Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e 2nd Season

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Classroom of the Elite 2nd Season, You-jitsu 2nd Season, You-zitsu 2nd Season

Japanese: ようこそ実力至上主義の教室へ 2期

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Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 13

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Jul 4, 2022 to Sep 26, 2022

Premiered: Summer 2022

Broadcast: Mondays at 21:00 (JST)

Producers: Studio Hibari, Movic, AT-X, Sammy, Crunchyroll, Kadokawa Media House, Kadokawa, Bandai Namco Music Live

Licensors: None found, add some

Studios: Lerche

Source: Light novel

Genres: Drama, Suspense

Themes: Psychological, School

Duration: 23 min. per ep.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 8.14¹ (scored by 273,333 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #425²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #398

Members: 514,640

Favorites: 7,422

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8.14

Ranked #425Popularity #398Members 514,640

Summer 2022TVLerche

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Episodes: /13

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Synopsis

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]

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Episode Videos

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e
Prequel:	Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e
Sequel:	Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e 3rd Season

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

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

Kushida, Kikyou

Supporting

Kubo, Yurika
Japanese

Chabashira, Sae

Supporting

Satou, Rina
Japanese

Kouenji, Rokusuke

Supporting

Iwasawa, Toshiki
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Tanaka, Shou

Producer

Iizuka, Aya

Producer

Tokumura, Kenichi

Producer

Umeda, Masakatsu

Producer

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Opening Theme

"Dance In The Game" by ZAQ

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Ending Theme

"Hito Shibai (人芝居)" by Mai Fuchigami

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Reviews

Sep 26, 2022

SingleH

Not Recommended

Spoiler

*out-of-context spoilers for Classroom of the Elite (major spoilers for Durarara!!, and x2)*

I’d become a fairly well-oiled machine when it came to writing seasonal reviews and keeping up with everything airing in any given season, but thanks to this unhinged alcoholic downward spiral I’ve been on these past few months, you’re going to be seeing relatively few SingleH reviews for this Summer, 2022. I know—good news for many MAL users, but I was almost able to make a comeback for an unlikely reason, and that is I got sick. Rather, I am currently sick as of time of writing. Upon first realizing this, I was ... so deeply relieved, thinking what fantastic timing this was. I mean, now I’d have a legitimate excuse to take time off work and make up for all the time I’d wasted drinking hundreds of dollars worth of liquor per week. Unfortunately for me, though, I’m not just “sick enough to get a work note for a few days” sick, I’m “I’m fucking bedridden with the flu” sick. Not only am I debilitated conventionally, but I’m also now on medication to recover that requires me to, as many sadly do, not consume any alcohol, not only for the days on which I take said medication, but also up to five whole days afterward. Typing this from bed; wrapped in gross, sweaty, fever-dream blankets; surrounded by nothing but a thermometer and my final, empty bottle of lemon-lime Gatorade to keep me company, I truly didn’t think my life could presently get any more physically or mentally distressing than this…then I realized it was time to watch season two of Classroom of the Elite. This series, at least to me, is the perfect embodiment of the, “Ah, I see you’ve laid out in a very detailed fashion a long list of well-argued criticism against the anime I enjoy, but I’m going to take it upon myself to not seriously address any of it and instead simply jeer at you, ‘If you don’t like it, don’t watch it lmao!’” Because I’ve seriously been dreading this for quite some while.

