New term, same hi-jinks
What They Say:
One day a weird tentacle creature destroys 70% of the moon and threatens to do the same to Earth in a year. However in exchange for being allowed to teach a group of misfit students called the E-Class, he’ll allow them to try and assassinate him. With the chance to earn 10 billion yen and prove their worth to the world, the kids are willing to give it a shot, but this thing might just end up being the best teacher they’ve ever had.
The Review:
Content (warning as portions of this review may contain spoilers): So after half a year’s absence it’s back to the old execution grounds with Assassination Classroom. Season 1 proved to be pretty solid despite my worries about how well the adaptation was going to turn out, and the show proved to have quite a bit of heart underneath its bizarre premise. Given that, season 2 has quite a bit to live up to and especially so given the strength of the finale we got last season. But does this one start off with a bang?
So after half a year’s absence it’s back to the old execution grounds with Assassination Classroom. Season 1 proved to be pretty solid despite my worries about how well the adaptation was going to turn out, and the show proved to have quite a bit of heart underneath its bizarre premise. Given that, season 2 has quite a bit to live up to and especially so given the strength of the finale we got last season. But does this one start off with a bang?
Well…technically yeah but we’ll get to that in a bit. Firstly we have things pretty much exactly where we left off as the class is still at the island resort. Korosensei decides to have some fun with the class by holding a test of courage in a nearby cave, but it quickly becomes clear he’s up to no good as usual as he has shipping on the brain and plans to scare the kids into hooking up with each other. Needless to say, this doesn’t go as expected since the kids are onto his antics but in the process they inadvertently discover a different potential hookup: Irina and Karasuma.
Seeing Irina’s crush on Karasuma, the class tries to come up with ways of making her more appealing to him, but all of them end up backfiring. In the end, they opt for setting up a romantic dinner for the two of them, but despite setting up a decent mood, Irina can’t bring herself to fully go through with it as fears from her past end up taking hold. However, despite botching the dinner date she, at least, manages to get a confession in…but too bad Karasuma’s too dense to understand it. This whole bit takes up the majority of the episode with the rest devoted to the kids and Korosensei taking things easy at a summer festival after returning from the trip as the next term awaits.
If you were expecting this new season to come out of the gate full steam, that’s certainly not what we get here but that’s not exactly a bad thing. What we get instead is more along the lines of the show’s usual brand of entertainment, and it’s a pretty good way to reel people back in as it’s hard not to get caught up in it’s strange hi-jinks. That said, we do get a few teases of meatier material as bits of Nagisa’s family issues are touched upon, more of the government pushes forward with their Korosensei assassination plans and, of course, the biggest being Lovro seemingly getting killed by the Reaper, whose existence was teased forever ago. This isn’t the biggest way to start off the second season, but a mix of old with a bit of new is a fairly solid start.
In Summary:
Assassination Classroom’s second season picks off pretty much exactly from where the first season ended. Although despite what that would imply, the result is more of the same old, same old in regards to it’s usual shenanigans rather than kicking things off with a more explosive start. Though given that the show’s brand of same old, same old is generally pretty fun, it makes for a good entry back into the show’s world, and there’s just enough new material teased to keeping it from feeling a bit too slow. With how strong season 1 turned out to be as a whole, I’m hoping season 2 manages to deliver just as strong, if not more.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Funimation, Hulu
