As a fan of cut throat environments I was excited to see an anime set in this sort of atmosphere.

Story (7) - Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing School, dedicated to instruct the future generation of people that will support the country in the future. Allowing students to get what job they want and what university they want to go to. The story follows the perspective of Kiyotaka Ayanokoji who enrols the school and is placed in 1-D to find that he is the class of the 'scums' of the school. The story then escalates to 1-D completing tests not only on academic skills so that they can be 1-A. As I said the plot was the selling point for me, I enjoy cut throat environments. My own problem is how it fails to adapt the light chronologically. There was an episode (8) inspired by beginning of volume 4 from the light novel. When the whole season goes up to volume 3.

Art (8) - As expected of the a renounced studio (LERCHE). The animation is pretty mesmerising to see. Shots of the scenery, characters shots are executed well and higher than standard. I like how the character designs are pretty unique especially their distinct eye colours. That really stood out to me, watching it made me lucid dream and escape reality. The background is truly exquisite to me, I love shots of scenery as it was highly detailed and the architecture was done will full of passion.

Sound (8) - I will forever not stop saying this but COTE has one of my favourite osts of all time. I really like how diverse the ost is, my personal favourites being tracks in disk 1. Rock, jazz, dreamlike, synth-heavy the list goes on. As how diverse the genre is, the instruments are varied too; going from piano, organ, saxophone, guitar and violin. Personally I wasn't expecting much from a school, slice of life anime ost but COTE never fails to wows me. I've never heard a piece from an organ piece in a school ost. Hats off to you, sound director!

▶

Character (7) - Another disappointment with the anime adaption is that they didn't give Ayanokoji the personalities he had. They made him socially awkward, boring then at the end he's now cold and calculating. In the light novel he's more interesting as his monologues is amusing to read and that he is a human, not some cold character. As for the other characters they did a good job adapting them correctly if only they did that to the main character, which should've been the obvious and right answer to since he's the main character.

Enjoyment (7) - As much as I love the OST and animation, if they make Ayanokoji bland, my enjoyment will drop. The only thing that's pulling it together is the tests they do, I like the unique concepts like the S-points system and the tests of course. It was fun seeing the tests being done and the character's ways of trying many techniques of surviving. As well as that seeing Ayanokoji's dead pan face replying makes some moments enjoyable.

Overall (7/10) If Lerche followed the original source and made Ayanokoji less boring and how originally he should've been, COTE in terms of popularity would've been in the same level as Oregairu or Hyouka. Personally it isn't the worst adaption I've seen but it has improvements to make. If there was a reboot first thing is first is don't chronologically mess up the timeline and adapt Ayanokoji fully. For now I'll be listening to 'Luxury', one of my favourite pieces in the OST.