If I was committed to covering seasonal anime like I am now at the time season one of this series ended, then I definitely would’ve written a review for it, because Classroom of the Elite is surprisingly a lot more interesting than it looks, at least in certain ways. Actually, that isn’t true at all, but it still very much succeeded at presenting itself as if it would successfully evolve into a very specific type of show with a very specific type of gimmick that I am personally a huge sucker for. I haven’t really come up with a name for this yet, but the type of show which is told seemingly from the prospective of the protagonist to a point, which later reveals the protagonist was hiding something not only from the other characters, but from even you, the audience, and said reveal then changes the way you think about the protagonist, the antagonist(s), and the story in some profoundly different way than you had before you truly understood who the protagonist was. The classic, most perfect example I can think of is from Durarara!! Learning Mikado was in control of the Dollars from the start massively recontextualizes everything he’d said and done up until the point you learned this about him, and the series continuously does this to reframe how you would personally evaluate this character who you thought you knew well. Learning that Aoba had infiltrated the Dollars with the former Blue Squares, seeing how Mikado embraced this and used them to covertly police the gang. All these slow but firm steps forward into a deeper, darker version of himself built such a compelling character, because, despite spending most of our time with him—him still being the “main character”—he made decisions that surprised us not quite enough to think of him as being out-of-character, but more than enough for us to think he had more depth in store which we simply had to anticipate.

I suppose far less deep and interesting, yet obviously much more famous and easily referenced examples of this phenomenon could include Light Yagami, Lelouch vi Britannia, and all their like to a certain degree, but I think I’ve painted my picture quite clearly, and, no matter how cheaply it did so, season one of Classroom of the Elite concluded by making Ayanokouji out to be one such “enigma protagonist” (which is the name for this trope I think I’m going to stick with). In this show, it’s probably the only memorable scene in the entire first season, as well as its seemingly climactic finale, so I’m sure no summary need be in order. It wasn’t as dramatic as Mikado turning out to have been the boss in charge of the Dollars, but suggesting that Ayanokouji had this weird, deeper angle to his personality other than simply being deadpan harem MC No.2576773 was honestly a rather enticing prospect. We’d seen glimpses of his life as a guinea pig in some laboratory setting in episodes six, ten, and eleven, but at no point was it made clear that his time there effected his personality, let alone his worldview—goodness gracious, imagine a character in a show like this actually having an interesting worldview—so having him give this monologue about how all humans are tools and he doesn’t care about anyone whatsoever was pretty neat. I mean, the dialogue was the sort of edgy one-liners you’d expect from a fucking light novel, but it was still SOMETHING. Something, anything at all to make even a second of this shit worth it. I was probably only seduced by it because, again, I’m a real sucker for these kinds of reveals, but for it to actually be worth anything, season two had to do two things. 1) It had to capitalize on the reveal and make Ayanokouji an interesting character, and 2) it had to not be complete dog shit. Unfortunately, it utterly failed to do both.

If I hadn’t learned about this “twist ending” from reading through spoiler-ridden threads on /a/, I never would’ve picked this show back up after dropping it two minutes in. That whole opening scene on the bus was excruciating from start to finish. Every millisecond like nails on a fucking chalkboard, with every hallmark of every bad modern anime I’d ever seen, the likes of which I cast aside without hesitation after barely being able to stomach a few meager minutes. Opens with a pretentious Nietzsche quote which has nothing to do with anything, in German, of course, mein liebe freund; generic, lifeless, washed-out, effortless, devoid of anything resembling artistic heart or soul in its direction, animation, color design, background art, character design, settings, or music; brain-numbingly uninteresting protagonist; over-the-top side characters with wildly unrealistic and exaggerated personalities rambling about nothing, all indicative of the writing sensibilities of a middle schooler, or worse, Tow Ubukata. It was all there, and watching it even at a full 2x speed was unbearable. The episode, and the entire show afterward, proceeded to be little other than character introductions for uninteresting looking pieces of sometimes-animated cardboard, rule sets for obnoxiously convoluted games or structures which exist solely to engage those who think engaging with such makes them any more intelligent, and personal confrontations that only really spark due to a character seeing one thing one way and feeling the need to impose the way they feel about said thing upon others…in other words, pompousness and immaturity. And if that wasn’t the single most unsexy portrait of any anime you’ve ever heard, I warn you now that season two is even more visually atrocious than season one…somehow. With last season’s compositing, I really don’t know how they made this look even worse.

