in this series are some of the dumbest, most easily manipulated, characters in all of anime, but somehow they managed to get into this school that's supposed to be reserved for the best of the best. This show has a plethora of issues, yet people defend it. I also hear, pretty commonly, that the light novel for this series is better than the anime. Although, there is a chance that they just pulled a Tokyo ghoul and absolutely fucked this adaptation, I highly doubt it. There is however still a possibility, because I will admit that I do really enjoy the concept of this anime. This show is supposed to cover, a school for the greatest students of all time which is cutoff from society, where these student, not only live, but buy things in this city, college like atmosphere using a points system that allows you to accrue points overtime through their academic achievements, with the ultimate goal to grow through these ranked classes and work your way up with your fellow classmates to the best class out of 4 alphabetically ordered classes. The greatest class in this case is Class A and the worst is Class D, and through attending this school they will have the opportunity to have an amazing accomplishment that will enable a successful life afterwards. I mean this concept is really awesome, so how the fuck did this anime fumble this so hard? Story/Characters: We follow our main character Kiyotaka Ayanokouji, which we know fuck all about throughout most of the anime, except for the fact that he's quiet, smart, and manipulative. Oh, and I forgot to say if there's ever a girl on screen in this anime there's a 100% chance that they like Ayanokouji. And if there's a guy on screen there's a 50/50 chance of the same outcome. All jokes aside, it really is like every girl in this anime likes Ayanokouji for no fucking reason. Honestly, Ayanokouji is bland he his character fucking sucks. He essentially attended this thing, when he was a kid, called the white room. This place was made for producing shit, no personally, individuals that have Mike Tyson and Bruce lee level fighting skills and are the smartest people in the world I guess. Honestly, these mother fuckers come out and they are literally perfect at everything they do. This concept is stupid as fuck to me and actually ends up making the main character unlikable and just pretentious as fuck. Either way, we follow our main character Ayanokouji completely manipulate and outplay every motherfucker in this "prestigious school" like they're puppets on a string. The way he does this is never even well thought out or smart. Countless times, I question if the author put any thought into these "strategic moments" at all or just thought that he didn't have to try on these parts because every character in this show dick rides Ayanokouji saying he's the greatest at everything and the next coming of L. This shit is legit so bad. Oh, and I forgot about the greatest character in this anime. While everyone is trying to look for the infamous panty thief. Yes you heard me right, and yes that is a whole main plot point. Koenji is looking off into the ocean hanging onto the side of a fucking cruise ship. Koenji does whatever the fuck Koenji wants. He'll be swinging from tree's like a fucking monkey, and disregard this whole dumbass panty thieving plot point the anime set up, because he is that guy! But in all reality, I will say there was one character that I did somewhat enjoy and that stood out to me, and that was Suzune Horikita, but this is more of an on and off enjoyment, to be honest. She's a pawn of Ayanokouji, which is tragic, because aside from that, I like her character. Her relationship with her brother, the student council president that also works part time as Ayanokouji's hype man, is alright, but not amazing to be honest. Her whole goal is just to make him proud. I will say however, she is the only competent female in this whole damn anime. Most females will let fuck shit happen to them left and right. Like the red head retard (Airi Sakura), that gets sexually assaulted the cellphone worker guy, and decided to ask her classmates for help over a fucking teacher. Which, by the way, how the fuck did this fucking freak get a job working within this elite society with fucking high schoolers in the first place. What the fuck!!?? Animation/Art: On another note, the visuals in this anime are honestly just alright, it's really not anything to write home about. I hear a lot of people counter me on this due to the eyes in this anime looking really good, but to be honest, I think that's the only part that excels. OST: And as far as the OST goes, it's actually pretty good. Too bad they never play the good tracks throughout the show, you have to look them up on Youtube to really see what I'm even talking about. It's the same songs playing every season with maybe one more track added on each time. In conclusion, every fucking thing sucks in this series and this series is complete ass. Conclusion: I would like to say, I have hope for this series especially considering, that I'm watching currently watching season 4 air (Spring 2026), but sadly if you think this season is bad, it only gets worse from here. Story: 3 Characters: 2 Ost: 5 (due to utilization of the OST) Animation/Art: 5 Enjoyment: 2

