Classroom of the Elite

Koudo Ikusei Senior High School is a leading school with state-of-the-art facilities. Its purpose is to nurture the people who’ll lead Japan in the future. The students have their freedom, but contact with the outside world is forbidden during the three years, setting up an environment for nurturing its students. The classes compete against each other to graduate from Class A, being the only class that is promised recommendations for future jobs, universities, etc. Competition happens through “special exams” where the classes outwit each other to win and earn class points, but happens in their daily school lives, likewise. The classes are rated after their standings in the class points ranking, and class points are subtracted from poor behavior during classes. Classroom of The Elite refreshes the school genre, creating its entirely own school system, which is well-thought-out. In the afterword of V1, the author commented ‌he thought academics were not everything, but decision-making, sports, etc, were just as important, after school. Normally, the school setting is thoroughly focused on academics, and who ranks highest grade-wise. Students slowly ‌improve over time and fix their individual problems, as the school sets up an environment perfectly suited for them, which makes for excellent character development, especially from the POV of Class D, where students have defects/problems, for example personally traits (stubborn, hot-tempered, etc.)

Rigidly stated throughout the series is that the school is a full-fledged meritocracy, which is and is another refreshment of the genre. The classes and students don’t go from zero to a hundred within mere weeks or months. Everybody gradually improves midst the special exam and faces problems before climbing the ladder of class ranks. They don’t suddenly increase from Class D to A without actual improvement of its students or teamwork. In a meritocracy, those without abilities fall and those with abilities rise as seen here with Class A gaining over a hundred thousand points per month because of their abilities and are guaranteed higher education if they graduate from Class A. The school is per no se a full-fledged meritocracy as made out, and this topic gets a nudge as Nagumo makes a declaration of a revolution coming, and is the ideological fight between him and Manabu. The traditionalist versus the reformist.

Throughout the school year, classes compete in special exams, which test the students' thinking, academics, physical, decision-making abilities, etc. As well as the leadership of each class, will they be able to win against the others, outwit them, and come up with the right strategy? Classroom of The Elite perfectly executes this. I’ve always wanted something that executes mind games correctly. Something with constant plot twists that leaves you craving for more. Something that depicts mind-games in a well-fashioned manner. Classroom of The Elite does everything perfectly. During special exams, classes are set up against each other, fighting against each other, scheming against each other. In order to win, the students need to outsmart their opponents.

Sure, there are special exams where you cannot outsmart anyone, but the novel does a great job at making sure that there is always something interesting and mysterious. There are of course also special exams, where classes are teamed up against each other, but that does not equal that they'll work together because, in the end, the classes are always fighting against each other.

The main character is Ayanokouji, who fled from the white room to live a peaceful life. Ayanokouji is described as the perfect human being, having learned more than a normal human being would ever learn in their life span. He outranks all the other students by miles and never loses to others, always seeing through them. But he's completely devoid of authentic emotions, things that a normal human-being experiences in their life. He has experienced none of these things. Sure, he shows emotions here and there, but he has a complete poker face and those emotions are more of a self-mechanism tool. He has no sense of morality or ethics, whatsoever. Never having experienced any of these things, a normal human being would, but through the story, he experiences "these things" and starts changing.

From the start, he just wishes to have three peaceful high-school years, but that contradicts his actions. He scored 50 points on every subject in the entrance exams, which is harder than scoring full points. His character is contradictory, he is an unreliable narrator. Not only does he lie to us, but to himself, and that's what makes him such a prominent character to me. He keeps doing this, not knowing what he will do in the future. He has his fake persona, the one he puts on in front of his classmates and what you'd call the "ordinary student" who scores average academically, as well as in sports. He's completely ordinary and doesn't stand out amongst the students as someone superior. And then there is his white-room persona, his competitive self, who never will accept a loss and does everything in his power to win. The story is not only about Class D reaching Class A, nor the students maturing, one by one. It is also about Ayanokouji's conflicting self, discovering what he wishes for, and confronting his past.

The story felt repetitive in earlier parts, especially with the exams, but as the story progresses. The punishment gets harsher, but the rewards get higher. Nagumo gets introduced, highlighting the meritocracy, and making the special exams much more intriguing. Each exam explores new things, backstories, conclusions of previous events, redemption, etc. An exam is not just an exam, where they go head to head, but it plays a part in the characters, as well as their daily lives.