Season two has officially dropped any pretense of looking like an intelligent series to any passersby, as it has undergone the rather undignified, hasty transition into a full-blown harem. In season one, there were some minor hints that Kushida was starting to develop feelings for Ayanokouji, but her character is so fucking all over the place that you can’t really expect her to stick to anything emotional. It was therefore understood, at least by me, that this would be a series about whatever light novel nonsense it was going to be about, and any romantic sub-plots would be reserved exclusively for the inch-by-inch progress Ayanokouji would presumably make with Horikita over time, but season two quickly brings the teen romance shit straight to the forefront, no matter how jarring the clash is with the pre-established conflicts I thought we were going to be focusing on. The result, naturally, is completely farcical. By the end of the season, he has Horikita, who I suppose makes sense considering how all she really needed was someone emotionless enough to stomach her arrogance; he has maybe Kushida, but her character is so confusing and absurd that one episode she’s hugging him from behind and another she’s trying to ruin his life and get him expelled; he has Sakura, who likes him because he doesn’t “have scary eyes” (look at her lecherously), because if there’s one thing I know about teenage girls, it’s their universal attraction to guys who look at them like asexual robots; he has Karuizawa, who warmed up to him after he contently filmed her getting assaulted and coerced her into collaborating with him after debasing her to the point of tears; and then he has Sato, who I honestly don’t even fucking understand. She just saw him do the Devilman: Crybaby meme run during the relay race and suddenly thought, “Oh my God, I’m so wet! Please fuck me! Harder! Harder, Ayanokouji-sama!”

Needless to say at this point, season two lives up to the first in every way, and I obviously mean this to be a scathing insult. The problem with Classroom of the Elite in simple terms is that it’s terminally fucking boring and completely fails in all its attempts to endear, invest, or engage you with or towards any of its principle characters as a consequence of them being exclusively presented as one-dimensional tropes (Horikita, etc.), over-the-top cartoon characters (Kushida, etc.), in-context memes not to be taken seriously (Kouenji, etc.), or narrative cannon fodder who will never at any point or in any convincing fashion have any gravity to their presence or be of importance to any long-term conflict in the series (Hirata, etc.), however long it chooses to fucking last. Fourteen volumes, isn’t it? The novel? I shudder at the thought of how many seasons of TV anime that translates to… Anyway, it’s just more of the same. More rules, more exposition, more internally conflicting feelings of and between unreasonable teenagers, so on and so forth. I cannot reach far enough back in my own memory, unreliable as that now admittedly is, to a point in my life where I could give half a shit about the halfhearted drama and embarrassingly predictable gambits such a pseudo-intellectual series has to offer. Since the “big reveal” at the end of the last season, Ayanokouji’s presentation has changed in, as far as I can tell, exactly zero ways. We get some slightly more revealing and honest inner monologuing, but that’s about it. The entire suggestion that his personality would gain a new dimension was nothing but hollow hope, assuming said hope wasn’t entirely fabricated from within my own oddly inflated expectations, wherever in the fuck those would’ve come from. Actually, come to think of it, where in this damned to hell piece of shit series WOULD I gain any positive expectations?

Ugh—they had such a good thing with episode twelve too, and yet they still completely failed, not only to make the slog up until that point worth a damn, but to even make it feel ultimately satisfying by the end. Yes, the episode was the only one to have some decently animated sequences, but having him just waltz in, confront everything, and massacre everyone was such a simplistically bold writing choice that was genuinely satisfying to watch. But what’s the end result? The end result is the exact same monologue from the end of season one. Yes, it was much better written; yes, it was much better produced and executed; yes, it was a genuinely cool scene that actually kinda made you scared of Ayanokouji yourself. But what is he saying? Again, “All humans are nothing but tools. I have no emotions. Blah, blah.” In other words, albeit more brutal, the same shit from the end of season one. I thank the fight for being completely fucking epic and absurd, because it genuinely felt like getting wasted and watching UFC with my cousin and her friends, but does it contribute to the substance of the episode—or of the SHOW, for that matter??? No. It really doesn’t. And so I’m sadly forced to repeat my not-so rhetorical question from the end of the previous paragraph: “come to think of it, where in this damned to hell piece of shit series WOULD I gain any positive expectations?” From its cardboard characters? From its comical ridiculousness which betrays any intention of self-seriousness it could possibly hope for? From its embarrassingly uneven production quality? Please don’t tell me I’m supposed to get them from its fucking dumb, uninteresting, forced-harem waifus. And for GOD’S SAKE—PLEASE—don’t tell me I’m supposed to get them from the teenage-IQ, pretentious quotes which pop up at the start of every episode.

