“Within these truths it is evident that I am truly me; the watcher of bad anime, the sniffer of glue, and the pooper of mine own pants.” - Me, five minutes ago
(Reviews CotE seasons one, two, and the first three episodes of season three; TLDR at the bottom)
Classroom of the Elite is the biggest pile of abject garbage that I can’t stop watching. On almost every front, I consider the show to be a complete failure. It’s pretentious, tonally inconsistent, and borderline unwatchable at points—and yet, here I am, back for my third song and dance with this series. I’ve tried to figure out why
...
I find myself sitting on my couch, wasting the prime years of my life watching this show when I could be, I dunno, filing my taxes or something.
Is it the premise? I’ll admit that when I first read season one’s summary, I was hooked. The show sounded like a fun little psychological high school romp, with a colorful cast of characters to match. I heard comparisons to OreGairu, and Baka and Test, among others. My favorite romantic dramedy ever, and a show I generally enjoyed. What was there not to love?
A lot, I quickly discovered. The second I saw a quote from some old dead guy on the screen, and after entire minutes of platitudes being spouted by teenagers that all virtually amounted to “society bad,” I kind of figured the comparisons had been wrong. None of the interesting or humorous character dynamics/romantic tension of OreGairu, or the serviceable comedy of Baka and Test. Season three has kept up the act, and exactly none of it has improved. Which leaves you with… what?
Is it the tests? Or exams, or games, or whatever the show calls them now. There’s a bit that goes into them, and I’ll even admit that some of the tests in season one were somewhat entertaining. Granted, season one had the benefit of not having the formula repeated ad nauseam, and the island special exam was actually paced to the point where I was sort of invested in how it ended—and mildly surprised by the decent payoff. For a moment, I thought that if some of the characters improved (more on that later), then maybe the show could survive by virtue of the tests themselves.
As is a recurring theme with this show, I was disappointed almost immediately. After season two blitzed through multiple “exams” within episodes of each other, season three has showcased the same problems thus far. Any prior creativity and risk with the games has been almost entirely abandoned at this point. One of the games last season was literally just a sports festival, with the “interesting wrinkle” having something to do with class points. Even if the games were interesting (they’re not), what meaningful consequence have class points or individual points had since season one? We almost never get a point of view from other classes, so we don’t know if they’re hurting from losing out on points. From what we can see, everyone seems to be getting along fine. I remember when points were important. You could buy entire test answers with those things! If they’re not gonna be used in any interesting way, what’s the point in even having them? (That same question can also be extended to…)
Is it the characters? Definitely not. Every character in this show falls into three categories—stupid, fake smart, or Ayanokouji. There’s only one character in the Ayanokouji category (I’ll give you one guess as to who), so it’s really only two categories for the rest of the cast. If you’re a stupid character, your role is to be used by Ayanokouji or someone else for whatever nefarious (or stupid) game or plot point the story needs them for, and to be discarded immediately when the arc ends. If you’re a fake smart character, your role is to use a stupid character to advance a nefarious (or stupid) plot against Class D for an arc or two. And if you’re Ayanokouji, your role is to simply go “nuh-uh!” to whatever fake smart character serves as the arc’s antagonist, before spending twenty minutes dissecting why what the fake smart character did was actually the dumbest thing they could have ever done in their entire pathetic lives. Because he knew their plan from the very start.
And why wouldn’t he? Ayanokouji is the smartest person in human history. He’s got an IQ of four million. Can throw hands with the best of ‘em. And he’s such a hunk, too! Literally every woman in this show seems to think so, anyway. Never mind how literally any potentially interesting conflict is immediately dismissed whenever he feels like it. Because he’s such a gigachad! What’s narrative tension matter when we can see how cold and calculating Ayanokouji is for the millionth time?
I don’t hate smart/OP protagonists. There are ways to make them compelling, or even fun in a stupid way. Death Note’s Light Yagami is an immediate example of the former. On the less-serious side, I love Overlord’s Ainz Ooal Gown, and I can even tolerate bottom-of-the-barrel silliness like The Irregular at Magic High School’s Tatsuya Shiba. But the thing that makes those characters (or at least two of them) interesting is conflict. Light has to outmaneuver L. Ainz has to promote an air of all-knowingness and confidence to his subordinates, when he really has no idea what he’s doing. And Tatsuya has the arduous conflict of… not giving in to his sister’s demands of having sex with her. Conflict!
