Class 3-E: The Assassination Classroom
By Vidhi Gupta.
*Minor Spoilers*
Assassination Classroom follows the story of Class 3-E at Kunugigaoka Junior High School. The school is a prestigious academy where students are called the elite of society. They deem themselves to be the chosen ones and are rigorously trained to achieve the heights of academic and co-curricular success. Class 3-E is the class that basically keeps the other students motivated to not slip down. E, also known as the End Class, is full of students who were either punished for breaking rules or could not keep up their grades. In a class where everybody’s head was always down in shame of their failure, comes a yellow tentacled monster, Koro-sensei, who turns out to be the best teacher this End class could have hoped for. Unfortunately, Koro-sensei turns out to be their assassination target as well. Thus, the assassination classroom came to be.
Discrimination & Prejudice
Because Class 3-E consists of students who are not academically good enough, they are constantly mocked by the students of other classes, so much so that they are not allowed to be on the main campus as well. Their daily activities and classes are held on a mountain top which requires considerable time to reach. They spend their days in the old campus, which is run down, has poor infrastructure and lacks the proper resources that a school is supposed to provide. This is used to their advantage when Koro-sensei comes as a teacher and they find their homeroom teacher and assassination target to be one and thesame. The open ground and the natural resources that are available to them, makes it the perfect spot for training to be an assassin.
When the class reaches the main campus for their monthly assembly, the prejudice and basic assumption that Class 3-E must keep their heads down to submit to the stronger students, is so strong that they are not allowed to be a part of any clubs or activities, including the student government.
The extreme part of it is that while the Chairman of the school is surprised with the sudden growth and improvement that Class 3-E has shown, the “education policy” is such that he requires Class 3-E to remain at the bottom, for the other students to be motivated and work hard. The ideology seems to be pretty twisted and the comparison between different styles of teaching is shown vividly when Koro-sensei witnesses this first hand. He ends up giving the students the ultimatum that they must do well in the midterms. While that is possible for only some of them, it gives the students immense courage and confidence to walk with their heads held high.
Character Development
Personally, the most surprising bit of the show, apart from Koro-sensei’s backstory, was the fact that Asano, the Chairman’s son, saw the difference between Class 3-A and Class 3-E. He defied his father and openly told him that his “education policy” was flawed. The person who humiliated Class E again and again and challenged them to unnecessary bets, later in the show, bowed his head to Karma and asked the class as a whole to do better than Class A to prove his father wrong. As a third person, Asano could see what his fathers methods were doing to the children, and one basic question in my head was, “Aren’t they becoming bullies, instead of strong people?”
The Chairman himself, learnt his lesson the hard way and while Koro-sensei had a big role to play, the children themselves worked extremely hard to achieve their goal. Another part of the show I absolutely enjoyed was that Class E did not lose focus of their goal, which was assassinating Koro-sensei. They had their goal in mind and worked towards it by using studying as a motivation and means to achieve their goal.
Characters
My favorite character is no doubt Karasuma-sensei. He is a trained special forces agent from the government who trains the students in assassination techniques. Though he sometimes becomes unsure of himself and his teaching methods, both Koro-sensei and the students are able to assure the contrary. I could write an article just to fangirl about him, but I cannot. Though a serious man, he does get rather attached to the children, so much so, that he even takes responsibility for them. I liked how along with the students, the teachers, including Koro-sensei, were shown to have grown in their thinking and approaches. Aside from him, I also liked Karma and Koro-sensei.
Class 3-E’s character development is shown splendidly, especially Nagisa’s. However, they were not the only ones. Throughout the show, as the children learnt of new ways to assassinate their sensei, Koro-sensei also learnt valuable lessons by constantly dodging and seeing their assassination attempts. Because the children keep trying to find ways to outsmart him, when against Yanagisawa, he is able to find patterns in his attack and defend himself.
It is also refreshing to see how every student in the class is given an adequate amount of attention and development. Though it is obvious that Nagisa and Karma are the 2 most important ones, the others are not left behind. Everyone emerges with talents that they can use later in their lives. Most importantly, the children learn the actual meaning of life and death. They learn to differentiate between idle threats and actual killer intents.
Irina-sensei, in my opinion, was a way to remind the students that assassins are made with immense tragedy and sacrifice and choosing it as a profession might be more dangerous than they think. She is an ace assassin who is hired by the government to kill Koro-sensei, along with the children. Though reluctant at first, she gains the students’ trust and teaches them basic conversational skills in foreign languages. Her own past is traumatic and being in Class 3-E, she was introduced to peace that she never got. Her development with Karasuma-sensei was very cute as well, in the midst of the assassination. While it was a bit cliched, the romance added bits befitting the adults.
Conclusion
Personally, I knew that it was a shounen anime and honestly did not have much hope. However, the show far exceeded my expectations. Every student that works hard has only one wish and that is to get recognition from their teacher. Be it a master assassin’s student, Class 3-E or Irina-sensei, the reason Koro-sensei is able to tap out their potential is because he looks them straight in the eye and never once lets his principals as a teacher waver. The maturity with which certain elements of the show are handled are commendable. Humor is also used very appropriately in the show and does not belittle any topic or issue. Koro-sensei’s popularity within and outside the show comes from his humorous personality, which is also developed and honed throughout the show. In conclusion, for someone who had not watched anime in a few months, this show was a breath of fresh air.
