Assassination Classroom

Review:

Recommended by my friends Lewis and James.

 K so first of all, I dropped the OVAs from this because I wanna just write this review already, I don't really care about the OVAs anymore. 

Assassination Classroom is the first anime EVER to even brush the surface of Demon Slayer. I’ve never, EVER had to consider a top 1 qualifier with demon slayer. Let’s just be straight forward: Assassination Classroom’s story is not only more interesting, but more complex and unique than Demon Slayer’s will ever be. A world where a mysterious creature threatens to destroy earth but also wants to teach a class? That’s already a mystery from episode one, which makes the anticipation of an explanation astronomical. The story, the characters, the execution of the genres, it's all perfect. 

What puts it at #2 for me is the consistency. Assassination Classroom is a lot of things, but one thing it isn’t is an ultra-consistent intense, developing story with minimum slice of life. I like slice of life, there's even a little bit of it in Demon Slayer! But when the anime is mainly a slice of life? That becomes a problem. Here's my take: Demon Slayer is epic because it just executes things perfectly. The story is simple, but it executes it better than anything I’ve seen. Assassination Classroom on the other hand, is only as epic as it is because of the sheer amount of slice of life. The epic moments stand out more because the show is filled with dull inconsistencies. What I’m saying is that Assassination Classroom wastes time to purposely make the plot twists seem cooler. It’s why The Future Diary felt really really good, but it was almost too intense for me. There was a LOT less slice of life in The Future Diary than there was in this. Assassination Classroom’s slice of life aspects are a blessing and a curse. The slice of life aspects make the genre EXTREMELY unique, making for a type of anime I’ve never even thought of. However, these aspects make the anime feel really wonky in terms of what it’s trying to do. One episode everyones taking math tests or setting up a high school festival, and then another one they’re having Koro Sensei and The Reaper go fucking Dragon Ball Z demon slayer ent. District arc ep 10 style fighting. It’s really really unique, but like I said, Demon Slayer doesn’t even need any of those inconsistencies to be good. Demon Slayer might have a simpler, more predictable story, but it’s executed better and more consistently. If Assassination Classroom was all intense, emotional, epic scenes like Demon Slayer is, the point of the show would be ruined. The show is about life lessons, education, funny characters and relationships, slice of life aspects, and of course, assassinating your teacher. The show makes the assassination very fun and doesn’t always take itself too seriously. And I love it to DEATH for that. However, that unfortunately can’t compete with Demon Slayer’s precise consistency and tearjerking fashion. Even with Demon Slayer not having an ending, it still beats Assassination Classroom for me. They’re similar in length, but look how much time Demon Slayer saves! Almost all 44 episodes of Demon Slayer are used for something important, and THAT is why I respect it more. Assassination Classroom may have had a more packed story, with an ending and everything, but it just wasted SO much time in my eyes. Also, Demon Slayer’s visuals and music are way better than Assassination Classroom, sorry not sorry. 

I still think everything combined about Assassination Classroom puts it above Bunny Girl Senpai. I mean, the final boss scene with Koro Sensei was almost on par with Demon Slayer. The problem is how rare those scenes are in Assassination Classroom. I’m not saying they should have been common, as again, that’s not the point of the show. I’m just stating how it is. 

The ending of Assassination Classroom was bittersweet. The point of the show was to kill Korosensei, and for a while I thought they wouldn’t do it. Alas, as Nagisa stabbed his heart, my eyes did water up quite a bit. It’s kinda like Akame ga Kill, where the point of the show is indeed for someone to die at some point. Only thing wrong with Akame ga Kill is that NEARLY EVERYONE DIES WHAT THE FUCK. I love how the ending wraps everything up, having Nagisa become a new Koro Sensei for new students. It just brings everything full circle, giving it the BEST ending on this list, period. Better than Bunny Girl Senpai. Sometimes long anime and tons of character development make an ending hit harder, sorry Bunny Girl Senpai. Assassination Classroom just did an insanely good job with their 47 episodes, even if it wasn’t as good as demon slayer. The length of the anime was definitely a problem, but not enough for me to dislike it a good bit like Re:ZERO. The characters, the context, the story, and the overall mood behind the ending was just mind blowing. Amazing. (Edit: I think I overrated this show by quite a bit because of the ending but the show overall is really inconsistent and the pacing is garbage, I think it's worse than Re:Zero because Re:Zero has so much more action.)

Review (Rewatch):
I really enjoyed coming back to this. I think I appreciated S1 a lot more this time around, so I closed the gap between S1 and S2 a bit. S2 just had some questionable pacing, but the peaks of S2 kinda made up for it. 

I moved the characters down because the cast is way too big, and most of the characters don't get fleshed out at all. Korosensei still carries the show, but the huge cast of students does drag it down a bit. Especially when Korosensei's taking attendance in his final moments.

I did enjoy the music a bit more this time around, and visuals of the Karma vs Nagisa fight was really cool in S2, along with Korosensei vs The Reaper 2.0.

I think this show is better than Charlotte now that I've rewatched. I think Charlotte's ending doesn't hit as hard, even if the story is insane in the 2nd half. What I will say is that the lows of AssClass are lower than the lows of Charlotte, mainly because the first half of Charlotte is just kinda okay, while AssClass (esp in s2) has some dogshit. The problem with Charlotte is that the mid stuff is quite literally half the show, while Assclass it's maybe a third of the show.

The ending still made me tear up. Definitely not as much as when I first watched it obviously, but it still emotionally impacting me definitely says something about the writing and character of Korosensei.

I still love the ending, wraps up everything, and has that cycle-style ending where Nagisa takes Korosensei's place.