Genre – Sci Fi Anime
Movie Total Runtime – 18 Hour 1 Minutes
Spoilers – Yes
I don’t know if I got part of this as a blind box and bought the rest, or if I saw it and bought it based on the sheer absurdity of the premise, it’s sat around because there are roughly 18 hours of episodes and I got things to do.
So, what is that premise? A superpowered cephalopod will destroy the world in one year unless the students in the class of rejects he teaches kill him first. It’s not a “the students are secretly plotting to kill him” situation. Nope. He went “I’m going to destroy the world in one year, and in the meantime, I want to teach this class. If you don’t let me teach this class, I’ll skip right to destroying the world now. You can save the world if the students stop me, and I’ll even advise them on technique.” The students are regular humans who are the failures and misfits of their school. Having no better name for the creature, they call him Koro-Sensei. As part of the agreement, Koro-Sensei will not harm the students in any way, even as they try to kill him.
The series opens with the entire classroom opening up with a fusillade of gunfire on the arriving Koro-Sensei. This gunfire does not damage the front of the classroom, nor are there signs of friendly-fire incidents as it is soon revealed to be pretty much airsoft weapons. They’re firing projectiles designed to interact destructively with whatever it is Koro-Sensei is made of but doesn’t with normal flesh. So aside from kinetic impact, are harmless to humans. The problem is hitting him, as super-speed is the primary ability demonstrated. He does voluntarily shoot the end of one of his own tendrils to prove to the class that the projectiles work, but they just didn’t hit.
A regular bullet’s impact would be ineffective as the moon impact turned 70% of it into floating debris leaving a crescent of rock in orbit. To be fair, that stunt has probably already doomed a big chunk of the life on Earth. Since we don’t see a rain of moon rocks falling into the atmosphere, we have to assume they were ejected outwards. There’s not enough debris in orbit to account for the missing mass. But even if the moon were now a ring, the effect would be the same. Koro-Sensei has basically killed the tides. Tidal action is a major nutrient pump in the marine biosphere. Without the stirring action, the oceans are going to become a lot more sluggish as the momentum depletes. This will drastically alter both marine and surface climates with a resultant die-off of fish the likes of which greenies can only dream of. The knock on effects even before we talk about the changes to surface weather are already catastrophic. A lot of people are in for a very bad time before the opening credits roll.
But, we only care about the classroom and the deadline before Koro-Sensei smashes the Earth. The classroom is in an isolated building up a mountain from the main campus, which makes hiding the secret superpowered cephalopod from the general populace. People know the moon went boom, but not why. In the first episode, a lot gets set up, including a teaser about Koro-Sensei’s motivations behind being the best teacher the rejects and misfits ever had. Most of the time he keeps up a creepily jovial facade born of extreme confidence regarding his abilities. Though he is highly mercurial and has an awful temper. Of course, there’s the sociopathic tendencies.
The show does play fast and loose with time zones. During lunch Koro-Sensei will fly off to some other part of the globe for some activity. In Episode 2 that’s a visit to a ball game in New York. Except, there’s a Eight hour time difference between Japan and New York. If lunch is roughly noon, it’s roughly ten at night. Yet the ballpark is under a bright blue sky. Even in the dead of summer, the sun sets around 8:30 in New York.
At the start of season one, each episode focuses on one of the students and their interactions with Koro-Sensei. The usual cycle being that students attempts to take out the instructor in some manner consistent with their personality and/or problems and leads into some sort of life lesson. As a means of introducing characters it helps keep the cast straight better than the cascade of characters you often get with ensembles at the cost of being slow. But I get the impression that the gimmick of trying to take out the teacher isn’t the central story being told. The authorities are not simply relying on the students, taking steps like embedding the Ministry of Defense guy as the Physical Education Teacher, and putting a professional assassin in deep cover as the English instructor. These adults are not covered by agreement to not hurt the students.
The pro’s ambush proved my assessment of the effectiveness of real bullets to be correct. This incident also highlights her weakness of arrogance. It’s played for comedy as her usual modus operandi is unsuited to the circumstance.
At the end of Episode 5 we get teased the start of a plot with Principal Villain and the status quo. Principal Villain is just one of my nicknames. I don’t know how much he’s an antagonist for the series – but he is the principal of the school. His is the first of the plots not built around the introduction of characters. His impact also comes back in later episodes because the school can’t escape the principal. The blunt object theme of the series is the school’s use of the rejects and misfits class as a class of undesirables to keep the remaining students in line and on track. They are motivated to avoid being made members of this class, which it is acceptable to look down upon, bully, and ostracize as having no future, as they are those with the lowest grades and worst behavioral issues. The lack of faculty and facilities at the satellite campus where the “E” class is held makes returning to a regular academic track a statistical impossibility, even if the theoretical process even exists. The improvement among students among class “E” having their individual weaknesses addressed is a threat to the system for which they are intentional sacrificial fodder. Koro-Sensei does not approve of this system and strives to undermine it via improved academics.
These side plots are fairly short, as the show is largely episodic with continuity. Trying to suss out which parts are continuity from the plot of the week is a bit of a guessing game. Makes my usually running commentary style less useful for documenting.