I have to admit I was tricked by this show the first time I watched it. I had yet to be confronted with anime series such as monster which uses nihilistic themes, quotes that actually live up to the standards set by the show. I also didn't know about evangelion, a show which goes balls deep into the human's psyche giving an accurate representation of depression, making the characters feel real. I thought that classroom of the elite would end up being something of the sort. A show with philosophical, ethical themes or even psychology. The first episode opens up with a quote of Friedrich Nietzsche, already setting incredibly high standards for the rest of the series. The main character's monologue about equality also stood out to me, as he was actually elaborating on what Yukichi Fukuzawa's quote about equality really meant. It stood out not because it was some sort of mind blowing monologue, but just like the quote of Nietzsche it tricks the viewer into thinking that these are the issues which the show is going to address in the future. The setting is the main thing that stands out in this show. Each class has some sort of "leader" who is the only student able to take decisions. Most of the students are either complete morons or average students that you would find in any other school and the reputation doesn't matter. For a school that pretends to be the best in Japan, the glaring issues don't stop there. Our class D for example, is made up of defective students. Many of these characters have some sort of issue which I'm not going to spoil in case you decide to watch this clickbait. That's a failed attempt of the author, to prove that this show is psychological. The characters are bland and that "defect" is there just to trick the viewers into thinking that this show has depth and realistic characters. If you think about it, it has none of that. I'm fine with mentally unstable characters as this is not the first show that has attempted that, however I'm having a hard time believing that the best school in Japan would serve as a mental health institution for the low ranking defective students. It's fine if one or two have it but it appears that many class D students aren't normal. The rest are just bad at studying or average in everything they do, again proving that the elite in this school are just a few selected individuals. I mentioned before that I got tricked by this show. I'm not gonna lie, I thought the series had potential and I went as far as reading the light novel. It appears that the anime changed a few scenes here and there and the last monologue doesn't exactly happen at the end of the exam in the light novel. Which again brings us to the reason why I'm making this review. If you happen to read this, just know that this is not a deep story by any stretch of the imagination. As someone who's read the ln, if you like the anime and decide to read it, don't expect anything like that first episode monologue. The only good thing about the series is the 4D chess here and there which you don't really have to go as far as reading the novels or watching the anime, if that's what you want. Now I don't have any problem with shows which do not have any deep philosophy behind them. But that's not the case with classroom of the elite as it's trying to advertise itself as such, only to butcher the viewer's expectations in the end. If 4D chess is your thing then you might like the series but I still think Death Note is much better in that regard because that's its main appeal and the show doesn't try to present itself as something different.

The idea of elite students going to one school is an interesting idea, the way this was adapted ruined the idea. It continuously drags on the boring plot of the main character being the strong silent type. After a few episodes the rest just felt like fillers and it became boring to watch. I didn’t like a lot of the characters because of how basic they were, none of the touched on traits were really added to. The characters were annoying, predictable, and boring. Overall there was just so much more they could’ve added to make it a way better series.

this was one of my first animes and jm really sad about that this anime tried so hard to be a smart psychological anime but it’s just stupid with an unknown plot. it went from something going on at the school to them being on an island and someone stealing a girls panties (???) that wss the plot of like 5 episodes, litterally i dont remember most of this anime and i dropped it mid-season 2, im quite happy i dont remember this anime, as its so ass in conclusion if u want to feel edgy and smart while watching the most ass and boring anime ever with a messed up scrambked plot then classroom of the elite is for you! (*´∀`)♪ ✌︎('ω')✌︎ ☆彡

