Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e 2nd Season

Life back on the cruise following the Island Special Examination is anything but smooth sailing. Almost immediately after their return, the first-year students of Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School face yet another special exam, with both class and individual points on the line.

In addition to the complicated ruleset, more issues arise in the form of Kakeru Ryuuen and Kei Karuizawa. Angered by the previous test's outcome, Ryuuen is dead set on outdoing every class in the new challenge using any means necessary. Meanwhile, Karuizawa, a crucial pillar of Class D, is close to crumbling under the pressure of her past.

The stage is now set for Kiyotaka Ayanokouji to once again—using the full extent of his planning, foresight, and ruthless manipulation—steer Class D to victory as dangerously close enemy forces try to bring it down.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Ayanokouji, Kiyotaka Main

Chiba, Shouya Japanese

Horikita, Suzune Supporting

Kitou, Akari Japanese

Karuizawa, Kei Supporting

Taketatsu, Ayana Japanese

Sakayanagi, Arisu Supporting

Hidaka, Rina Japanese

Ichinose, Honami Supporting

Touyama, Nao Japanese

Sakura, Airi Supporting

Ichimichi, Mao Japanese

Ryuuen, Kakeru Supporting

Mizunaka, Masaaki Japanese

Kouenji, Rokusuke Supporting

Iwasawa, Toshiki Japanese

Kushida, Kikyou Supporting

Kubo, Yurika Japanese

Chabashira, Sae Supporting

Satou, Rina Japanese

Tanaka, Shou Producer

Iizuka, Aya Producer

Sotokawa, Akihiro Producer

Tokumura, Kenichi Producer

Reviews

Sep 26, 2022

iHateAnimeBro

Recommended

There are only a few shows that make me feel the thrill, and genuine impatience when waiting for a new episode. The Classroom of the Elite is one of them.

After a rather mediocre first season, with an unnecessary amount of fanservice and a bit too slow-paced action, 2nd season started really strong. The story isn't that repetitive anymore. There's significantly more action than before. The story is getting straight to the point.

[Story - 8]
With the new season, we get to know better few characters, such as Karuizawa and Kushida. Especially interesting, and important for the first few episodes is Karuizawa's story plot. Like with Kushida, ... we get to know a bit of her backstory, and what is driving her, when making certain decisions. Ayanokouji is gaining more allies, or I should say tools, that are helping him reach his goals. While gaining "tools", also his enemies counter is going up, but they, apparently, can't even compete with MC at any point, in literally anything, which makes the story quite predictive. As mentioned above, the story is paced faster, than it used to be in the first season. It's a good change since some viewers could find the first season boring. There are no unnecessary beach arcs, or pool arcs, which in my opinion were done ridiculously in the first season, and turned "psychological" anime into ecchi comedy. The show is slightly less focused on points/currency things, which is good, since viewers are usually not really eager to analyze all those numbers floating on the screen, and sometimes this can become overwhelming.

[Art - 7]
Art is really a disappointment in this season. As far as I liked it in the first one, here we got a visible downhill. The animation feels weird at times, and colours are not as vibrant and detailed as before.

[Sound - 9]
Not much to complain about. Opening deserves special attention - it is absolutely great.

[Characters - 9]
Ayanokouji has to be one of my favourite anime characters of all time. His whole appearance, actions, behaviour - everything adds up perfectly, creating the MC that viewers really want to see. His personality is something that makes people love this anime so much. He's smart, good at sports, and martial arts (piano and calligraphy too). During the show, viewers can acknowledge his thinking process, and how he is constantly analyzing his surroundings. Ayanokouji's character is basically the powerhouse of the whole series since I can't think of any other character being that interesting in this anime. He may be seen as an overpowered character though, and that point alone discards any mystery in this show since viewers are already used to the scheme where MC is always in a winning position.