Honestly, how the fuck am I eight paragraphs deep into this review? Season one was horrendous, and whether it had a promising cliffhanger or not, am I really so dull these days to expect a show that had been total shit for twelve complete episodes to suddenly turn a new leaf in a new season? What the hell is wrong with me?! By season two, the art direction is physically nauseating and character models change scene by scene; this is the kind of bottom of the barrel dogshit trash I’d happily, confidently give a 2/10 after inspecting for thirty to forty seconds max. I don’t understand how I watched twelve episodes of ceaseless misery FIVE YEARS AGO, see about half a minute of promise at the very end, and at no point before building future expectations did I ever stop and think, “Hold on. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. Those past twelve episodes of ceaseless misery shouldn’t really inspire confidence in the future, should they?” I then proceeded to waste more of my time watching through a second season, writing a review for it—thereby wasting your time now too—only to reach the inevitable conclusion that of-fucking-course none of this was going to pay off. I hope I never have a deep enough understanding of human psychology to fully process why I chased such pointless shadows cast by such an empty husk of an anime. I mean, I wouldn’t exactly describe this as being one of my more “passionate” or “inspired” reviews in the grand scheme of things, but I drink myself to death for nearly three months, come down to the final few weeks of the season with barely enough to time to watch, let alone WRITE for any of the anime I want to write for, and THIS is what I choose to spend my precious time on?! I’m sick for fuck’s sake! This is ridiculous. Completely unacceptable. I just took my temperature again to piss myself off, and it’s 101.2°F.

I should download Uber Eats or DoorDash or something. I am not going out to get more Gatorade and Maruchan like this…

Thank you for reading.

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Sep 26, 2022

Aruchemist

Not Recommended

Spoiler

{PROLOGUE}

“Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings -- always darker, emptier and simpler.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

[First paragraph is deleted due to Review Guidelines. Original available in my profile]

Presented with a quote by one of the most thought provoking and influential philosophers in this modern era, the usage was useless here. Expressions I’ve given in the first paragraph are an exaggerated, forced interpretation of trying to find how that singular sentence by Nietzche would make any connection with my COTE review while the quote itself isn’t relevant to supporting evidence that will be brought out here. This particular feeling is the feeling I felt while watching this ...

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Sep 26, 2022

Grusomhed

Not Recommended

“The truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words the truth.”

I mean, I, too, can and love using edgy quotes at the beginning of my review, but this is not enough to make my work good. Anyways, one and only thing the new season made me understand was the idea that deep quotes are not enough to make anything sound thought provoking. But before starting, I would like to make some things perfectly clear: a) I loved the first season, it was a very solid 7/10, b) I did not read the novel and do not care about it, because I am reviewing the anime, ... and c) I still hope that the third season will somehow be at least at the same level as the first season. Having said that, allow me to share my thoughts and criticism on the second season with you.

I am not going to tell you what this anime is about, since you can always read MAL Rewrite’s synopsis for it. Moreover, you must know already what this anime is about from the first season, so I will just get down to reviewing its flaws. In my eyes, Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e is a perfect display of the prisoner's dilemma; you can feel yourself as a scientist that can see how every individual is going to act in different situations, which is super fun, indeed. However, after a whole season you want to see something more than that, because even as an experiment the anime looks quite… poor. This happens because the anime’s story just feels to have way too many flaws and I have no idea where to start…

A) You will not miss that much of the story, if you skip a few episodes, or if you just decide to have a lunch break, when watching the series. Not only does it have many pieces of absolutely useless information, it also has way too many scenes that are just way too easy to forget and that is a huge problem, because it was rather challenging to get the whole picture, when you already do not remember what was in previous episodes. B) The story feels to be in a never-ending chaos, it feels like whoever made this anime did not quite understand what they were trying to achieve. (This might have happened simply because of the fact that they skipped way too many details from the novel, I do not know.) C) A number of characters was ignored in the second season, which leaves the viewer super confused, because you just do not understand where the whole thing is going and many other minor flaws, I do not see important to waste your time on.

