Classroom of the Elite
Story: 2/5
- At first interesting idea of a school that is based on the idea of wealth and
money being determint through money(but this is barly touched upon)
- certain things feel extremly forced
- There are a lot of plotholes
- Two episodes are complete fanservice, while one is more like a filler episode
rather than being in the actual plot
- The last arc is kinda interesting
- "Read the light novel for more"-type, cause the goal is too far out of reach
- the title of the show makes no sense.
Characters 2/5
- main character Ayanokoji is the center of the show. The story is mostly told
through his Point of View and most of the important characters talk a
lot about him in the story
- he is a self insert main character, that utilizes machiavelistic tactics to get what he
wants. Other than that he has a lot of elements of a Gary Stue. He is good at
martial arts and always seems to be ahead of things, which reduces the tension in
the story by quite the large margin.
- Kushidas charaacter also has issues cause there is no explanation to the way she
acts.
- Horikita starts of strong, but becomes more unlikable as the season goes on. Also
her motivation makes her look weak.
- On the other hand Sakura feels like a generic character that you can find in every
harem anime too.
- antagonist characters like Katsuragi or Ryuuen are cliched to the point of being
laughable, with no deeper motivation at all
- Characters like Kouenji completly miss the point of what a comedic character is
supposed to look like in a more serious setting.
- Sudou is a generic troublemaker that mainly serves as a plot device to get the story
going, however there is barly any explanation of who he got through the entrance
exams or what a character like him does in an "elite" school.
- other than those most of the side characters barly get any screentime and are not
worth mentioning, the group dynamic of the characters is ok, yet predictable in a
lot of ways.
Soundtrack: 3/5
- Songs for the Opening and Ending are quite catchy. Yet the visuals for both are
heavily lackluster.
- For the Opening we have mostly style over substance. A lot of random philosophic
quotes paired with characters standing around in a well shot scene.
- The Ending on the other hand is just lazy consisting of two images were one is an
empty Classroom
- The rest of the soundtrack is mostly forgettable, yet it still is in some scenes
overbearing. The only scene were that worked for me was on Episode 8.
Visuals 3.5/5
- uncreative character designs
- female characters have too much fanservice, while male characters look mostly
generic or overdesigned
- There a lot of different backrounds and most of them are pretty solid. The lightning
effects are mostly good too and the animation is fluent.
- Some scenes and have specially colored lightning effects and they put a lot of effort
into making the eyes of the characters stand out.
Overall 2/5
Ok now to sum up all the things that I said up and give a last insight. First this show is NOT like Oregairu, yet it TRIES to be like it. However in doing that it completly misunderstands the core elements of it. You can see this the most in the main character of Ayanokoji. He is more of a Tatsuya Shiba from The Irregular at Magic High School than a Hikkigaya Hachiman. The difference is here that Ayanokoji feels like someone that is above the entire cast so far. On the other hand Hikkigaya stood out through his alternitive view points, which made him different from the rest of the cast.
Also through the entire show all the characaters felt more like they would come from a show like Asterisk War rather than Oregairu.
In terms of storytelling I like the way the setting is meant to be a "survival of the fittest" type. Yet the comedy and the huge amount of fanservice ruin the serious nature of it. In the end I think Classroom of the Elite is a pseudo-intellectual bait show for people that do not understand the basics of storytelling or characterization. It can be a good time if you can identify yourself with the power fantasy which is the shows MC. If you don't you will have a hard time liking the show and I would not recommend it. In the end Classroom of the Elite is my disappointment of the season,
that, after a solid start, got worse with each passing weak.