Thirteen students at Myōjō Academy, a private boarding school for girls, have recently joined what is known as "10th Year Class Black." However, the situation is a bit different from your ordinary classroom. In Class Black, twelve of the students are expertly-trained assassins, and the thirteenth is the target. If one of the assassins manages to take out the target, they will be granted one wish from the benevolent benefactor of the school. Soon after the school year begins, Tokaku Azuma, an assassin from the infamous Azuma clan, discovers that the target is Haru Ichinose, a rather friendly member of the class. However, instead of assassinating her, Tokaku ends up developing feelings for Haru and swear to protect her from the rest of the class.
So, let's recap what would most likely draw people to this series in the first place: 1. Assassins, and 2. Yuri (Girl Love). Starting with the first point, one would think that, for a show with eleven different assassins going after the same person, the ways in which someone is killed would be rather creative, and for the most part that would have been true. The different techniques and weapons used by each assassin, from deadly poison to straight-up smashing people with giant hammers, was an interesting facet of the show. Now, you might have noticed that I prepared that last statement with the phrase "would have," and that's because this series makes a mistake so unbelievably unforgivable that it made me question whether or not the writers even knew what as assassin was. That's right: no one died, and many of them, after failing to kill Haru, sort of just walk off in shame and aren't seen again til the epilogue. I really hate to start with such a huge spoiler so early, but...why?! They're assassins!
The worst part was that, until the last five minutes or so, it looked like we did have a few deaths, with two of them that happened at the same time making up what I considered to be the emotional climax of the show (at the halfway point of the series mind you); but then the decided at the end to go "Oh yeah everyone's still alive by the way." The people who were stabbed in the chest, drank highly-potent poison, and were crushed under falling theater lighting were all A-OK. When someone says "assassin," you don't think "person who subdues their target in the most over-the-top way possible without actually killing them." It's like how Naruto has been woefully abusing the word "ninja" for the past decade.
So, the assassin part is officially belly-up, which leaves us with the yuri. The popularity of yuri in anime has been growing steadily over the past few years, but there hasn't really be a "be-all end-all" title to represent the genre. Does Akuma no Riddle fit the bill? Absolutely not. While they say that Tokaku has fallen for Haru, they never really show any chemistry between them. I'm pretty sure Tokaku spends more time deflecting attacks from the other assassins than she does actually having a conversation with Haru.
There's also a very huge discrepancy with the "yuri" label that needs to be addressed. Were we in Japan, I would not have addressed this at all; but as a westerner using western sites to look up anime, it's extremely discouraging to see some sites not understand the difference between yuri and shoujo-ai. To put it briefly, yuri covers relationships of a more sexual nature (kissing, sex, etc.), while shoujo-ai covers the more intimate and emotional aspects of the relationship without being more explicit. So, at best, Akuma no Riddle barely makes the cut for shoujo-ai, but doesn't even come close to breaking into yuri territory. Thankfully, I have seen some sites backtrack on their labels and switch it to shoujo-ai, but that initial mistake was still an upsetting one.
Character development for this was an absolute mess as well. I will admit that we do get some details and developments on Tokaku and Haru and how the class is affecting them, and I did care a little bit about them by the end of the series. However, the other eleven were practically throw away characters. I can't even remember most of their names as I'm typing this because they left so little of an impression on me. The only ones I actually cared about were Hitsugi and Chitaru, as they had the most spectacular "deaths" out of everyone and also managed to have better yuri moments that Tokaku and Haru.
The animation was done by Diomedéa, also responsible for Noucome and Mondaiji, and this is the only aspect of this series that stood out for positive reasons. The fight sequences were exceptionally well-choreographed and well-animated, though the environments tended to default to a drab gray color sometimes. They also had the good sense to make the character designs extremely diverse, as making any of these characters too similar would have led me to be extremely confused, on account of how little characterization they gave to everyone. My only complaint is that the fan service wasn't really all that interesting, and, to be honest, it kind of turned me off sometimes.
There is currently no dub, but, as this show rests with FUNimation, a dub would probably be an improvement on this show. I'm not sure how popular this show really is though, so the assurance of a dub actually coming out is still up in the air.
The music was composed by Yoshiaki Fujisawa, who also composed for Love Live! and Rail Wars. In keeping with what seems to be the theme recently, Fujisawa makes very heavy use of intense electronic music to set each scene on edge and to hype up fight sequences. It's a shame that "Sōshō Innocence" by Maaya Uchida had to be attached to this show, as it was hands-down my favorite opening theme from this season, with its heavy driving rock sound getting me excessively pumped to watch each episode. Additionally, each episode had a different ending theme, with my personal favorites being for episodes 5 and 10-12.
In the end, Akuma no Riddle was nothing more than a total betrayal of my expectations. The assassins didn't kill anyone, there was barely any yuri, and no amount of epic fight scenes could forgive that.
I give Akuma no Riddle a 5/10 and recommend that you skip this series. However, if you are still interested in watching it, the series is currently licensed by FUNimation and it available for streaming from their site.
For alternate recommendations, I point you towards a murder/mystery series also set in a classroom: Danganronpa the Animation; and for an alternate take on a battle royale-esque scenario with one contestant defending another, we once again come to The Future Diary.