Horikita was the main heroine of the first season, and the thing is supposedly the same now. However Karuizawa is getting much more screen time, and the overall focus of the show is more on her than Horikita. Her character isn't getting developed really well, since she's still doing similar mistakes, as in the first season, and basically is only a tool for Ayanokouji. Viewers may have mixed feelings about her. Personality-wise she acts like a tsundere, but at the same time, she doesn't appear to be one. She's kind of inconsistent with how she feels, and it makes her cold, and blunt.

Karuizawa seems to have a much higher impact on the plot than anyone could expect after the first season. The first episodes already suggest that the action will be now more focused on her. Viewers get to know her personality, and past better. She's starting to play a more important role, in the whole of Ayanokouji's plan. Her character development is noticeable. She's way more confident and determined to reach her goals, with Ayanokouji's help.

Kushida after playing a significant role in the first season, now getting revealed to be a traitor to the whole D class. Viewers get to know her dark personality since she shows it to Ayanokouji and Horikita. This side of Kushida can rarely be seen in the anime since she's still playing an innocent, helpful girl in front of others.

[Enjoyment - 9]
Personally, I really liked the 2nd season of COTE. The story finally picked up some pace, and as a viewer, I'm impatiently waiting for new episodes. The biggest downsides were probably poor animation, and my personal remark about the Ayanokouji character - as far as I understand the whole show is based on how perfect and infallible the MC is, it often feels unnatural. Dialogues, and interactions of Ayankouji with others, on the other hand, are just hilarious. I absolutely love his cold responses, without any sign of emotion. It really makes up his whole appearance and personality.

The Classroom of the Elite season 2 didn't disappoint me. I'm really glad I discovered this series recently since this show is really worth a watch. Very good plot, as well as characters. Decent art and sound. COTE 2nd season gets deserved 8 out of 10 from me.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Sep 26, 2022

Mcsuper

Mixed Feelings

The title of this show is very misleading. I thought this school was for “elite students”, but instead, we had 4 classes of bozos participating in Among Us tests and school festivals. I’m not 14 anymore, so this isn’t as deep as I thought Season 1 was. After I finished Season 1 a few years ago, I was convinced that this was the smartest show ever with the best plot twists and the best protagonist in Ayanokouji, but now that I’m older, my views have changed.

That said, as an anime-only for this show, I still found Season 1 much better than Season 2, in basically ... every way. The story for Season 2 was quite boring, with events that felt very dry. The characters weren’t nearly as good as Season 1, because it seemed like everyone’s IQ except for Ayanokouji declined so much, and I questioned some of their decisions in the story. I’m sure that some of you have seen the bad animation frames posted on MAL and on social media as well, so the production was quite messy at times. The OST was nothing compared to Season 1, which I loved. Nothing felt as well done as Season 1, and save for some cheap enjoyment and satisfaction, this was quite the disappointing season.

My grading criteria: Story: /25 Art: /10 Music: /10 Characters: /20 Enjoyment /15 Thematic Execution /20

STORY: 11.5/25

The story felt quite un-psychological this season. Last season, at least the focus was on studying, and the point system, while this season, the plot material felt very dry, and the point system felt very insignificant. All the activities were built on these overly complex rules that was dumped on us all at once, and that’s never really enjoyable for the viewer. There are better ways to get us to think instead of thinking of rules all the time. It’s really the wrong way of being thought-provoking. The character drama felt very dry as well, as some of the backstories were very surface level. Perhaps this was the product of a rushed series, nothing really felt fleshed out enough to be interesting.

ART: 7/10

A downgrade from Season 1, which would be expected given the amount of episodes that Studio Lerche outsourced to other studios. It got better towards the end though.

MUSIC: 8.5/10

Also a downgrade from Season 1, which had quite the OST. There wasn’t a whole lot of stand out music in this season, other than the OP and ED, which I enjoyed a ton.

CHARACTERS: 8.5/20

The character personalities in this show are rather blank, and with how rushed the show was, they weren’t fleshed out enough. There were a few characters that had rather awkward and out of place interactions this season, such as Sakayanagi and Katsuragi from Class A. They just showed up with not much build up, which was a bit awkward (perhaps a few skipped LN parts?).