Classroom of the Elite season 1 is the fast-food of anime. It's cheesy enough that you can munch through it enjoyably like a hamburger, but bad enough that you'd feel sick every time you finish an episode. When characters converse in this anime, it almost always feels robotic and sub-human. They speak too perfectly, using few words and spewing out incoherent phrases, yet miraculously end up understanding each other. Ayanokoji is the main offender in these robotic discussions; he talks like a printer. Here's a typical Classroom of the Elite exchange: "Did you steal the panties?" asks the blond guy. "Nope," replies Ayanokoji. "Okay, I trust you." says the blond guy. Mhm, very genuine. Not to mention how overly cliché the whole anime is. Ayanokoji is your "quiet" and "emotionless" sigma male who excels at everything. He has no depth or personality; he can't make mistakes. In fact, he's portrayed as an evolved sub-human being. Yet he's so mysterious, a selfish man who helps others for his own gain. Very cool, guys. He's the kind of character a 13-year-old Indian might put on their profile picture. Likable characters are quite lacking. The only one that shows a degree of personality is Horikita; her motivation and slight character development towards the end are quite well executed. That leaves us with Sakura and Kikyou. Sakura is merely a weak and shy girl with an annoying voice. Shy characters must show their actions to become likable, yet she does basically nothing in the show. Kikyou is just your typical "mysterious" and childish girl with mental problems, and there's nothing likable about her. And let's not forget about the Ayanokoji harem, because of course, he's a sigma male, so naturally he'll attract every girl in the show. You can tell the girls have a degree of self-awareness about this dynamic. But y'all don't worry, despite the utter failures at the basics of story-writing, this anime gives you the prize of FANSERVICE! Because we are all shut-ins who cannot enjoy a single thing if it doesn't contain double 2D spheres. I'm aware this anime is made for hormonal 14 year olds, but seriously, who thought this was a good idea? It basically shot itself in the foot with fan service. You cannot take a character seriously if they are continuously objectified, and that's made even worse if the character is already badly written. Conclusion: This anime is cheesy; it demands that you switch off your brain in order to enjoy it. Despite that, it fails to deliver anything of quality and drags itself to the floor with its unnecessary fan-service.