Amidst the mess of a more comedic episode, there was the dual implication that Koro-Sensei was not originally a cephalopod, and that the MoD guy knows more than he has shared regarding the origins.
Annoyingly, as this was one of the earlier series I’d re-encoded, I lost the subtitles. I could dig the blu-rays out of whatever box they’re in and do it over, but the problem is mainly contained to Japanese text in things like signs, emails, and other paperwork. Also annoyingly, at the halfway mark of season one they are still adding new characters even as they expand on the backstory of some existing characters. This includes another engineered creation of the project which created Koro-Sensei and the tech to hurt him. The battle between the two takes up much of Episode 11, which I’d arbitrarily picked as my cutoff point for part 1 of the review – because 47 episodes is too many for one article even if it is episodic.
Could you please clarify this? It reads to me as if some text may be missing.
The whole premise makes my head hurt.
I think I get the rest of the premise. The interesting part is the suggestion that Koro-Sensei may not really be the “bad guy.”
Oh Japan.
The impression given at this stage of the show was that he claimed to have destroyed the moon, and from the abilities demonstrated thusfar, I surmised it was from becoming the projectile that hit it.
Thank you.
Japan? Students? I want Gogo Yubari, or a character like Gogo to be in the class. Wonderful mayhem would hopefully blossom.
… Yes. I also want Gogo. Wonderful mayhem would, indeed, blossom.
The rocks would melt on entry because the moon is made of green cheese.
Neal Stephenson says the moon rocks will enter the atmosphere and obliterate all life after a couple years.
Neal Stephenson clearly never watched cartoons.
dammit, Editor! Stop SFing links.
Got home from He-Man. Big Flash Gorden feelings through it, plenty of Fisto jokes, and nothing that screamed woke at me. I’m curious how it lands with the yutes.
Threedoor: More vulgarity and double entendres than I was expecting. I would say it’s teenager appropriate.
Interesting. I shall go see this thing.
Critical Drinker gave it a favorable review. Said it was fun, didn’t abuse his memories, and was worth the time.
I don’t think I ever saw the original show. Any indicator of how it plays to somebody with no knowledge or understanding of the franchise?
Go watch it with no background and write it up. This must be done. It would be an extra special Unwatched.
I don’t recall ever sitting down to watch it but if you grew up at that time you kind of absorbed a lot of it by osmosis because everyone else watched it.
I pause the piece and write while watching. It’s part of how the voice of the reviews come about.
I also prefer not to go to theatrical releases.
I watched his take. Gave me some hope.
UCS:
One of the nephews saw it and said he really liked it. I have big doubts that he went back to watch the 80s show before catching it (he works in a movie theater, so he’s been watching everything).
The commercial looks amusing.
There’s a lot of references to bits from the old shows that they play straight. Orko shows up at the end of the movie to tell the audience the lesson they learned today, there are evil laughs, and an excuse made for the terrible names.
Thanks Neph.
I guessed it was aimed at guys like me who had had their kids about a decade earlier than I did.
“moon impact”
It would have been better for my comprehension had you mentioned right away that Squidly-diddly had shattered it as a demonstration of his ability to nutcracker the Earth.
“Tides”
I would suspect that very few people would still be alive to witness the slowing of the tides and the resultant destruction of the oceanic ecosystem after the mach one plus winds triggered by the cessation of the moon’s gravity leveled everything down to bedrock. But of course this being anime not only has the school survived but as its supporting infrastructure as well.
The premise is interesting (I’ve had something similar knocking around as a story idea), but insane as well as ridiculously unbelievable.
I do beleive you are over-estimating the effect.
No pictures of his tentacledness?
The featured image is the box art which is a closeup of Koro-Sensei’s face.
But I’m guessing you’d prefer A wide shot
lol
The punishment for that type of crime against architecture should be to have the architects flayed and hung from the wall of the building as a warning, then demolishing it when the bodies rot.
Your violent fantasies are so medieval.
I like it as a warning to all other builders: don’t do this.
(the building, that is – not the violent fantasy)
I actually like that. Has character.
TBH I don’t hate it as much as the author does. One of the things about Manhattan is all the streets are straight and all the buildings tend to look alike. I appreciate the attempt to make something “different” within another boring square block. But… it’s trying too hard.
They could have tried to make it look good instead of make it look weird.
“Modernism” is all about being “weird”.
Being boring is a cardinal sin among architects these days.
The thing is, the odds that “different for the sake of being different” will turn out better than traditional art, architecture, you name it, are vanishingly small. It’s basically just “look at me” narcissism.
Looks like a whole lot of places for water to get in.
This one I’ve watched in its entirety. It’s mindless and served it purpose.
As I’m a seiyuu otaku I watched it mostly because it’s so large it’s got most of the top voice actors of the period it was made.
Jun Fukuyama is very well known. He gets lots of “main” roles.
I’m a filthy casual. My ignorance outweighs my understanding. I don’t know voice actors by name (I might have a “that voice sounds familiar” reaction at most).
