Assassination Classroom season 2

Episode 12

More often than not, anime story arcs can be divided into neat little episode-sized chunks. Whether a plotline spans two episodes or twenty, there's a good chance that it will start at the beginning of one episode and wrap up at the end of another. But every once in a while, we get something like this latest installment of Assassination Classroom: a case where the end of a story only takes up half an episode, saddling the show with the tough task of starting something new in the remaining screen time. Even in a good series, the results rarely seem to work as well as you might like.

We start off with the conclusion of the exams, where Karma and Asano take on a difficult final question. They both attempt to find the answer using their own methods, but only Karma's approach yields the correct solution in time. This allows Class E to take the top spot in the test rankings, and everyone in the class makes it into the top 50. It's a resounding victory over the heavily favored Class A, and this academic butt-kicking is so convincing that the school's top students ask the principal to send them to Class E. This doesn't go over well, so the principal ends up slating Class E's building for demolition and threatening to fire Koro Sensei. He's willing to back down, but only if Koro Sensei agrees to take on a dangerous challenge involving a collection of textbooks and a handful of live grenades.

Thanks in large part to the setup that the show did last week, the first half of this episode is strong across the board. Karma and Asano's efforts to solve the final question make for Assassination Classroom's most successful exam scene to date. The bombastic visual style remains, but it's used effectively to show how two characters approach the same problem in different ways. By dialing back the monster metaphors a notch and giving us a more detailed look at a specific challenge, the show is able to strike a better balance between exciting visuals and coherent storytelling. Even if the academic details of the question go over our heads, we can learn about the characters' personalities by watching how they look for a solution.

In a moment of clever plotting, Asano also manages to win by losing in this episode. Even as he loses the top spot to Karma, he succeeds in undermining his father's teaching style. In terms of the show's overall narrative, there's a lot of significance behind the Class A kids deciding that they'd rather be in Class E. The show doesn't even need to bring in Koro Sensei or anyone from Class E to make the scene work; the honor students are competent enough to figure things out on their own. It's a smart and satisfying way to close the book on this particular storyline. If the episode had ended here, it would've easily earned a higher mark.

Unfortunately, the second half doesn't measure up to the first. Admittedly, the grenade trap doesn't really get a fair shake; there's barely enough time to establish the premise and get things rolling. Assassination Classroom could certainly do something interesting with this setup next week, but nothing about it has really grabbed me thus far. The show's weaker villains tend to go berserk as soon as the protagonists gain the upper hand, and the principal falls into the same bad habit here. His reaction to losing in the episode's first half seems almost petty, lacking the sinister creativity that makes him a decent villain. Any generic baddie could threaten to blow up a building and force Koro Sensei into an explosive twist on Russian Roulette, which is why it seems underwhelming when it comes from the guy who's supposed to be the evil mastermind. It's not so much a bad premise as a bland one.

When you split an episode into one good half and another that's merely acceptable, the end result is still pretty watchable. I'm holding out hope that the principal's exploding textbooks will yield some fun twists and turns next week, especially since this new story allows Koro Sensei to play a more active role. It's been a while since the big yellow guy has had a chance to play the lead, so perhaps Assassination Classroom has been saving up some good material for him. Only time will tell.

Rating: B

Assassination Classroom is currently streaming on Funimation.

Paul Jensen is a freelance writer and editor. You can follow more of his anime-related ramblings on Twitter.