STORY: 7/10 CHARACTER: 10/10 ART: 8/10 SOUND: 7/10 ENJOYMENT: 9/10 OVERALL: 8/10 I knew this anime would be different just based on the quotes at the start of each episode and I wasn’t wrong. This show takes pleasure in cheerfully stunning its audience by strongly commencing with an interesting setup that only gets diluted as the show proceeds yet still manages to land strong with its ending! The story is nothing unique since it revolves around students trying to top their class by making more points. What works in this standard setting is the play along of strong, interesting characters which help elevate the plot to an enjoyable watch. The point system introduced into the story felt oddly fresh, working in the show’s favour since it brought about essential character development. This leads me to the last arc, which was both a blessing and a curse! The pacing issues became more evident here which hurt the show’s momentum. (Personally, I felt like the story started losing steam once they got out of school). And now this anime has some backlash due to that 1 fanservice episode, I don’t mind it much since I understand it’s importance. But I would have rather opted for this episode to be allotted on story instead because it could have helped wash away the few plot holes that exists! However, the way how this arc wrapped up was more than satisfactory, making it my fav arc of the season! What truly sets this anime apart is its characters and the point system really helped establish their different personalities. Furthermore, we get mini arcs for various people that help shed light on them without taking away the spotlight from our main characters. (Solid Writing!) I liked how each class was represented with respect to individuality, from the bullish domain of class C leader to the dual leader contest among class A, etc. This really helped establish the students of other classes as real people rather than some background characters, which also meant they presented a real threat to our MC as well. If I were Ayanokouji, I would seriously watch out for Sakayanagi because she played her cards very well this season! (I feel like she will be a hard roadblock to climb for Ayano since she might be on to him) And some character arcs do not conclude, most probably left for another season. Horikita is the main girl of the show who’s an interesting person, coming across as a mere tsundere at 1st glance but turns out to be just more than that. Her surprise relationship with the student council and interesting setup of falling from grace (metaphorically) to class D has her uptight and fixated on a single goal. Yet it’s this ironclad sight of hers that alienates her from the rest, making her unpopular and unapproachable in class. But enters a boy and her life changes! Slowly, but surely, Ayanokouji breaks down her defences and his efforts aren’t wasted because his constant efforts makes Horikita more likable, eventually ending up on good terms with her classmates. And now to Ayano who’s easily the most unique MC of 2017 and by far the best aspect of this show, I mean the air is filled with intrigue as you slowly peel off the layers from this guy! It was a pleasure to take this journey with him despite the show trying to present him as an uninteresting character. Behind his deadpan look and those cold, lifeless eyes reclines a manipulative and calculative mind which misses nothing! His attention to details will catch you by surprise and his attitude to problem-solving makes us spellbind to him since it provides a stimulating mechanic to the already evoking plot. I mean look at how well he was able to tame the once smart and proud Horikita towards the end! Ayano is viewed and presented in the anime as a troubled individual with a shady past. His early life is just as mysterious as his present (Only shown a few short scenes of where he grew up) but once you understand how he was raised, you get to know Ayanokouji better. (And the teacher knowing all this was astounding) You recognize with his way of thinking, his view of all other people beside himself, his obsession with winning by trumping over everyone, his choice of avoiding all spotlights in order to pull every string by controlling everyone, all of this starts to make sense once you glimpse at his past. Yet you don’t fully realize this until the very end when the curtain is lifted to reveal the final act! This is because the story itself presented him in a manner of making me think the best for him despite the anime dropping hints of otherwise! We were being misled into thinking he wants to connect with his new classmates and cares about what they think of him. But that was all an act! Which is why the twist at the end really hammers you with reality by opening your eyes to the truth. The truth being, he prefers to remain in shadows, he prefers the role of a puppeteer, they all are playing his game! After all he did build a strong class by uniting everyone behind a capable leader which gives him the safety of time and space to micromanage everyone! He is devoid of any other emotion aside from winning, whatever else we felt never really existed or at least they never came from his side. Top marks to the writer for perfectly giving us viewers a full realized character! The art style for characters were good and distinguishable. (For me Ayano’s look reminded me of Karma from “Assassination Classroom”) I liked how you could tell at 1st glance which characters would be popular and which a troublemaker. The animation was nicely portrayed delivering on the Action and Drama well. The best thing were the eyes of the characters, they had a certain incandescent glow to them which always managed to get my attention. The OP is deceptively cheerful while ED is more on the calm side. The soundtrack is particularly good during the upbeat moments of the story. Voice Acting was good on both grounds, though the Subs were a tad bit better than the Dubs. In conclusion, I had a blast with this anime! It’s nowhere Perfect but it far exceeded my expectations and that counts as a win! While pacing was a little off and some parts of the story were predictable but the sheer writing brilliance in the character arc of Ayano brings a whole new level of uncertainty to the plot which only increases the audience excitement. The show leaves on a high note, doesn’t give everything away but grand enough to make us desire for more so let’s hope for S2. Because I am very thrilled to see how Ayano is going to reply to the following, “Icarus did no heed Daedalus’ Warning”

As much as I'd like to say "how this show managed to get 4+ seasons is beyond me", I do get it but boy do I not like it This show reeks of trying to appeal to teenagers in the most juvenile, boldfaced way possible It's standard LN fare with a heaping dose of fanservice in it (which I don't inherently mind but there are only so many "beach episodes but the jobber boy squad tries to perv on the girls" you can take before it becomes rote and cliche) and a surprising amount of pseudo-intellectualism None of the characters are likable, at best they are completely forgettable, at worst they are actively grating. I'd say Sakura is maybe the one exception but even then, I didn't LIKE her and she was just "shy girl with a secret pervert side" who only serves to be another Pikmin in Ayanokouji's harem of forgettably annoying ladies. Horikita (the girl one) is assumedly going to get somewhat better since she's a tsundere, uh oh, but I can only judge by the first season that I am seeing on screen here. Kushida is at least meant to be a bitch but she's so cloying in her "fake" persona that I didn't like her to begin with. Ayanokouji is painfully pandering to teenagers. If you've ever seen that TikTok/meme image where some dude is dressed up in clear Ayanokouji cosplay and is like "oh, this? I accidentally picked out my outfit to be just like Ayanokouji... guess we're so alike muehehehe", that's basically what I was thinking about when I saw him because only those kinds of people could find him cool. To be fair to him, they do tease that he has A Backstory but, again, I can only judge what I've seen. But yeah, he's blase and Doesn't Care About Anything because he's just so above it but he still has to shove his big MC-kun into everything because he's the MC. He just comes off as an apathetic little twerp whose neck you want to wring, at least for me. As mentioned above, he also naturally attracts a lot of the ladies' attention because he's just So Cool and Blase. The problem with shows like this where they start at the bottom rung class/group is you then have to justify why they are in Class D and not already in Class B or even A and I never really got the impression that they were any worse than anyone who is shown to be in the upper classes. Great OP but the rest of the adaptation leaves something to be desired. Part of why I imagine this has gotten 4+ seasons is because it looks relatively cheap and easy to produce. Like it's not noticeably bad in any one area (production-wise) but it's also never exceptional. I think the story up until the island arc is just kinda forgettable fluff. Because of the stupid way they set up classes in COTE where (unless you gain a ridiculous amount of points), you have to advance as a class, they spend a lot of the early goings having to propel up the slackers and ruffians and underachievers which doesn't endear me to them. The island arc is at least a solid and coherent arc but outside of the ending, it's still not all that engaging. I will say it is kinda fun to hate-watch a la Rent-a-Girlfriend but as a show to legitimately watch, you could do much better.

