Anime RE-Claimed: Classroom Of The Elite

I love schemers. And by schemers I mean the characters who are always 3 steps ahead of the other characters. It's a trend I have; Michael Scofield in "Prison Break", Frank Underwood in "House Of Cards", Light Yagami, L and Near in "Death Note", Moriarty in "Sherlock" Hannibal in...well..."Hannibal" and the list goes on. Even in my own works there always seems to be one character who's holding all the cards. "Classroom Of The Elite" is no different. I gotta be honest, I'm not sure what I was expecting when I picked up the manga, "Classroom Of The Elite" was one of those mangas that were getting pretty decent buzz, the characters were pretty dang cute and I'm a massive sucker for pretty faces. I wasn't sure what the manga was about but wanting to check something out I decided to give it a shot and I'm pretty dang happy I did. Let's dive in;

As mentioned before I'm a huge fan of "Death Note" as that is the anime that got me back into anime in the first place and as I've mentioned before I love me some schemers. While "Death Note" scratched that itch of the supernatural, "Classroom Of The Elite" scratched the itch of the Social Darwinist in me which makes me love characters like Apocalypse so much. "Classroom Of The Elite" centers around an advanced high school where graduates of said school move on to become the movers and shakers of tomorrow, a school that pretty much grooms teens for success by any means necessary. The school itself has a hierarchy within it with Class A being the creme de la creme, Class B being 2nd best, Class C being 3rd and Class D being well, the defectives. These positions are not static and class arrangments can be changed based on academics and other factors. Class A could easily become Class C if they were to slip in any given area of academics.

I really like Karuizawa, I think she's adorable and I'm not backing down from that.

As such the school also has its own economy of Points, which is the currency of the school, and anything and everything at the school can be purchased with points, assuming you have enough but having points is a make or break the school and therefore having more points than none is definitely a way to move yourself up in the world aside from being gifted in academics. Now that I set the stage the main players of this little drama is Suzune Horikita, the sister of the Student Council President Manabu Horikita, who is one of the many darlings of the school. Although gifted in her own right she struggles massively at being sociable, a trait that finds her in Class D. Suzune isn't awkward with speech, far from it, she's just very crass and prefers to work alone rather than in a group, and the main character Kiyotaka Ayanokoji. At first glance, Ayanokoji is nothing to write home about, a teenage boy with a weary expression on his face. A face that looks absolutely bored with everything, but that's just the surface. What lies below is an intellect that'd make L shudder if these two ever matched wits.

I genuinely love the interactions between these two.

Ayanokoji is something of an enigma. His primary goal so far is freedom, the guy really just wants to be left alone and fly under the radar BUT certain people seem to keep needling him and that's when this character shines. Ayanokoji is a social manipulator, a man who can control and maneuver people like chess pieces to get what he wants done and he does so seamlessly that anyone looking on the outside would think it was by accident. He's a genius in short but beyond that, he hasn't been challenged as of yet in the series and there has yet to be anything that gets a rise out of him, other than asking about his past, and the only rise gotten outta him is a simple but stern warning. Ayanokoji is the result of (what I can only imagine, I'm in the middle of Season Three) an experiment called The White Room, no doubt some kind of facility that nurtures children of his intelligence. Not much on his backstory has been revealed but what's revealed about his character and willingness to use people reveals just how ruthless he can be.

The man whose face never changes despite what's going on is a man who should be feared.

There is something very refreshing about Ayanokoji's genius as it comes off as natural and not over-exaggerated or improbable. Ayanokoji's genius comes off as hyper-observant, which anyone can be if they just made an effort to do so, as such his tactics are much more believable and make the series more grounded. The character that comes to mind when I talk about genius is "Sherlock's" Eurus character who is a "movie genius" whose level of genius is made out almost to be a superpower and a ridiculous one at that almost bordering on mind control. Ayanokoji's genius is boredom genius, everyone else is so far beneath him that he can't help but use people as pawns to advance his goals. And that's the crux of his character, despite not genuinely caring about people he's not completely anti-social and he's not exactly a people person. While his actions have positive effects for people around him, his methods are questionable and those positive effects were only circumstantial. Ayanokoji just manipulates events and makes accurate predictions based on patterns of behavior, there are moments where he's clueless and he has to gather intel to gain an edge and that's the interesting part, he's not impossible to take down but you'll try damn hard. I'd say if you're into high school dramas that feature social Darwinism I'd say this is a must watch, if you like cat and mouse games this is a must watch, if you wanna know who Light Yagami could have been if he hadn't found the Death Note, I'd say give "Classroom Of The Elite" a watch, you can binge all 3 seasons pretty quick as episodes tend to fly by at a brisk pace. I'll catch you guys on the flip of the flop.