And I watched this one dubbed. Sorry.
Why haven’t we booted Commiefornia from the US?
/several other states watch with alarm
Because when states enter the union it’s Hotel California.
Everyone knows the constitution is a suicide pact.
Because every state in the union is riddled with dirty commies.
Well, there’s the kinda start of a plot, but we’ll see. I don’t know enough about the characters to have an opinion yet, so I’m kinda relying on you, but you’re not sending out too many thoughts. I did notice(!), ya don’t actively hate it. Not the other way ’round, either. Seems an awful long dive into something for a man of your tastes. Like a long ‘mediocrity watch.’
(Is the cephalopod hot? That’s it, isn’t it? Nice.)
(No.)
Also like every manga and anime franchise there has to be a guaranteed shitty live action adaption.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_Classroom_(film)
A lot of them just don’t lend themselves to a live action format. Why do they do that?
It’s all about the Yen.
So you’re saying they have a yen for Yen?
OT… Doctor Who has a lot of erased stories that are occasionally re-animated. Pluto is currently showing one of these that I did not know existed – a 2024 version of the long-lost “Celestial Toymaker” from 1966. I was going to surf elsewhere but it pulled me in. It is trippy AF.
There’s an animated Doctor Who? I had no idea.
Sprinkle some knowledge on me.
The BBC erased a lot of the early tapes because Britain was too poor and stupid to keep them. It was only in the seventies they could afford to stop doing that. But the show was popular and fans around the world taped the audio. So every once a while a lost story is recreated using new animation combined with fan recordings of the audio.
😭
Tres doesn’t read my reviews
I should add that I am happy that Pluto is finally showing some doctors other than the Fourth – seems like a year or more straight with nothing but endless recycling of his stories.
They’re still random though. Before this was a Davison story I’d never seen. And before that a decades older Hartnell.
The channel keeps advertising Who blu-rays but when I went to the BBC website there was nothing of the sort to be found.
Same with NBC and early Tonight Shows.
a Davison story I’d never seen
Whoa!
*upvotes*
I’m aware I shouldn’t be, but I’m happy I got a (short, but) meaningful job app yesterday, the proofreader one with my attached video answers. It was my first in at least three months, since I signed the test scoring contract. Just restarted the process, so it’s at least good to see theoretical possibilities out there, a hopeful start to get back in the swing of it. (The crush comes later, so best to ignore it for now.)
Switched shifts around this week, and it feels oddly good to go in tomorrow without any, well. Anything. Everyone is chill, no stress attached, just a shitload of Move X –> Point Y. Time sprints away. In an odd way, and I think this makes sense, it’s a sort of therapy. Gets your mind off some things and onto others, chiefly. Around 8 miles of walking, often carrying some box or pulling some cart, my body’s satisfied with its daily labor and lulls away any physical tension.
Fork lifts are dangerous mechano-saurs to be avoided. Niko, our forkquestrian, is a pretty cool dude, it seems. Smarter than he let on. I appreciate this gig, so *doffs cap* to Muzzled.
That job sounds right up your alley. Did you mention your dad’s career?
(Proofreading, that is. Sitting down for a change.)
I didn’t have chance to mention it, and on the off chance it comes up, I have mentioned I grew up in the newspaper business. Dad for 40yrs and Mom for at least 20. My work at the Peru Tribune is certainly on my resume, along with the others. (Phlebotomy is left off, as are grocery jobs.)
For the vids, I had to answer ‘why do you think you’re perfect for this position’ and ‘what is your vision of working with this org in this position.’ I found out I had two minutes to fill, so I did and I’m feeling pretty good about the results. *shrug*
I missed one Scrabble-gram out of 16: yay me. I was particularly proud of SHMALTZ.
Good morning to the all mighty Glibbennatti.
☀️🤣☕️
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXjf2S1KbnQ
🎶🎶
Good morning, Sean, Ted’S., and Stinky!
Morning.
How goes things?
Very well, thanks! How about you? Screen door all fixed?
Replaced outright. the new one no longer has rotting particle board in its core, it closes properly, and has an automatic closing piston (which got torn off by the wind on the old one [the wind caught the door so frequently that it first bent the piston rod, then pulled the screws from the jamb])
Buongiorno!
Good morning, ChipP! How’s everything up in your neck of the woods?
Good morning, GT.
I don’t know! We’re in Italy! It’s hot here.
🤔
Hot enough to cook on the sidewalk? Or hot enough that sunscreen counts as marinade?
That’s great! Safe travels, and I hope you can tell us about them when you get a chance!
In my day, they only called in fake bomb threats
Surprised it doesn’t happen more often. There’s got to be a couple of angst ridden teenage firebugs who haven’t been weeded out of society yet at almost every high school.
suh’ fam
whats goody
Good morning, homey!
Hows things on the other side of Main ?
Quiet so far. Glad we avoided the heavy rain that hit the south side of town last night. Don’t know if we’ve dried out enough from the last bout to avoid more puddles in the basement.
Goody is an abbreviated form of Goodwife an archaic title for a married woman lacking other title of rank.