Classroom of the Elite: Year 2

Pushing through the story’s second year, an evident amount of growth is exhibited by the characters. Year 2’s notable strength is how it provides an avenue for the former Class D—those who were once underdogs of their year—to face increasingly complex challenges that push them toward genuine growth. Exhibit A: we have students such as Horikita, Sudou, and Kushida face personal hurdles they have to push through head-on to confront their flaws and reevaluate their roles within the class. The most notable of them all, Horikita Suzune, evolves from an individualistic, ice-cold princess into a growing leader. Sudou pivots toward a more emotionally mature characterwhose evolving rationality is continuously challenging his hot-tempered shadow of a character. Even Kushida slowly but surely develops into a character that outgrows her manipulative nature of a facade. They are faced with trials that they not only have to face as individuals but as a class, contributing to the growing sense of unity. They have evidently grown from a fragmented group of selfish individuals to a coherent group of people whose collaboration displays cooperation, strategic collaboration, and a sense of shared responsibility. A Cast Maturing Past its Protagonist However, for all its progress as a story, this growth comes with a significant caveat: while the class matures, the protagonist—despite the narrative’s efforts to shift this trait—remains emotionally static. While the story positions his obsession with winning as a measure of success—a product of his upbringing from the White Room—he continues to walk the longer path by acting behind the scenes. Of course, this is just a byproduct of his inconsistent desire to avoid attention, but in his second year of high school, a hint of change in our protagonist’s established utilitarian mindset is teased. The story positions Ayanokouji toward a different path toward emotional growth—deviating from his cold philosophy and discovering the true essence of being an emotional human. His deepening relationship with Kei, earning the loyalty of his classmates, and even the reflections on other characters’ development all imply the story’s desire to let Ayanokouji look past a desirable outcome—to understand human connection. Unfortunately, the writing falls short in executing that promise. Despite the repeated suggestions that Ayanokouji wants his class to operate without him, he continues to intervene in critical moments. He manipulates the outcome from under the shadows that allows Horikita and the class to believe that their success is a product of class cohesion and genuine hard work. While this may be a purposeful decision to propagate the promise into a later book, the fact remains that the story wants him to explore his emotional growth while simultaneously refusing to take any real risks. The problem isn’t that Ayanokouji is an emotionally stagnant character—it’s that the author keeps pretending that he’s growing while narratively ensuring his stoic and utilitarian base for a character remains the same. His humanity is teased, yet never explored in depth. He balances the two philosophies of “winning at all costs” and the idea of humanizing our protagonist, yet the aforementioned ideals are never reconciled. What could have been a compelling internal conflict between control and vulnerability; perfection and imperfection, is reduced to progress the plot despite his character growth, at least partially, was never resolved. In trying to have both ideologies coexist, the author undermines the thematic ambition and leaves the protagonist feeling shallow and unresolved. Reemergence of the White Room Moving to the main distinction between Year 2 and Year 1, we see the reintroduction of the White Room—a place Ayanokouji once escaped. This external institution’s attempt to expel him by sending students feels less like a compelling narrative conflict and more like an excuse to artificially sustain tension. It even undermines the authority of the Advanced Nurturing High School, given how easily outside forces manage to infiltrate it. That said, this development does yield a narrative benefit: it ties Ayanokouji’s past directly to his present circumstances. His encounters with other White Room students offer a mirror to what he could have become, creating a more grounded connection between his origins and the world around him. However exciting the conflict with the mysterious White Room agent may be, its prolonged presence across fifteen volumes ultimately diminishes its impact. Rather than serving as a genuine threat or catalyst for growth, it becomes a means to stretch the story and reassert Ayanokouji’s superiority. In doing so, the narrative misses a critical opportunity to meaningfully bridge his past and present and to challenge the trajectory of who he is becoming. An Incoherent Battleground Moving on to a more fundamental flaw, worldbuilding remains incoherent—establishing malls and services for fewer than 500 people is absurd to anyone with even a basic understanding of economics. More concerning, however, is a system where the student council holds more power than the institution itself. Calling it a “student council” is misleading when all authority is monopolized by one person: Nagumo, the student body president. The rest of the council is reduced to little more than an executive committee—obedient enforcers stripped of any real agency or representative function. While the council does exist to execute its responsibility, be it lobbying grievances, managing events, establishing new rules, or even spearheading to maintain the current order of the institution, the way the author uses this system feels less institutional and more a contrived arena to erupt conflict between Nagumo and Ayanokouji. Nagumo clearly exploits his authority to corner Ayanojouji, yet the extent of his authority is implausible. A student body president wielding absolute authority with no oversight strains credibility and all sense of reason even within the show’s meritocratic setup. Final Thoughts Obviously, this review isn’t for the general audience but for the fans that made it past the first-year series. After all, this is already the second installment of Classroom of the Elite, so I’m writing for those who’ve followed the story this far. I’m simply here to give my two cents and hopefully offer a different perspective, as those who disliked the series wouldn’t be able to give theirs, as they most likely stopped at the first series. Nonetheless, I still find the series entertaining. It’s rich in intricate power plays, tactical battles, and high-stakes mind games. It improved many of the characters, yet there is still much to improve when it comes to the protagonist, which will hopefully be resolved by the third installment of the series. I don’t believe this is peak storytelling, as it falls short in many opportunities and is established on an inconsistent and nonsensical world, but don’t be discouraged from liking the story as it is. There is a charm to this story, and I do hope for a better third season.