The title of this show is very misleading. I thought this school was for “elite students”, but instead, we had 4 classes of bozos participating in Among Us tests and school festivals. I’m not 14 anymore, so this isn’t as deep as I thought Season 1 was. After I finished Season 1 a few years ago, I was convinced that this was the smartest show ever with the best plot twists and the best protagonist in Ayanokouji, but now that I’m older, my views have changed.

That said, as an anime-only for this show, I still found Season 1 much better than Season 2, in basically every way. The story for Season 2 was quite boring, with events that felt very dry. The characters weren’t nearly as good as Season 1, because it seemed like everyone’s IQ except for Ayanokouji declined so much, and I questioned some of their decisions in the story. I’m sure that some of you have seen the bad animation frames posted on MAL and on social media as well, so the production was quite messy at times. The OST was nothing compared to Season 1, which I loved. Nothing felt as well done as Season 1, and save for some cheap enjoyment and satisfaction, this was quite the disappointing season.

My grading criteria: Story: /25 Art: /10 Music: /10 Characters: /20 Enjoyment /15 Thematic Execution /20

STORY: 11.5/25

The story felt quite un-psychological this season. Last season, at least the focus was on studying, and the point system, while this season, the plot material felt very dry, and the point system felt very insignificant. All the activities were built on these overly complex rules that was dumped on us all at once, and that’s never really enjoyable for the viewer. There are better ways to get us to think instead of thinking of rules all the time. It’s really the wrong way of being thought-provoking. The character drama felt very dry as well, as some of the backstories were very surface level. Perhaps this was the product of a rushed series, nothing really felt fleshed out enough to be interesting.

ART: 7/10

A downgrade from Season 1, which would be expected given the amount of episodes that Studio Lerche outsourced to other studios. It got better towards the end though.

MUSIC: 8.5/10

Also a downgrade from Season 1, which had quite the OST. There wasn’t a whole lot of stand out music in this season, other than the OP and ED, which I enjoyed a ton.

CHARACTERS: 8.5/20

The character personalities in this show are rather blank, and with how rushed the show was, they weren’t fleshed out enough. There were a few characters that had rather awkward and out of place interactions this season, such as Sakayanagi and Katsuragi from Class A. They just showed up with not much build up, which was a bit awkward (perhaps a few skipped LN parts?).

The biggest problem however, is that in a school for “elites”, how much the intelligence of the characters dropped this season compared to the last. Horikita for example, being the top of Class D, fell into obvious traps, which was so uncharacteristic of her character. Ryuuen as well, while being an extremely violent person, didn’t seem like the dumbest person out there, but as a villain, he wasn’t that good. It seemed like he knew who the mastermind of Class D was, but then he didn’t know? That was quite disappointing.

Now, I’ll also talk about the fan favourites, Karuizawa and Ayanokouji. Karuizawa in Season 1 felt like a lazy, spoiled girl who mindlessly spent her points on unimportant things, and fell off my radar real early. In this season, she works with Ayanokouji in the hope of defeating other classes. She has a bunch of secrets in her past, which I wished they fleshed out more. The romance between her and Ayanokouji feels somewhat rushed as well, since there isn’t much of a key reason for her to love someone, apart from getting protection.

Ayanokouji is still a good character for the most part, as he creates most of the satisfying moments in the show. His character doesn’t change much, and that’s unfortunately a bit of disappointment. He’s probably the only reason this show is still watchable.

ENJOYMENT: 11/15

With all my criticism, I still enjoyed this show, because the payoffs were quite satisfying, and who doesn’t like seeing Ayanokouji destroying everyone he meets?

THEMATIC EXECUTION: 10.5/20

For whatever this show was trying to do, they execute everything decently, but with the show being rushed the way it was, the psychological factor of the show was not up to par, and felt very surface level. The violence and the romance, while not being the main focus of this season, felt better executed than the mind games to be honest.

OVERALL: 57/100

Just comparatively blander in every single way compared to Season 1. It only felt satisfying to watch Ayanokouji mentally and physically destroy people who opposed him, but in the end, it just felt like everything could have been done much better, if the season had more episodes. Whatever Season 3 brings next year, I hope Studio Lerche learn from their shortcomings from this season.