Not just these story flaws, but also the animation. This is the last thing I would direct your attention to, but think for a second. The first season aired quite a while ago, here is a funny thing: it had a much better animation. The whole season just looks somewhat weird and sometimes even ridiculous in terms of the animation. It just felt as if the animators either did not care, or were even worse than a bunch of amateurs, but it still was watchable. As for the sound, I did not quite have any problems with it and maybe it was just me, but the anime just felt to have no soul, because even voice actors never showed any emotions, or were told not to show them and it just makes the anime even more fake.

Characters wise, this is yet another anime’s weakest point. Starting with the main character, Ayanokouji, who had a much better image in the first season, the second season makes him some kind of a psycho, who hides all the season long and then comes back into light, showing himself as a true strategist, all according to the keikaku kind of a guy. Then come supporting characters and everything is just all over the place: many characters from the first season hardly had any screen time, the new season tries to give a bit of time for every character, which makes everything sink into some chaos, making the viewer have absolutely no idea of what is happening. On top of that, many characters just get some screen time when they have no importance for the story at all and some characters just feel to not exist. Take for example teachers, it is a school, damn it. Teachers in the anime are bloody useless, when even in the first season they had some use, but not here.

The anime’s staff members must have had absolutely no idea of what they wanted the season to be. The story leaves much to be desired; you can skip a few episodes and you will not miss anything important, really. The characters, are there any? There is only one main character and all other characters feel to be just a bunch of idiots. I mean, look at the anime’s title. I will do it for you. ‘Classroom of the Elite II.’ The key word here is ‘elite.’ But this class just feels like a bunch of idiotic criminals, some stupid as hell kids, who just refuse to study and would fail any elementary school program. I mean, they are supposed to be the best, the smartest lads and lassies, but they just look like they escaped from some Deadman Wonderland.

Having said that, I want to say the following: I am super disappointed. But! I am not trying to discourage anyone from watching the new season and I am not just a hater. I loved the first season, it was not a masterpiece, it was not great, but it was good and I hoped to see something like that in the second season. But what I got… was a little bit different from that. Yet! I do not want to discourage you just yet, myself including, I still hope that the third season will still answer some of the questions that were left and perhaps will brush off all the flaws of the second season. Unfortunately, it is a 4/10 and nothing else in my eyes. Tastes differ, that is only my opinion and it matter not what I think.

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Poll: Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e 2nd Season Episode 13 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Sep 26, 2022	426 replies	by Hyoudouix »» 11 hours ago
Poll: Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e 2nd Season Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Sep 19, 2022	813 replies	by BillSpyro »» Jun 6, 4:08 PM
Ayanokoji's True Character - Clearing Up a Misunderstanding Miserable_Crow - Jul 27, 2022	42 replies	by Wladis21 »» May 25, 4:26 AM
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About Season 3 Achiiya - May 9	29 replies	by Mirchiii »» May 14, 12:22 AM

Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e 2nd Season

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Characters & Voice Actors

Ayanokouji, Kiyotaka

Horikita, Suzune

Karuizawa, Kei

Sakayanagi, Arisu

Ichinose, Honami

Sakura, Airi

Ryuuen, Kakeru

Kushida, Kikyou

Chabashira, Sae

Kouenji, Rokusuke

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Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e 2nd Season

Alternative Titles

Information

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Available At

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Synopsis

Background

Episode Videos

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Characters & Voice Actors

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

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