Summary: >

To nurture the next generation of elites in society which will become the foundation of the nation, Japan creates a special school for this purpose. Enrollment at the school is pretty much winning at life, as anyone attending will have a head start in adulthood, but the school itself offers incredible services.

It's not a handout however, as the school operates on a meritocratic system. Students are shuffled into classes grouped by ranks, with A being the best. Class D is where the troublesome students are dumped. There are no changing classes, and no Class D has ever raised its rank. Failures of the class also mean they are denied services of the school. Kiyotaka doesn't seem bothered by his slot in Class D, but things change after meeting Suzune who is determined to climb to the top. While seemingly not interested in the classroom interplay, Kiyotaka isn't the sort who allows himself to get kicked around either. Taking the other classes down a peg may have the indirect effect of raising the rank of Class D. The others won't go down without a fight however.

Thoughts: >

If fleshed out, Classroom of the Elite will be a good anime. The trajectory is good, but it will depend on added seasons. Considering the excellent production in art, animation and music, someone thought this was worth investing in, so the rumored second season seems plausible. We'll see.

Classroom of the Elite is a storm of problems with internal strife between classmates, competition between classes, and even the teacher isn't on their side (although she seems pretty awesome in her own way). In the middle of all this is Kiyotaka, the ever calm, distant and disinterested protagonist. He's an odd choice as a central character, as he doesn't add any personality to the show (aside from his absence of one). More interesting still, he's not on anyone's side but his own. Other class members have 1-2 traits, but otherwise aren't very deep. This is an anime heavily depends on its characters, even though they aren't particularly strong. Instead the strength of them is how they interact with each other and the bigger story, and that works much better than I expected.

Problems are encountered by the class, and Kiyotaka hatches a plot to resolve them. The formula is simple and done well due to the fairly well thought out details, even if this anime isn't quite as smart as it wants to be. This culminates with the class island survival episodes, which perfectly exemplify the potential of this anime if done right. Hopefully it does more of that, because I have the feeling that the bigger plot may turn into a mess.

Screen Caps: >