Anime: Assassination Classroom by Yusei Matsui (Season 1)

I know that all my posts up until now have been all manga reviews, but now I've finally had the time to do an anime review! An amazing shounen anime that any otaku who loves comedy and action, with a great mysterious story line will fall in love with instantly! I know for a fact that I loved it. I had first heard about this when I was on YouTube watching videos of others' manga collections, it made me totally pity my really empty shelf, and this title was on about 90% of these people's shelves, so I decided to look it up. Lo and behold, the mangaka, Matsui Yusei, was someone whose work I had read before, Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro, which I loved also, so I decided to give it a try.


Assassination Classroom is about a class of third year junior high students, 9th graders for those in America, who have to kill their teacher by graduation. The class is nicknamed "the End Class" because it is full of students who couldn't keep up their grades and were dropped down into the lowest class, Class 3-E. The class is isolated on the top of a mountain that's next to the school they attend, Kunugigaoka Junior High. The teacher they have to kill is a yellow octopus alien thingy that had blown up 70% of the moon, causing it to become a permanent crescent shape. For some odd reason or another, the octopus wanted to become the homeroom teacher of Class 3-E and was able to because he threatened to blow up the world, of course. The Military of Defense then explained the situation to the students and now they have the responsibility of killing the octopus before their graduation in March, and because Japanese schools are different, the school year starts in April and ends in March.


All the students in Class 3-E are important characters, but the main main characters, yes I know I said main twice, are mostly Nagisa Shiota, Karma Akabane and Korosensei, the octopus teacher guy. As the story keeps moving, more characters are introduced, like Tadaomi Karasuma-sensei, who is the one who informed them of the situation and is part of the Military of Defense. Incidentally, he's also their PE teacher, teaching them how to fight with the rubber knives and BB guns given to them to kill Korosensei. There was also Irina Jelavic-sensei, who is a professional assassin who specializes in seduction and infiltration, also referred to as Bitch-sensei throughout the story. She also teaches the kids conversational English so they can be more fluent with speaking. 

(SPOILER WARNING! START)

In the first episode, it starts out with Nagisa and the rest of the class shooting BBs at the yellow octopus teacher while he is taking roll. Later, Nagisa gets involved with another student's assassination and almost dies! In the end he's okay, but this was just an introduction episode for the rest of the season, so not much happens.

A couple of episodes later, Karma makes his appearance. He successfully injures Korosensei and destroys one of his tentacles upon meeting the teacher. Korosensei got his name from Kaede Kayano, another Class 3-E student, because he didn't have a name they could call him at first, it is also a pun, korosenai means "unkillable," so now they call him Korosensei. Karma continues to try to kill Korosensei throughout the episode, but is unsuccessful.

In the next big episode, a professional assassin, Irina Jelavic, is called in to assassinate Korosensei. She puts on a façade for everyone, but when Korosensei leaves, the façade drops and she becomes a total bitch, which is when Karma gives her the nickname, Bitch-sensei. Another reason is because the class can't say Jelavic correctly. By the end of the episode Irina stays as their English teacher, but she only teaches conversational English so that Korosensei can teach the educational English that the kids need for their tests.

More characters start to appear later on and a lot of crap hits the fan. Like, another teacher joins but is fired in the same episode, they go on a school trip to Kyoto, they have an exhibition baseball game, they meet the Five Virtuosos, they're called something else in the anime, and in the end they go to Okinawa for 2 days and 3 nights. These events aren't necessarily in order.

As the story progresses, the plot thickens... I'm starting to sound like a clichéd classic novel description, and the story starts to become more intense, yet holding onto the lighthearted comedy it started out with.

(SPOILER WARNING! END)

I enjoyed the first season a lot. I watched this when the manga was still coming out, there was no end to it just yet, and the second season hadn’t even been released. By the gods, that was so long ago, looking back on it. This is a really great anime and manga for those who like a lot of hilarity to ensue with a hint of seriousness in the plot. Thank you for reading! This is just about season one right now, but as soon as I finish up season two I will update this post! Please comment below on what you think about the series. Did you hate it or did you love it like I did? Thank you for continuing to support me and reading these posts, it means a lot to me!