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This post is by guest writer Adeline Zhang.
Kill or Be Killed
It’s sink or swim with the kids of Class 3-E as they try to kill their Earth-threatening, alien teacher. A unique scenario always walks the fine line between becoming a new sensation or becoming an apocalyptic failure; Assassination Classroom is no exception. The duration of Assassination Classroom was defined by sudden swings from high to low. While the lovable Koro-sensei can bring momentary periods of humor, excitement, and sentimentality, the overall plot lacks substance and clarity. If I had to pick one word to describe this anime, it would be inconsistent.
Episodes 1-4 Review
Assassination Classroom starts off on a high note with good character development and sentimental value. Each episode focuses on only one or two of the kids and how they grow both as people and as students. Koro-sensei has a way with seeing into the darkness in his students’ hearts — such as baseball player Sugino’s inferiority complex towards the school’s baseball team — and goes to great, sometimes even absurd, lengths to heal these wounds. He even flies to a baseball game in New York at Mach 20 so he could get reference material to help Sugino create his own playstyle that focuses on his distinctive strengths. Koro-sensei thus becomes endeared to our hearts, making us wish we had a teacher like him, as we witness his heartwarming encouragement and support for his students.
Despite the superb character development, the same can not be said of the plotline. Lack of proper explanation and an overall shallow set-up left the main story hanging. Koro-sensei’s true motives remain unclear — the only indication as to why such a powerful alien is teaching a class of 26 ninth graders is a 30 second flashback of Koro-sensei and an inconspicuous woman. Furthermore, actual assassination attempts or training use up no more than five minutes of each 20 minute episode. This leaves the storyline full of holes and lacking in substance.
At this point, the show feels more like a slice-of-life anime.
At this point, Assassination Classroom feels more like a slice of life anime where each individual episode is not directly related to the rest, rather than the shounen action-comedy I thought it would be. The primary storyline of Assassination Classroom was lost in all its asides. However, this fact was oft forgotten and well-masked by the heartwarming and well-executed character buildup.
Episodes 5-6 Review
Unfortunately, the highlights of the first four episodes quickly disappear as Assassination Classroom falls into a dull period. Episode five marks a transition in the plot where the students are now studying for their midterms. Again, if this were a slice-of-life anime, such a transition would not seem out of place. In fact, it would have been perfect. Why is Koro-sensei working so hard to teach his students how to kill him? Why is he teaching in the first place if he can destroy Earth whenever he wants? How did Koro-sensei get tentacles if he was born on Earth? These essential questions remain completely untouched during this minor testing arc. Grades become the focus and there is not a single assassination attempt beyond a student half-heartedly trying to stab Koro-sensei while he was tutoring.
These two episodes completely stripped away all character development.
The greatest insult however, lies in the fact that these two episodes completely stripped away all character development — the very aspect that kept Assassination Classroom alive and thriving. In fact, some of the kids almost seemed to regress. The same Sugino who was told to be confident and form his own style based on his strengths goes through a period of intense depression, all because he is a part of the misfit “End” Class. Instead the only characterization in these episodes was limited to obnoxious smart kids continually mocking Class 3-E for their lack of academic smarts.
Episodes 7-11 Review
This next section proved that lack of explanation or elaboration has become a chronic problem. An attempt at patching the holes in Assassination Classroom’s scenario falls flat on its face as a child with tentacles like Koro-sensei randomly shows up and then disappears just as suddenly. Koro-sensei is evidently shaken and confused, but not to the extent that the audience is. This sudden reversion back to main plotline simply added more questions like: Why does this kid have tentacles as well? All this did was remind us that there was an overarching story — it didn’t even answer any of the already existing questions.