the MC's character development is just awful. guy does smirk for 3 seasons and doesn't give a damn about anyone. i mean this had to change at some point in his supposed character development. events are few overall.and they are mostly awful and full of fan service. the art is great. but it doesn't salvage the anime as a whole. the show itself is boring. the only good moments are the MC's checkmate moments where his plans fall into place. but that is approximately 3 times in 3 seasons . boring indeed. could've been one of the greats if it was executed properly. wouldn't recommend.

Honestly complete and utter trash. This anime tries too hard to look thought-out, intelligent and smart or whatever. Decided to suffer through this piece of garbage with my friend, who by the way, is an awesome guy unlike this thing. This waste of time couldn't even be a meme. I shouldn't waste my time further writing a review on this pretentious mess. We are going to make better use of our time and watch some anime that are worth watching at least a second of, which would be Zombie Land Saga. Also, I'm willing to fight any fan of this dung pie, anytime, anyday. Would be my pleasure. Anyway, go ahead and watch it. You'll learn to appreciate even anime like Log Horizon which is also trash, just not on this level.

I thought I was going to end up giving this a mixed feelings review, but that was before I watched the MC's apparently "badass" inner monologue at the end of episode 12 (badass according to maybe edgy 14 year olds anyway). Don't get me wrong, this show already had quite a few problems but that scene really set the deal on how inconsistent this show is. - SPOILERS - Him saying "all people are tools" and "winning is everything" contradicts all of his actions from previous episodes. If winning is everything, why did he have no interest whatsoever in being an A class student BEFORE the teacher asked him to? But worst of all, if "all people are tools" why was he always helping out his classmates (Sakura, Horikita, Sudo, etc) without getting any merits whatsoever? How exactly is he winning by going through all that trouble when he isn't being rewarded anything? I guess he decided to kick Horikita's brother a$$, save Sakura from that weirdo and help Sudo and others with their grades... Not because he was secretly nice as we were led to believe, but because he was bored or something? lol. I have no problems with him being a sociopath but at least if you're going down that road make it consistent?? Oooo but I guess we needed some kind of "plot twist" or whatever (that absolutely ruined it instead of making it better which is what plot twists are supposed to do). Kouenji was the best part of this show, fight me.

This has to be the worst anime I have ever watched and I have watched a lot of anime in my life. I was told that the main character was of the same intellect as L and Light and people were comparing this show to death note and code geass and I went into this expecting something intellectual and stimulating I received nothing of the sort. It was disgusting. It was a cesspool of pantyshots. Ridiculous situations that smart people would not get themselves into. Classroom of the elite took itself far too seriously and then fell short. It began each episode with a pretentious quote so you would believe the anime is more serious than it was. How is anyone supposed to take this show seriously? It's a joke and a waste of time. If you want something with a similar plot that is more serious watch assassination classroom. If you want something with a similar plot that is a more fun watch baka and test. Don't watch this dumpster fire.