I love it… but…
What They Say:
The good, the bad, & the killer times. The killer class is back in session, sort of. Relive every moment that made you laugh, cry, and kept you on the edge through the eyes of the top two students: Nagisa and Karma! It’s been some time since Nagisa and Karma were a part of the assassination classroom. Like the rest of Class 3-E, they’ve grown and followed their own paths. But no matter how much time has passed, they’ll still remember their time with Koro-Sensei and the lessons he taught them. Walking around their old classroom, the two former students reminisce about the time they spent in Class 3-E and the crazy events that went down. From the minute Koro-Sensei first stepped into the classroom down to their final moments – this is a look back at the adventures of assassins in training!
The Review:
Audio:
Being a movie release, this has a 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound track in both English and Japanese. Unsurprisingly, this comes out very well in both languages (even during the video commentary in the dub) and as far as going through in both languages there were no other issues regarding sound quality, echoing, synching with subtitles, etc. Being a recap movie there is reused sound but because of the extra surround sound the Japanese track stands out a lot without any adjustments so definitely worth the listen.
Video:
Video wise, colours were fine and flashy, and no issues in terms of video to audio on a 16:9 – 1.78:1 aspect ratio though set NTSC style with top/bottom widescreen, like a cinema effect and there were no problems video wise with subtitles synching, no video freezing or any slack animation when pausing the show and the colours do come out very vividly and look rather good on a Blu-Ray set up – no problems found so overall very strong.
Menu:
A traditional Blu-ray style menu, we have shots of the movie in the background following quickly whilst you can select whilst it’s moving the options of Play Movie, Scenes Set Up and Extras. Like most Blu-Rays, you have the popup menu during the movie which goes fast and can be selected for anything bar extras (even during the extras menu you can switch to the main menu when watching one of the video based extras) making it’s a colourful and accessible menu.
Extras:
The extras we get are few but one big one – we have the theatrical trailer for the movie, but the one big extra was the live video commentary of the entire movie in the dub – we get Sonny Strait (Kuro-sensei), Austin Tindle (Karma) and Mike McFarland (director) – the group discuss the series in length, joking that Sonny only came in for one line (which was really a laugh) compared to Austin’s lines due to it being a recap movie, a lot of discussion on the cast, the characterization, the ending, was it the right way to end the series, etc. A lot of questions that they (and fans/viewers) may have trouble answering but it is a fun way to get in depth with this series and the labour of love that went with it.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
This is going to be one of my shortest reviews in recent memory, because technically I have already reviewed it. This is a movie based on the Assassination Classroom series airing November 2016, several months after the anime concluded. It was always hard what was going to come after Assassination Classroom as the show ended almost perfectly, albeit sadly especially if you are a fan of Koro-sensei, but was not sure what they would do.
What they did was pretty much not what I thought…or wanted. In essence, it is just a recap movie with a few additional scenes involving Nagisa and Karma, which leads into them leaving for their jobs and looking through the classroom before everyone gets together for the annual cleaning of class 3-E as they used the money from assassinating Koro-sensei to purchase the area (among other things they did).
So this is a tough one to call – either you watch it seeing the series and realise it is a recap movie, or you go into it blind and pretty much get spoilt by the series. So, in essence, it is hard to recommend to fans or non-fans to be honest.
Personally, as a fan of AC, I loved it and the call-backs, managing to condense it to just the major issues and plot points but for me it does feel very pointless. The new scenes are pretty much Nagisa and Karma, a bit older, returning to class 3-E, going across the school and talking about their journey with Koro-sensei, which leads to scenes from the series. We get a lot of the classic moments, like Karma’s first interaction with Koro-sensei (and I won’t deny watching a lot of these scenes makes you how memorable some of the cast was, and I forgot about Karma’s history regarding his previous teacher so in that regard it does well), Nagisa’s problems with his mother wanting him to be a girl (and how he manages to stand up to her eventually with Koro-sensei’s help), along with Kayano’s character and how her history as the sister of their previous teacher comes up, right up until the conclusion facing off against the 2nd reaper and Yanagisawa, up until the final blow.
And yes, I still cried watching those scenes…
The catch is a lot of what made it work is skipped over and gives you just enough that you follow the story – but you don’t get many cameos from Karasama and Irina and their role, you don’t get the turmoil much between whether they kill Koro-sensei or not (you do get the initial fight between Karma/Nagisa and the conclusion during the paint ball part, but nothing in between) – you do get a recap of all of Koro-sensei’s weaknesses and such, and a lot of his more comical scenes, reminding you how well the series did comedy as well, but things like the conflict between Asano are omitted, Nagisa’s development as an assassin (though we get the scene where he realises he is good as an assassin but wants to use his skills for good and become a teacher instead), the poisoning arc – granted they needed to condense it into a 90 minute like movie, and to be fair they did get the basics of the story throughout, but it just feels like it didn’t need to be there.
It is really hard to recommend the movie because if you’ve seen the series, you don’t really need to see the movie due to the only new scenes being Nagisa and Karma talking about the past. And if you haven’t seen the series, the recap is just enough information for the main conflicts between the two boys and what Koro-sensei is about, but skips too much that you can’t focus on their development as well as potentially ruining what made the series fantastic. I enjoyed it, but it isn’t really necessary viewing.
In Summary:
If you love Assassination Classroom, you will enjoy seeing the series in condensed form and see Koro-sensei’s funniest moments combined with a lot of Nagisa, Karma and also Kayano (who wasn’t there) in their main roles throughout the movie. The problem is that any hope of something as a proper sequel is gone quickly and you’ll be disappointed, and it’s hard to recommend to people who haven’t seen it as it flies back and the spoilers are heavy but without the development. Definitely enjoyable to any AC fan, but also not required viewing or a necessary product to see.
Features:
Japanese Language, English Language, English Subtitles, Theatrical Trailer, Dub Video Commentary
Content Grade: C
Audio Grade: A
Video Grade: A
Packaging Grade: N/A
Menu Grade: B+
Extras Grade: B
Released By: Anime Limited
Release Date: December 17th, 2018
MSRP: £19.99
Running Time: 92 minutes
Video Encoding: 1080p AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen
Review Equipment:
Playstation 4, Sony Bravia 32 Inc EX4 Television, Aiwa 2 Way Twin Duct Bass Reflex Speaker System.
