Baka & Test was a fun, comedy series that focused on students having battles and gaining points to rank up their class, Classroom of the Elite works in a similar manner, however it is more serious and darker compared to Baka & Test.
Story (7/10)
The story mainly follows Ayanokouji Kiyotaka and Horikita Suzune, who are basically trying to get Class-D to become Class-A, but getting to this position isn't going to be easy.
Now Baka & Test didn't really have much of a story other than something similar to this, hence why I made the comparison so quickly, but this mainly qualifies for the first half of Classroom of the Elite.
The first half has the students trying to gain points so they can use them to buy essentials, but the amount of points they have also represents their level in the school, however the show quickly moves away from this story element and decides to become more of a mystery, psychological anime as Ayanokouji and Suzune try to solve certain things that could damage their classes position, how they solved these situations was pretty clever, but not brilliant.
The second half suddenly makes the become it's own thing as the students of each class are sent to a desert island and have to survive there for a week, this is when the show becomes more about trust and co-operation, although I thought it was a little stupid how class-D slowly fell apart because the girls thought one of the guys stole someones panties, which made the whole thing seem a little ridiculous.
Though I will admit how Class-D ended up being the victors at the end of the whole desert island thing did surprise me and of course the final words that Ayanokouji says during the final scene did make me feel hyped for another season, that is if it ever happens.
Characters (8/10)
There was a surprisingly nice mixture of characters in this show, although there were only a few that stood out for me.
Ayanokouji is the male MC and he was actually a pretty cool character, despite having a similar personality to Houtarou from Hyouka, he did help people more and he was pretty badass whenever a fight came his way, but probably the best part is the big secret he has kept hidden from everyone, showing he is pretty much an anti-hero or even an anti-villain.
Suzune is the female MC and for a Tsundere character, she was actually pretty good, she likes to keep to herself and doesn't interact with people unless it's beneficial for her, but she does become more open by the end of the series and she does have a softer side hidden away, it's sadly being kept locked away because of her goal to be in Class-A. She's very perceptive too, being able to read people's personalities just by looking at them.
Kushida is another female MC, she's the friendly kind of person often wanting to help anyone whenever they are in trouble, at first I thought she was just here for cute fanservice, until it showed her dark side which shows she is a lot more menacing than you think and made her character 10x more interesting, sadly though the show doesn't this side of her often.
Sakura is another female character who has some involvement, she is the most shy and paranoid of the characters, yet she is also the most open at the same time, this is due to her taking sexy photos of herself and putting it on social media, but this doesn't make her a bad person, in fact she's very sweet and becomes more sweet once she starts becoming more open to the other characters.
True there are a lot more characters than this, but these were the ones who I pretty much gave a damn about, the other characters weren't forgettable though as they kept doing things that made them memorable, there just isn't a lot to talk about them.
Art (7/10)
Other than the characters having really well coloured and detailed eyes, there isn't much to talk about here that I have seen in countless other anime's, although there was another thing that caught my eye and it was the characters hair. For some reason the edge of their hair would be a lighter colour compared to the rest of it, so I don't know if this was a good or a bad thing.
Another thing I realised is how similar some characters look to some of the characters from Baka & Test, Sudo looks like a mean version of Yuuji and Ayanokouji looks like a smart, unhappy version of Yoshii just with darker hair, so it was kinder funny how many similarities there were between this show and Baka & Test.
Sound (7/10)
The op was ok, it kinda reminded me of Baka & Test's opening which had a lot of colours, this anime had a more serious version really, although I was a little confused by the text being everywhere, I know it probably means something, but I don't really care too much about it to look into it.
Extras:
When I say this is a serious version of Baka & Test, I really mean it, because a lot of the characters have plenty of psychological issues with their personalities and the best candidates are Kushida who is a menacing bitch if you piss her off, Sakura who has some really big paranoia problems, Suzane who just doesn't like being around people and Hirata who can become quite unstable when the situation deteriorates very badly. It just comes to show that even though this is a school for the most elite people, there can be dark secrets hidden within them, which is what makes the psychological part of this show very interesting especially Ayanokouji who has the biggest secret of all.
Enjoyment (8/10)
Overall (7/10)
Overall this was a pretty entertaining show, it has some meh moments like the swimming pool episode and other parts, but it holds up pretty good against some of the other summer 2017 anime's, so if you're interested in seeing what a serious version of Baka & Test would look like then this is something worth checking out.
