Assassination Classroom season 2

Episode 23

Sometimes a yellow mutant junior high teacher's gotta do what a yellow mutant junior high teacher's gotta do. Left with no choice but to fight, Koro Sensei jumps into action against Yanagisawa and “Reaper 2.0” this week. He's able to hold his own against the two of them, at least until Yanagisawa decides to change tactics. He has Reaper attack Class E, and Koro Sensei appears to be on the verge of defeat after taking some big hits in defense of the students. Kayano rushes into the fight in an attempt to give Koro Sensei a chance to heal, only to suffer a life-threatening injury herself. The sight of one of his students being wounded pushes Koro Sensei over the edge, and he defeats both Reaper and Yanagisawa in quick succession. With the battle over, Koro Sensei enlists the help of the rest of the class to heal Kayano's injuries.

The fight against Reaper and Yanagisawa is the primary focus of this episode, and it plays out more or less as you'd expect. Koro Sensei is able to cancel out his opponents' strength and speed by being clever, so the baddies inevitably turn to underhanded tactics. Kayano ends up drawing the narrative short straw, with her injury providing the necessary motivation for Koro Sensei to throw everything he has at his opponents. Yanagisawa gets blown away by a blast of shiny good guy energy, and Koro Sensei finishes off Reaper in a suitably dramatic fashion. It's a by-the-book way for a scene like this to play out, but the show is able to provide all the necessary emotional highs and lows to keep things interesting at a nice pace.

The one real stumble is Kayano's non-death scene, which comes across as a cheap emotional ploy that the show quickly undoes after the battle ends. It's certainly manipulative, though it does at least tie into Koro Sensei's backstory. By finding a way to save Kayano after she takes a hit to protect him, he's able to symbolically atone for failing to save Yukimura a year earlier. As far as I'm concerned, there's more meaning to be found in Koro Sensei's earlier speech about his duty to protect his students. That defiant little monologue in which he refuses to count Class E's presence as a disadvantage does a much better job of bringing the important parts of Koro Sensei's character to the fore. The show doesn't have to fake someone's death for extra credit.

Of course, no analysis of this episode's tearjerker moments would be complete without looking at the end of Koro Sensei's fight with Reaper. By setting up a fresh confrontation between the two of them, Assassination Classroom has brought some much-needed closure to this storyline. The show does it the hard way too, forcing its main character to admit his past failure instead of finding a convenient excuse to absolve him of responsibility. We're given one last flashback to their days as mentor and apprentice, and it's a moment where the Koro Sensei of the present might have acknowledged his student's success and used it to motivate him further. There's no doing that moment over, but it feels like enough for Koro Sensei to finally “see” his former pupil at the end of their battle. Those few seconds of reconciliation are a fine way to end the fight, and it's a conclusion that feels true to the spirit of the series.

With this episode, Assassination Classroom has effectively closed the book on Koro Sensei's backstory. The big yellow guy has had a chance to address his greatest regrets, which will allow the series to focus on its core classroom dynamic going forward. With the exception of one emotional cheap shot (and even that's somewhat justifiable), this is good solid storytelling.

Rating: A-

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.