Look who’s back. Well, life happened for me, and I was taking a break but I’m back. However, I want to experiment with different types of posts than just reviews. More opinions so to speak. So you’re free to debate me, but please be civil. But I digress, let us begin.
Like every other Classroom of the Elite fan, I was waiting for season 4 and like every other fan, I too held the same opinion. While the story gets across and the animation is still better, the overall quality is something that can only be described as lackluster. I won’t get into Kiyotaka’s overall design because that is an entirely different debate. However, I want to talk about cut content. There is a lot of cut stuff (Please read the novels, they are simply superior in their storytelling and characterization). While everyone is talking about Ryueen’s kick and Ike’s glow-up scenes, I think that what is lacking more in this season is Kiyotaka’s internal thoughts.
It’s pretty easy to show dialogue and fight scenes, not that they’re doing a good job at the fight scenes either. However, talking and action dominate the screenplay in a way that it takes less creativity to adapt the source material. When we talk about internal monologues, though, the situation flips. You need to find a creative way to display it without it seeming like an information dump. A shot of Kiyotaka looking over the class as his internal dialogue plays is not the way to go. I think the Nanase scene where Kiyotaka looks at her as she walks away and guesses at her being the White Room student is a better way. Scenes like that give your eyes something to do except just reading the dialogue or listening to it (if you’re a sub watcher).
This issue is what makes the director cut out some of the monologues I believe. This would not be a problem at all if like any typical shounen most of the information was shared as dialogues between fights. I’m not saying shounen don’t have ‘just talking’ moments, but these are usually emotionally charged conversations that can be filled with background music, flashback scenes and most of all facial expressions. Facial expressions are another thing that COTE gets wrong because in a show where manipulation through dialogue is a better part of the show, facial expressions can carry dialogue scenes a long way.
Even if they did manage to increase the budget and give us better facial expressions through the characters, the monologue problem still would be left unsolved. The problem being that Classroom of the Elite is a dive into the mind of the somewhat psychopathic genius named Ayanokouji Kiyotaka. If we cut out the internal monologues where he ponders his existence in the ANHS, his tactics and manipulation, we cut out a major chunk of his character. This leaves him as a very badly written genius-type character who is simply ‘able to do everything’ and is emotionless. Which is untrue because Kiyotaka feels emotions slowly throughout the series and his thought process shows that.
Classroom of the Elite thrives on Kiyotaka’s cold-hearted and calculated plays but the cut monologues rob us of the frameworks he uses to think thus mischaracterizing him. The problem is how difficult it is to adapt these scenes, as I explained before because your mind needs the simulation to actually keep watching. Think of it like how you watch infographic videos and like those that have better animations than a PPT slideshow. The time constraints are another factor that has hampered the quality of COTE. Rushed pacing has multiple times cut out major plot points and has even made the show retcon its own established facts.
Overall, I’m disappointed in the fact that COTE is still not receiving the adaptation that makes the anime a superior version of the light novels. While I am still happy that it funnels new fans into the source material, I still would have very much liked to see Kiyotaka fleshed out as a character especially since Year 2 really goes into his motivations and character development. I would maybe complain less if the show managed to do the fight scenes better but there’s no sign of improvement on that front. I understand how difficult it is to adapt a series like COTE and that is exactly why I believe that mind games don’t work well as anime adaptations.
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