Classroom of the Elite might be a sign that I’m getting too old for some things. In particular, the high school set manga in which the kids are allowed to rule their schools, even to the extent of life and death (kind of but probably not really) competitions for status. The Advanced Nurturing High School (ironically named, at least to me) seemingly encourages a cut-throat atmosphere where the graduates are basically guaranteed good college, good job, etc. Naturally, most of our characters are in the lowest ranked class and must use a combination of guts and smarts to claw their way to respect. The interesting twist is that the main female character Suzune Horikita is actually pretty unlikable yet I kind of want her to win (once she gets over herself a little); she’s blunt and almost anti-social, believing she deserves to be in the top class when she’s actually in the lowest. The main guy is the seemingly average Kiyotaka Ayanokoujiis in the same class, and he want to get by without attracting attention. Naturally no one and nothing is as it seems, and it’s suggested by the end of volume 5 that Kiyotaka might actually be hiding something(s). Then again, when the class “I want to be everyone’s friend’ turns out to actually be a terrible person, you know that this is the kind of story where everyone is going to be hiding something. I actually do kind of want to know Kiyotaka’s thing, although I have my suspicions, and Suzune actually seems to have the right kind of plans to succeed, but of course, this has to be an ensemble effort. I’m guessing there will be much allegiance shifting before this thing is done, though I doubt I’ll hang on for the end.
The points system seems pretty meaningless, and naturally is loaded with unforeseen traps, and the camping trip/survival challenge, which is basically the show ‘Survivor: High School edition”, is firstly a stupid trope that doesn’t really work except to show the serious strategist that Kiyotaka might be. There’s already a few betrayals, and there will probably be more before the end of the challenge, and I don’t really care already. The underwear thief bit is also a stupid trope that does nothing but make everyone look bad for how they react one way or the other. Is it a set up? Probably, but why does only Kiyotaka seem to realize this? If this is supposed to be a smarty pants school, even the low ranked students should be able to see that much.
Did I mention I suspect I’m getting too old for this kind of thing? The whole Survivor atmosphere is a turn off, and that started before the camping challenge; most of the characters except for the main pair are totally irritating archetypes (two faced, sports idiot who might have a conscience, mystery older girl, superiority complexes, etc.) , and even Suzune and Kiyotaka are tropes, but at least I kind of want to see how they’ll pull it off.
