Beware the quiet ones
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 I complained the last time that even though it was technically a good episode, tonally it felt out of place with what came before it. This episode on the other hand feels like it should have been the one that had aired then as it’s a lot more fitting. What we get here is an interesting piece that works not only as a dual character episode but also one that lays the foundation for a great future conflict.
The assassination training the kids are starting to do is starting to pay off thanks to Karasuma, but both him and the kids are starting to notice a gulf between them thanks to his sense of professionalism. Karasuma hasn’t had much to do as a character having mostly been delegated to the background but he gets some nice focus here when a new phys ed teacher named Takaoka arrives to the class. At first Karasuma thinks the kids may be better off with Takaoka than him since Takaoka’s approach seems much friendlier but it turns out that his methods are pretty physically abusive. Korosensei is less than pleased about it but since it is a legitimate teaching method (even if that would be a walking lawsuit if most parents discovered it) he can’t touch him and instead has to leave it to Karasuma. However while this would normally be where Karasuma steals the show, the real standout here is another person entirely.
Takaoka wants to settle the dispute between their teaching methods by having one of Karasuma’s best trained students fight Takaoka in a knife duel (and this one with actual knives) under the condition that if they can touch him even once he’ll concede. Said student turns out to be none other than Nagisa. Korosensei has been such a show-stealer as a character and some of the other students so varied that it’s easy to forget Nagisa is supposed to be the lead among the latter. Especially so when you consider how much his presence as a narrator of sorts makes it easy for him to fall into the background even more than Karasuma does. However it’s those exact traits that make his moment in the episode such a highlight. When he does the duel against Takaoka, Karasuma tells him to treat it as though it’s an assassination and despite the psychological pressure that should come with using an actual knife against a human opponent he executes the job with cold precision and makes Takaoka concede. It turns out Nagisa’s got a real knack for assassination and one that could be honed into something much more lethal than expected. .
Karasuma gets his spotlight in the episode back a bit when Nagisa points out how much better of a teacher he is compared to Takaoka, and he manages to stop Takaoka from taking revenge on Nagisa for disgracing him. That’s mostly it for him though, as it’s ultimately the principal who sends Takaoka packing when he finds out about his methods and disapproves. It’s nice to know that even he draws the line at actual physical abuse but it’s something that obviously goes without saying and it takes a little of the focus away from Karasuma. Thankfully however, the Nagisa stuff certainly doesn’t as both Karasuma and Korosensei are worried about Nagisa’s unusual talent and while they decide to put off worrying about it for now, they know it’s something they’ll have to face in the future and it’s definitely an interesting conundrum since it allows for the main concept of the series to work more effectively going forward.
In Summary:
Assassination Classroom dishes out a dual character episode this week and though it leans more in favor of one character over the other, it’s still one that works effectively. It doesn’t feel like we’ve seen the last of Takaoka and Nagisa’s talent for assassination is something that adds a lot more potential for his development as a character in the future. It should be a lot of fun to see how both of those aspects end up playing out later on though I’d be lying if I said the latter didn’t sound a lot more interesting.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Funimation, Hulu
