Ansatsu Kyoushitsu / First Impressions

「カルマの時間」 (Karuma no Jikan)
“Karma Time”

As stated in the excerpt, Ansatsu Kyoushitsu was delayed last week, presumably due to the hostage situation related to ISIL. However, the show must eventually go on, and so regular coverage ha resumed.

Despite the wait, today’s episode was fairly average as compared to episodes one and two. This week introduced a fairly competent and psychopathic character, Akabane Karma (Okamoto Nobuhiko), a student with smarts and cunning, enough so to be the first to injure Koro-sensei. What makes Karma stand out though is that his psychotic tendencies aren’t directed towards anyone in class 3-E, but rather towards those who break his internal code of ethics. While Karma may come off as a mentally unstable person who is unfriendly towards anyone, his actual persona betrays how moral he actually is. Although his methods may be violent, Karma does what he believes is right, but grows distrustful of anyone who challenges that internal code. This was evidenced by his physical beatdown of a top student bullying a Class E student, earning the ire of the teacher he trusted, leading to today’s assassination attempt on Koro-sensei, and symbolically, all teachers in general. However, come Koro-sensei to save the day, and in one episode, the situation is resolved and Koro-sensei earns the respect of another student.

While I like Ansatsu Kyoushitsu’s efforts to humanize these students who have become disconnected with the current educational system, these single episode formulas aren’t doing the show’s potential emotional depth much service. Just as soon as we’re introduced to a character’s troubles, so soon do we see said troubles resolved by the almighty Koro-sensei. Don’t get me wrong, Koro-sensei is awesome and I like his methods, but the show doesn’t go into enough detail to really sell us on these issues. Oftentimes, the show resorts to cheap characterizations, such as the absolutely rotten main student body or the amazingly heartless teacher, to drive home its point, which offers a quick explanation, but at the cost of quality depth. Perhaps these characterizations hit harder at home in Japan, but one-sided antagonists just don’t offer much in terms of presenting a realistic struggle. It seems unfair to paint the entire main campus as this heartless institution, both in students and teachers–of course that sort of environment is terrible and I can’t imagine anyone who would think otherwise. If this pattern of troubled student affected by an easy prop-up villain of education continues without some proper arcs to give more depth, it’ll be a disappointing next set of episodes. However, I have faith that as more characters continue to trust Koro-sensei, we’ll see more elaborate developments occur over longer periods of time.

End Card

27 Comments

  1. This anime is being done right on so many levels. Why couldn’t all of the other failed adaptions be like this?

    As for this episode in particular. Compared to the manga, the pacing really emphasized how much Karma was hurting Koro-sensei. Also the drama for when Karma fell was greatly increased, although the result was typical.

    Noor
    Reply

  3. dat end card lol. I do agree the single episode formula for each person does get repetitive and I hope they don’t continue this trend for like half the show. Over all I am enjoying this show though its fun to watch.

    shen
    Reply

  4. Unfortunately, the manga being over 100 chapters long, and the show having so few episodes, does mean that the chapters that form an arc (such as Karma’s introduction) are compartmentalized some (such as in episode 2, where a couple of unrelated chapters were merged together). Karma’s disrespect towards teachers is lessened, but…well, let’s just say he retains the rest of his character. He’s just not nearly so antagonistic in particular to Korosensei (which is just as well considering how disruptive Karma was to the rest of the class). Here’s hoping the next few chapters are more satisfying.

    Taiko
    Reply

    3. I was at the HorribleSubs site when this happened last week and If I remember correctly, they were flooded with ”Where is AssClass ep.3?” questions so they decided to rip from AnimeLab, an Australian simulcasting website. Funi is restricted to the U.S. and Canada only and AnimeLab has legal rights from Japan.

      Slaine the Best Shooter (Captain of the Kuroko hype train)
      Reply

  13. This turned out to be a pleasant surprise for me in a fairly bleak season. So much so that disciplined be damned, I ended up reading the manga. Good stuff IMO. Have to agree with what Noor posted above. This is a good adaptation, and I’m fully on board for the entire run. 😀 Looking forward to next episode.

    daikama
    Reply

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