What real conflict has Ayanokouji shown through two-plus seasons? That he doesn’t feel things? That people sometimes annoy him with their silly and simple schemes? That he has so many women clamoring for a chance to slob his knob that he doesn’t have time to do… whatever it is he does in his free time? Read AP English novels, sit in his room doing nothing, or think about how smart he is?
Season three has done nothing to improve upon his character—he’s the exact same person in season three as he was in season one. He isn’t interesting or funny, so I can’t root for him as a protagonist, and the story frames him as the guy you’re supposed to unequivocally root for, so I can’t boo him as an antihero either. I feel nothing toward Kiyotaka Ayanokouji—which is a bit of a problem, considering he gets about 80% of the show’s screen time and is supposed to be the entire driving force behind the series.
The other characters aren’t much better. Horikita, on top of being maybe the most obvious Yukinoshita rip-off I’ve ever had the displeasure of seeing, is painfully boring. Kushida’s two-faced facade had potential, but her character is almost cartoonishly evil at this point. Even the obvious waifu-bait characters who provide the show with nothing but fanservice (Karuizawa, Ichinose, Sakura—there sure are a lot of these characters) could have at least given us some decent character interactions with each other, but they literally cannot function unless Ayanokouji is either on-screen or indirectly involved somehow.
If nothing I’ve mentioned prior compels me to keep coming back, then what does? The production quality and overall animation was never the show’s selling point, and it’s gotten even worse in season three. I don’t remember any particularly notable voice acting performances, the soundtrack and themes are forgettable, and the flip-flopping tone and pacing of the show goes without saying. Season two went from a fun little cruise getaway to teenagers literally waterboarding each other, and now we’re back to wacky high school hijinks to kick off season three. The “serious” scenes are arguably funnier than the intended comedic segments—since when do high schoolers employ CIA torture techniques? And since when do schools let them get away with that?
I don’t even know what this show wants to be anymore. If it’s trying to be a serious, intellectual show, you kinda lost out on that when you devoted two entire episodes to the classic psychological trope of panty thieving back in season one. If it’s trying to be a character drama, considering how flat most of the characters are, it’s hard to care about anyone who isn’t Ayanokouji, who’s about as interesting as my aforementioned taxes. And even if it’s trying to be thinly-veiled harem ecchi fodder—well, that requires an aware and at least semi-willing main character, and seeing as Ayanokouji might be anime’s worst-kept asexual secret, it can’t even seem to do that right.
After explaining all this through this mountain of text, I still don’t know why I watch Classroom of the Elite. Maybe I’m just another cog in the machine that this heartless industry caters to every season (hey, that sounded kinda smart, I should ask if they can put that in the show!). Maybe my standards for enjoyment are so low that I’ll get off on watching something that makes me groan every other minute. Maybe a part of me wishes I was new to anime again, so I could whisper to myself, “I’m fifteen and this is deep,” as I watch the show focus the frame on Kushida’s bouncing tits while she explains how she was mercilessly bullied to the audience again.
TLDR; Season three is more of the same faux-intellectual nonsense that looks for an excuse to shove poorly-animated G-cups in your face while giving you a Plato quote about how he scratched his balls or something. I envy those who were able to ignore CotE’s siren’s call from the get-go. For those who are already in too deep like me, here’s hoping you can find some redeeming qualities in this show this late in the game. Because I sure as hell can’t. Thanks for reading.
Jan 18, 2024 Not Recommended Funny  Preliminary
(3/13 eps)
“Within these truths it is evident that I am truly me; the watcher of bad anime, the sniffer of glue, and the pooper of mine own pants.” - Me, five minutes ago
(Reviews CotE seasons one, two, and the first three episodes of season three; TLDR at the bottom) Classroom of the Elite is the biggest pile of abject garbage that I can’t stop watching. On almost every front, I consider the show to be a complete failure. It’s pretentious, tonally inconsistent, and borderline unwatchable at points—and yet, here I am, back for my third song and dance with this series. I’ve tried to figure out why ... |
