Classroom of the Elite Anime Review (minor spoilers)

I started watching this because one of my mutuals was tweeting about it and it looked interesting. Set in a specialist boarding school with its own isolated village, schoolkids are streamed into classes A-D and given roughly £650 per month of spending money. The Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing School gives its students a guaranteed university place or top-job offer upon graduation, and some of the luxuries of their boarding life include school mobiles, access to quaint cafes and restaurants, shopping malls and more. The teachers are very laid back, almost negligent.

After a month of debauchery from class 1-D, they find themselves mercilessly broke, with no sign of a monthly deposit in their school bank accounts. That’s when they’re informed by their teacher that the school has been monitoring their behaviour, allocating a select number of points between the four sets of their year. 1-D received no points, and therefore, no monthly pay. It’s only then they realise that their D-status marks them as the bottom barrel of the school, despised by students and teachers alike, and in an unwitting fight of status to clamour their way to class 1-A to gain respect and better prospects upon graduation.

I like the premise of the anime. It reminds me of Evil or Live (phone-addicted teenagers are sent to a ruthless borstal where they all betray and blackmail each other in order to escape) and Assassination Classroom (the school has a similar unfair streaming system). Classroom of the Elite has very little comedic moments and sees itself as a social commentary on class and status and relationships, judging by the title card at the start of each episode that quotes Nietzsche, Dante, and Sartre, to name a few.

Our main character, Ayanokoji, is a stoic, nonchalant, and uncaring student who downplays his intelligence for reasons only known to himself. He is deliciously devious, and based on vague flashbacks of his younger self studying in some clinical facility, there is more to Ayanokoji than meets the eye. He is never fazed by anything and takes all setbacks in his stride with a cynical, sarcastic attitude that makes him refreshing. Ayanokoji is the main reason I was so intrigued by the anime.

We also have Horikita, a responsible but cold student who is desperate to get to class A and prove her worth to her older brother, and Kushida, (spoiler) a fake nicegirl who’s darker personality I saw from a mile away, and even though the twist of her character was expected, her ability to switch so seamlessly between high-pitched damsel to cruel schemer is chilling. The only character more chilling is Ayanokoji himself, who only stares on as Kushida blackmails him, and plays along with her act to give himself an easier life.

There’s a fair mix of villains, rivals, and allies to contend with among the students aiming for the top spot of Class A, to the school president and his entourage, the thugs of Class C who have a vendetta against everyone, and the kind kids of Class B, mainly Ichinose and crew. The anime culminates in a torturous survival game on a deserted island, where all four classes fight to earn extra points for the end of the school year. Loyalties are fractured and betrayal is rife as each student tries to gain as much points as possible. Only at the end of the final episode does Ayanokoji reveal his disdain for everyone—including his friend Horikita—in the form of an internal monologue. His calm exterior hides a dangerous heart.

Very interested to see more of his past.

Overall, the story is tightly written and paced well, and I like the undercurrent of corruption and deceit that is present in both the school and the various characters. The animation is beautiful, with eyes and hair coloured with an unusual iridescence. There is more fanservice than necessary, but it’s fairly innocuous compared to other anime out there.

I only have a couple negatives: the final scene where Ayanokoji explains his plan for how he knew the camp’s traitor was just too contrived, and his musing with his hands in pockets, slowly strolling along the cruise deck whilst Horikita watches in awe, is almost Sherlock-Holmesy in its breakdown.

Lastly, the main villain of Class C, Ryuuen, has an English-speaking bodyguard/servant. What distinguishes this bodyguard from others is that he’s six feet, and Black. There’s a few characters in this anime that look like thirty-year-old men, but the bodyguard veers a little too closely on the side of wild African stereotypes that Japanese creators love adding into their media for whatever reason. Albert serves no purpose other than to dote on Ryuuen (there’s a scene of him shaving Ryuuen’s beard) or to unquestionably punch up other students on command. He barely speaks other than to utter English one-word replies.

Classroom of the Elite isn’t the only anime to have teenage characters that look older for their age, and when I saw Albert I was reminded of Cromartie Highschool, which boasts a robot, a gorilla, and Freddie fucking Mercury as class members, but Cromartie is a comedy, and Classroom of the Elite takes itself so seriously that Albert stands out in all the wrong ways.

Based on these last two issues, I’ll give this an 8/10. And even though this anime was released in 2017, the second season comes out July 2022, so I definitely think it’s worth watching in time for the next season. I’m very interested to see what else will be revealed about Ayanokoji and his past.