When
an currently ongoing shonen manga gets an anime adaption you have to
worry, will this anime end? Will it end well? This is a thought I
had when I watched Assassination Classroom. This was a worry I had
especially as a fan of the source material. Luckily this show did
not have some of the problems some similar shows have.
Plot:
Assassination Classroom is a coming of age story. The plot revolves
around Class E at Kunugigaoka junior high, a class of failures who
society has given up on. They are a group of kids with no self
confidence. This all changes when 70% of the moon disappears, and a
tentacle monster comes to their classroom, claiming to be the one
that destroyed the moon, at they have been assigned by the government
to kill him. He is also there new teacher, Korosensei. After this
the plot is mostly formulaic, with most episodes focusing on an
assassination, or test, until the series reaches its final arc. Each
different assassination allows one of the student assassins to get
the spotlight for the episode. One complaint I would have about how
the manga was adapted into anime form is the pacing, specifically in
the middle part of the show. I would split the plot into three
parts, the first eight episodes, mostly served as an introduction to
the story. Episodes 9 through 16, which are made out of different
character/test focused arcs, and episodes 17 through 22, which is the
Island Vacation arc. In the middle part of the series, they had to
adapt many arcs into single episodes. Some fit quite well, Like the
transfer student introduction arcs. But some went much to fast for
me, specifically the Takaoka arc, which crammed 5 chapters of story
into 20 minutes. The way the show ended with the island arc was
quite nice, it was a good stopping point. This was made even better
by the fact that a second season was already confirmed.
Characters:
Assassination Classroom has a lot of characters, a whole class full
at that. Shows with large casts usually suffer from one dimensional
characters. Assassination Classroom is somewhat hit or miss with
this. Its main characters get most of the development, leaving the
others with some sort of trait, and maybe some back story. But even
if some of them are quite one dimensional, they are still quite
enjoyable. The main character of Assassination Classroom is somewhat
up to debate. Some might say it is Nagisa, but some might say it is
Korosensei. Personally I think Nagisa is the main characters, as it
is mostly through his eyes that we see the show. The main supporting
cast consists of Karma, the delinquent. Karasuma sensei, a
government agent working as their gym teacher, and Bitch sensei, a
professional Assassin, who works as their English teacher. Then
there is the rest of the supporting cast, I can’t name them all,
but I’ll try to mention the ones that are of note. There is
Kayano, Nagisa’s friend. Okuda, who is good at science. Okajima,
the pervert. Sugino, the baseball player. Nakamura, who teases
Nagisa when Karma isn’t around. Terasaka, the bully. Fuwa, who
loves shonen manga, and Chiba and Hayami, the snipers.
Animation
and Sound: The animation for Assassination Classroom is done by
studio Lerche, and they do quite a good job. The art style is very
colorful, which fits the style very well, the colors are somewhat
dull at times, but they characters are very smooth compared to the
manga, where the art could be quite rough at the beginning. The
voice acting was ok, with a couple of stand out performances. Jun
Fukuyama does a great Korosensei, Mai Fuchigami is good at Nagisa,
Nobuhiko Okamoto does a great job as Karma and Saki Fujita is quite a
fit for Ritsu. I have only seen a couple of episodes of the Dub, so
I can’t really judge it, but from what I heard, Sonny Strait was a
fantastic Korosensei. The music in the background was unmemorable,
although I have only ever found a couple shows music memorable, the
ones that come to mind are Hunter x Hunter and Gatchaman Crowds. The
openings and ending are a different story though. The second opening
is really quite a catchy song, and the ending is quite beautiful as
well.
Conclusion:
Assassination Classroom was a series that a really enjoyed watching,
it had a good mix of comedy and action that not many shows can pull
off. I can only complain that they skipped a couple arcs from the
manga. Watching the characters grow over the series is something
that is quite enjoyable, even if you have to wait to see some of the
fruits of the growth until the next season comes out. After
everything I have said, I give Assassination Classroom a
definite recommendation, and a 7.5 out of 10. You can find
Assassination Classroom on Funimation.com.
Video Version of this review
Video Version of this review