However, these four episodes still deserve a better review than the last two as there was some characterization, albeit shallow. Some of the children do go through change, but this change is very sudden and there was little basis for such growth. For example, the shy but popular Kanzaki got through her depression and found self-worth just from hearing Koro-sensei scold a bunch of delinquents. To begin with, the anime hardly even says why she was depressed in the first place. Similarly, little effort was put into building the character of transfer student and robot Ritsu. She learns the value of cooperation and becomes “human-like” through simple program modifications and not by overcoming hardships. Still, the effort is appreciated, especially considering episodes five and six lacked any depth.
Episodes 12-14 Review
The disappointment continues to pile up in these episodes as attempts at fixing old problems just create more flaws. Secondary characters are introduced left and right, taking up whole episodes with pointless mini-arcs; there’s a random baseball game that’s intended to have the children learn teamwork, an abusive new PE teacher who was allegedly teaching his students assassination skills, and the strange kid with tentacles returns to remind us that none of the questions from before have been answered yet. Contrary to what these events were trying to do, there was no significant change in either the characters or the audience’s understanding of the scenario — you could skip these three episodes and not miss anything.
This section was not only pointless, but boring to watch. Everything was predictable. Even though obstacles were put in front of Class 3-E during the baseball game, Koro-sensei’s constant encouragement and confidence left little doubt in my mind that the students would shame their opponents. Similarly, the new PE teacher was so abusive and over-the-top in his teaching that it wouldn’t make any sense if he wasn’t fired. While the occasional joke brought laughter and fun, the overall episodes lacked any kind of engagement. Rather than being an anime with three-dimensional personas and vivid storytelling, these episodes painted Assassination Classroom as a bland account of events that contained only in-the-moment excitement.
Episodes 15-18 Review
Assassination Classroom seemed to be set up for failure, but this section of the anime completely overturned all that was flawed in the previous episodes. These four episodes contained more progression than the rest of the series put together.
This time, the school theme is mixed well with the anime’s general direction.
The grade obsession returned for the end of term tests but this time, the students’ test scores were directly tied into assassination. Koro-sensei promised to let each person in his class who got the top score in any subject shoot off one of his tentacles, thus crippling him significantly. The students took advantage of this opportunity and launched their most effective assassination attempt yet. This time, Assassination Classroom successfully emphasized its school background without compromising the general direction of the anime.
Furthermore, these episodes brought a new level of excitement and engagement. Unlike with the baseball game, the anime added suspense by keeping us doubtful of how many Class 3-E students would get top scores. While Koro-sensei taught each student individually with his Mach 20 clones, Class 3-A (the smart kids) show off their incredible studying skills, proving that they won’t be easy opponents, despite Koro-sensei’s confidence. This uncertainty, combined with the knowledge that each test score could present a huge advantage for the young assassins, created a tense atmosphere filled with anticipation that can actually get your heart pumping.
Episodes 19-22 Review
In the end, Assassination Classroom is, like I said before, inconsistent. Right after the students’ grand assassination scheme, another major divergence occurred with the children suddenly being infected by a virus. The remainder of the anime is spent resolving this awkward and unfitting situation. Frankly, it was difficult for me to understand why this mini-arc was included to begin with. However the real issue I had was that this divergence became the closing act of the anime. Forget cliffhangers, there isn’t even a cliff to hang from. It was difficult to maintain sight of what this anime was actually about when the ending had nothing to do with the main storyline. Similarly, there was no character growth to make these episodes a little more meaningful.
On the other hand, this mini-arc, although completely random and unnecessary, was executed well. It maintained the elements of suspense that kept me engaged in the last section. Even when it seemed like the students got close to getting the cure, the antagonist blows it up in their faces. The tension from not knowing how these children would be able to resolve this situation when even Koro-sensei is unable to help them made this last arc enjoyable despite its pointlessness.
Assassination Classroom follows its motto of “Kill or Be Killed” to heart, even in production. Sometimes, Koro-sensei and his Class 3-E students killed it with incredible character building and sentimentality. Other times, Assassination Classroom was killed by its negligent attitude towards critical storytelling elements. Still, each individual episode was enjoyable on its own — the show just collapsed once an overarching story was added.
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