The biggest problem however, is that in a school for “elites”, how much the intelligence of the characters dropped this season compared to the last. Horikita for example, being the top of Class D, fell into obvious traps, which was so uncharacteristic of her character. Ryuuen as well, while being an extremely violent person, didn’t seem like the dumbest person out there, but as a villain, he wasn’t that good. It seemed like he knew who the mastermind of Class D was, but then he didn’t know? That was quite disappointing.

Now, I’ll also talk about the fan favourites, Karuizawa and Ayanokouji. Karuizawa in Season 1 felt like a lazy, spoiled girl who mindlessly spent her points on unimportant things, and fell off my radar real early. In this season, she works with Ayanokouji in the hope of defeating other classes. She has a bunch of secrets in her past, which I wished they fleshed out more. The romance between her and Ayanokouji feels somewhat rushed as well, since there isn’t much of a key reason for her to love someone, apart from getting protection.

Ayanokouji is still a good character for the most part, as he creates most of the satisfying moments in the show. His character doesn’t change much, and that’s unfortunately a bit of disappointment. He’s probably the only reason this show is still watchable.

ENJOYMENT: 11/15

With all my criticism, I still enjoyed this show, because the payoffs were quite satisfying, and who doesn’t like seeing Ayanokouji destroying everyone he meets?

THEMATIC EXECUTION: 10.5/20

For whatever this show was trying to do, they execute everything decently, but with the show being rushed the way it was, the psychological factor of the show was not up to par, and felt very surface level. The violence and the romance, while not being the main focus of this season, felt better executed than the mind games to be honest.

OVERALL: 57/100

Just comparatively blander in every single way compared to Season 1. It only felt satisfying to watch Ayanokouji mentally and physically destroy people who opposed him, but in the end, it just felt like everything could have been done much better, if the season had more episodes. Whatever Season 3 brings next year, I hope Studio Lerche learn from their shortcomings from this season.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Sep 26, 2022

KANLen09

Not Recommended

Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e (You-Zitsu) a.k.a Classroom of the Elite, is literally one sweet-ass heck of a LN written by Shougo Kinugasa that even 3 years after the 1st Year ended, it's still the cult classic that has cemented amongst readers as one of (if not) the GOAT LNs ever written thanks to its typical school premise, but involving high stakes of a psychological brain-inducing mess that when all comes together, makes for one masterpiece source material worthy of a read.

Say what you will about Season 1, but I LOVE this show when it aired exactly 5 years ago in Summer ... 2017, thinking that as a newcomer into seasonal anime (back when Re:Zero had already finished airing, that single-handedly brought me back to anime), I would experience something very new and unique. And while You-Zitsu does deliver just that, even with LN readers lambasting the heck outta how both directors Seiji Kishi and Hiroyuki Hashimoto destroyed the anime adaptation by choosing to adapt later volumes in the literal 2nd half of Season 1, I still found it to be a great watch thanks in part to the GOAT character that is Kiyotaka Ayanokouji (literally Best Boy)'s way of circumventing through all of the psychological rules that Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School has to offer, Lerche's great animation (that back then was unlike anything I've ever seen before) and most certainly ZAQ's OP "Caste Room" which is still to this day, the perfect complement and a GOAT banger of a song (easily one of (if not) the best OP of the season at the time, together with Made In Abyss's OP).

Of course, without the prior information that the anime heavily butchered the LN and as an anime-only at the time, I wished there was more to see of Ayanokouji's further psychological exploits. And lo and behold, in the beginning of this year, it was announced that You-Zitsu is coming back in the Maou Gakuin fashion of not just Season 2, but also Season 3 as well, that's set to complete the entirety of the 1st Year arc. Well...how much we have grown over 5 years to finally get a shot to roast and ridicule the anime adaptation more than just being long and much-awaited sequels. TL;DR: The production staff team NEVER learnt anything about Season 1's pitfalls and proceeds to ham the anime down even further.

