Classroom of the Elite | Or Not that Elite

Hi everyone and welcome to my place! 😀

Nope, I still wasn’t able to finish Re:Creators… It’s almost done though and I’ll probably end it this weekend… Until then here is a new filler post!!! My review of Classroom of the Elite! 🙂

The Story:

The story happens in a conceited school where it is said that 100% of the students will go on to college or find employment. Being prestigious as it is, the school does not play by the rules when it comes to teaching. You have classes from A to D being that the ones who end in Class A are the smartest ones and D the dumbest ones. Moreover, each student is given 100,000 yen when they enter the school which can be used to buy everything you want. Last, but not the least students can do anything they want in classes, they can pay attention or they can just sleep through it, read manga, or anything they want. Of course all of these have their own consequences.

Basically the school adopts the policy of giving their students the life of an adult where you can basically do what you want, let me do the parallelism for you. As an adult you can go to work, do your best all the time, get good results and be promoted, making more money, or you can go to work do average and just get paid the same for your work forever, or you can just not find a job and well… Not making any kind of money at the end of the month. The difference between this school and the real world is that the school facilities give you materials for you to be able to live even if you don’t have any kind of money.

The story focus in Ayanokouji Kiyotaka who is able to enroll in this prestigious school, but ends up in Class 1-D, the problematic students class. With the amount of money they receive in the beginning of their journey and with the idea that they will receive that amount of money every month of course what 1-D Class Students are going to do is spend it all through the month. The school is like a city with every facility you would ask for. This way they just spend it on clothing, going to the movies, buying videogames, etc. More than that, they just slack in all classes and don’t do anything productive. It’s easy to guess that in the beginning of the next month they receive 0 yen (or points) of allowance. Why is that? Well, they didn’t do anything productive, so they don’t deserve any payment.

It’s here that they understand that there is more to it than the simple rules they were given at the beginning and that there is many information hidden in the underlines. So yes, you can just slack your way and don’t study a bit, but then you will have no allowance. The amount of points given to the class depends on its merits, meaning that better grades will get them more money. The class also needs to work as a team, since the amount of points each one receives depends on the overall class performance, so let’s say you have a straight A’s student and the rest don’t pass any of the subjects – no one receives money. Last, but not the least (and one of the most important rules), you can buy anything with your points, even changing classes is allowed if you have enough money.

From here, the story continues showing this class evolution trough the system of points and the way they are able to get more points and at the same time understand every rule that you have with this system. Because of the system there is a huge competition between classes, being the goal to make their class to be the best and beat Class A. This way, expect many kinds of betrayal and conflict between these classes. To be honest I felt that these type of conflict and the way they solved it was intelligent and I ended up always being curious what was going to happen next and how they would resolve them… It was one of those Animes that I watched the season in one seating.

While the class D story is happening you are also able to get some points about the 3 main characters’ stories. First is Ayanokouji being way more intelligent than he pretends to be and that he chose to enter the school because he is running from something (Not going to say what though xD), then you have Suzune that is determined to reach Class A due to her own reasons (Again, not going to say why, if you want to know go see the Anime xD) and lastly Kikyou that has two types of personality. One that she is very kind and cheerful towards other and a dark side when she is alone where she shows her true colours and well… She is just a despicable person.

Overall, I really liked the premise, pace and evolution of the story, each episode was interesting and I really want to watch season 2 to understand what’s about these characters’ backgrounds and how is that going to translate in the present.

The Characters:

I think this is some people call this Anime “cliché”:

Ayanokouji Kiyotaka

Our main character, a quiet guy who tries not to be on the spotlight. However, soon enough, you start to understand that he’s way more intelligent than he pretends to be. He’s that kind of character that seems really lazy and don’t put much effort in anything, although he ends up being a genius. I would say this character is really similar to  Hachiman Hikigaya from My Teen Romantic Comedy.

Suzune Horikita

The smart girl. She also likes to keep at herself and stay low. She ended up on Class D because of a misstep and not because she deserved it. She is the one finding the point system strange from the beginning. She notices that, although you have money, the school has items at price zero, from there she starts summing one plus one and understands what is happening. If we go to My Teen Romantic Comedy again, she is basically the embodiment of Yukino Yukinoshita. As Yukino, she ends up seeing herself with the role of the leader even though that’s not what she pretends or wants.

Kikyou Kushida

The popular and cheerful girl. She is the one in Class D that has more friends and who also knows a lot of people from the other classes. The only person she seems to not be able to befriend is Suzune (because Suzune is not there to make friends) which really stresses her out. Let’s go to My Teen Romantic Comedy again? Yeah she is basically the embodiment of Yui Yuigahama. Although Kikyou has a dark side which is way more powerful than Yui (she’s basically a despicable person to be honest), if you look at them both more carefully they both have envious feelings towards the smart, quiet girl who can attract people by just being herself.

So yeah, if we start comparing characters you see that their personalities are what you would call “cliché”… But the thing is… If the characters are well built from the beginning why bother about it? Yeah, it may seem that I’m watching almost the same characters, but this time they are in a completely different setting and even though their general traits are similar, if you take a closer look you will see that they have some details that don’t match and THAT makes completely the difference.

For example, our main character gives the idea of being lazy, but in truth he just wants to stay low due to his background. The smart girl here don’t want to make friends period. She only has one objective and that is to reach class A, although she ends up opening up slowly to others during the Anime. The popular girl here is just a horrible person deep down, while Yui is just a good person with mixing feelings because of her feelings towards Hachiman.

The Animation and Audio:

The Anime came out summer last year and delivers everything you would expect from a modern Anime. The animation is pretty flawless and amazing. It isn’t as outstanding as Kimi No Na Wa, but normally Anime Movies tend to have better Animation in general.

The character design, the lighting (or shadowing), backgrounds… Everything works perfectly and is well done.

About the voice acting there is nothing to point out. For me it completely makes sense the voice they gave to each character and nothing seems out-of-place.

The opening music is nice for once, it’s uplifting and has a nice vibe. The ending is way more calm… Although from my knowledge (which is almost none) Animes seem to normally do it that way. The ending does not really speak to me. I would say it’s average (?)… I don’t know… I’m not that fond of calm music >.< (Mobile users can listen the op here)

Resuming, the Anime is pretty good and I’m excitedely wating for the next season. It’s one of those Animes that just makes you want to watch the next episode and is entertaining overall. Until this point I wouldn’t say that it’s those kind of Animes more heavy (in lack of another word), but I do think it will start to change a little bit when the past from Ayanokouji starts reaching him.

I give Classroom of the Elite 4,5 Points out of 5 Class Conflicts

What do you think about Classroom of the Elite? Did you liked it or do you think that it’s cliché? If you haven’t see it yet, are you thinking on doing it? Comment down below! 😀

See You Soon! 😀