Classroom of The Elite has well-written side characters and explores different ideologies through the different classes. Each class has a different ideology and the story cleverly explores each one. You have Class C, controlled by Ryuuen, showcasing tyranny. Ryuuen doesn’t care if someone within his class gets hurt. He does everything in his power to win special exams and his character is from time to time, what makes the story interesting. You never know what’ll happen, but there’s one thing that’s certain and that is that something will always unfold. There will always be scheming. In special exams, where you'd expect nothing major to happen, Ryuuen strikes and creates tense situations.

There’s Class B with Ichinose, who’ll help everyone and doesn’t want anyone from their class expelled. The polar opposite of Class C and Ryuuen. They don’t believe using violence to win is the right choice like Ryuuen. Their morals are explored through special exams, where they have to make tough decisions and expulsion is likely.

This was well shown in the class poll, where the students voted on who should get expelled, but Class B doesn’t want anyone to get expelled and Yosuke in Class D had the same opinion. He didn't wish for anyone’s expulsion and he tried to take the fall himself, but Ayanokouji laid out a plan, making sure Yamauchi took the fall in the end. This led to his breakdown and ended with him getting character development. It did a really great job of showing the emotions Yosuke went through and how they correlated with his backstory. There are many of these cases, and the conflicts are usually foreshadowed in earlier volumes before the conflicts hit.

Later on, as the story progresses, it explores the other classes instead of only within their own year and looks at the second and third years. The story constantly develops. You have the rivalry between Nagumo and Manabu. You again have clashes of ideologies, here between Nagumo and Manabu. Manabu is in his last year and Nagumo is in his second year. Their rivalry is a really great introduction to Nagumo, who later on becomes one of Ayanokouji's foes.

Manabu is the traditionalist, that doesn't want changes and wants the system to be as it is, while Nagumo is more in favor of meritocracy, which is what COTE is about. "Merit." Japan suffers from bad egalitarianism and a low focus on "merit" and that is what a lot of the story focuses on. Fostering outstanding students. This makes it all the more exceptional to me, as well, as Nagumo's character and his goal. It's genuine. He doesn't inherit his ideology, but still respects him because he knows he is an exceptional student, but he finds his ideology completely wrong. These ideology fights makes COTE, really great.

Classroom of The Elite does an exceptional job at introducing new characters and they're always a tad different. Sure, you have characters who feel bland and have no character development. I see no reason for the Ayanokouji group. The members have no major character development and the parts, where the Ayanokouji Group assembles feel boring compared to when you have special exams and mind-games. New characters keep appearing, but everything is well-connected and always makes sense in the ending.

Also, the characters have some really solid back-story that makes you understand their actions. For example, after hearing Kushida's backstory, I understood her actions. Everything she does makes sense, and it is the same with other characters like Yosuke, who wished to save everyone during the class poll and broke mentally down. Also, Ayanokouji's backstory is really interesting, but we aren't getting much information and it creates a really mysterious tone when he tells certain characters to not look into his past. All in all, it doesn't have too big of a cast. Every character that is mentioned contributes in a way to the story, with certain exceptions like the Ayanokouji group, but overall, every character plays a role. The classes have forty students and most of them are not described, which can create weird situations when the entire class needs to discuss something or make a certain decision.

Ayanokouji is an evasively unreliable narrator, so you’ve always left craving for a conclusion to a special exam. It sets a mysterious tone since many things are left out and you’re constantly trying to think ahead when reading since you’re not getting all the information, but when you finally get it.

You understand everything Ayanokouji did and everything makes sense. A great example is the Ryuuen vs Ayanokouji fight, where he played right into Ryuuen’s palm the entire time, but it is first during their fight you realize everything he did was on purpose. There was a meaning behind everything he did and that’s what makes the series so great. The constant, outsmarting, manipulating, and scheming.

It lacks from time to time in quality, but it quickly picks up the pace with new interesting tense situations. The plot and the mind-games are superb and really interesting. After finishing a volume, I instantly want more and therefore my rating for the story is 100/100 even though it lacks in certain areas and the whole thing about only Class A being promised high authority jobs feels quite muddy, I feel like the mind-games and plot makes up for everything.