Season 2's continuation onto the adaptation of Volumes 4 (adapting the remainder) to 7, Ayanokouji, Horikita and the rest of Class 1-D evolves from test to test, most specifically Volume 4's VIP brain game, Volumes 5 and 6's sports festival, Volume 6's final exam, and to conclude with the biggest event of all: Ayanokouji vs. Kakeru Ryuen, the infamous head honcho-cum-hooligan of Class 1-C in Volume 7. Everyone has remained the exact same, though at the test level with the incorporation of non-important side characters that only add more fuel to the fire. Sure, like Season 1, those tests' rules are complicated as hell and don't give the audience enough time to take in what's happening only to then lose the plot altogether, but don't give the crap excuse that it can't be done due to time constraints (which they can only do so much in 20 mins, exclude OP and ED). To make matters worse, it's not a bad thing that the rest of the character cast stays the same and delivers on their aspects, but somehow the interpretation seems even worse than what I remember, despite having the same VA cast, to the point of being void characters with monotone personality (the worst offender being Ayanokouji himself, his voice seems darker and more bass now). Shougo Kinugasa's story plot is already amazing on its own, but now realizing the pain that plot pointers are even more lost in translation, it just derives the fact that the anime as a whole, even for Season 3 next year, is the "so good, it's bad" inferior version as a whole, with the manga version being the absolute worst.

The absolute sin of You-Zitsu's anime adaptation will always lie in the production team. Despite both Seiji Kishi and Hiroyuki Hashimoto still within the team as chief directors, they got someone else instead to do their favour: Lerche's in-house director Yoshihito Nishoji, who directed the abomination of an SAO rip-off that is Shichisei no Subaru, and a fair few assistant directorial roles involving in Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun and Gyakuten Sekai no Denchi Shoujo. Needless to say, both chief directors were looking for another scapegoat because deep in their hearts, they knew that You-Zitsu's hardcore fans have thoroughly denounced the anime adaptation outright since its initial release. And the purpose of bringing it back 5 years later just to say "Oh, so yeah...eff it, we're going for quantity over quality by covering more material than our work would allow. And with some new staff members, hopefully our inequalities aren't just covered by us alone." HELLO??? Who do you think we are? Are anime fans to you, stupid and/or idiotic enough to not realize this? We are more knowledgeable and can sniff out your BS, y'know.

It's unsurprising to say that Lerche didn't put an effort into Season 2, NONE AT ALL. Everything just looks drabber, even the darker undertones which are more than just "brightness" complaints of the audience not being able to properly see what's going on (especially during the cruise underbelly segments). Along with its fans, I should expect better given the gap of 5 years between Season 1 and now, but with the announcement that foreshadows the Maou Gakuin multi-season format, it's obscenely clear that production took a big hit, and at the very least, this move was definitely a mistake without healthy production schedules.

The OST feels just right about at home, except for the OP and ED which I'm thinking: "How are you gonna top 2 brilliant songs that at the time, were bangers in their own right?" And I'm right to speculate that ZAQ would most probably come back for another OP, which don't get me wrong, "Dance In The Game" is a good OP, but it fits more akin to something like Kakegurui instead. And don't get started on the OP visuals, which are notches down as well for having song lyrics pop up on screen (Yofukashi no Uta did this as well, but at least it has creativity as a backup) and nothing more with imagery for what's about to come for the season. A nice foreshadowing, but ultimately an awful lazy effort. The exact same goes with Mai Fuchigami's ED...and nothing else to say about that.

At this point, while You-Zitsu fans have completely given up on its anime adaptation, anime-onlys will most certainly have mixed receptions about the sequel and beyond into Season 3 next year, with no more hopes left that Shougo Kinugasa's work would ever be adapted to perfection. At least to me, right now, I'll see through it all with Season 3 to come and finish the remainder of the LN's 1st Year arc, but the original LN will always be the superior version, no qualms at all.

TL;DR: Masterpiece story, worse-than-subpar animation, go read the LN.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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