Anime Review: Assassination Classroom Season 2: Part 2 Page 1

Anime Review: Assassination Classroom Season 2: Part 2

Assassination Classroom Season 2: Part 2 (UK Rating: 15)

While the series reached its conclusion in October 2016 in Japan, here in the UK the final volume of the Assassination Classroom manga has just been released courtesy of Viz Media. Fittingly, Funimation, via All the Anime, is bringing the finale to the anime here at the same time. While it hasn't run for as long as some of Jump's big titles, it's still been almost six years and the series has gathered quite the fan-base, but all good things must come to an end, and just like its star attraction, for this series, time is up. This final part consists of episodes 14 - 25 and is available now.

The first half of this second season was fairly disappointing; the anime adaptation clearly had a certain schedule to fit with, having to cover all of the remaining manga within these 25 episodes. Some of the smaller stories could have been cut out or big edits made; instead, the story was kept as is and the stories rushed through in the first part of this season and to some extent that continues here. The difference is that these small story arcs are so much better than in part one. Even better, anime adaptations are somewhat notorious for dragging out stories; the age-old meme of numerous episodes spent focusing on characters powering up is true, but here each of the stories feel absolutely epigrammatic.

There are no spoilers here, Assassination Classroom has become a signature part of Jump's catalogue in recent years and its conclusion deserves to be experienced firsthand. The first arc reveals a link to Koro-sensei's past hidden in plain sight as one of his students reveals themselves to be a deadly weapon with a devastating power. Following this, the truth of Koro-sensei is finally revealed in exposition from the yellow terror himself; in a flashback the audience finally gets to find out how he became the tentacled teacher, how the Moon was destroyed and why he decided to train his would-be killers. These revelations shock the class to their core, the kids' motivation for killing their beloved teacher is destroyed. It was always going to be hard to kill something they have grown to love, but now could their mission switch from killing him to saving him?

These make up the first half of this second season, along with the second half focusing on Class E's graduation, in every aspect. Their final showdown with Koro-sensei, Shiro finally revealed, a new face on an old foe and each student finally deciding what their future holds… Not to mention that despite the serious nature of the conclusion the series manages to keep the comedy moments occurring at regular intervals. There are even entire episodes dedicated to keeping the mood high.

The anime adaptation comes from Lerche which has, to this point, delivered a quality adaptation that has been completely faithful to the original and it has saved the best for last with some fantastic episodes here. A few of the arcs are dedicated to showing the kids at their finest and these look superb. In particular, a PvP scenario plays out in real life as the kids are split into two teams for a Red vs. Blue showdown between classmates. Finally, Lerche has put out some memorable visual moments at the final hurdle, delivering some high points of the entire series.

As with the previous season, while both the English and Japanese dubs are available, the English is rather disappointing, especially considering the talent on hand. It is better towards the finale as it seems some of the cast begins to get into their roles but a pale imitation of the Japanese. On the bonus feature front, sadly the two OVA episodes are absent from this release. It would have been nice to have included them… Instead, there are two episode commentaries with the English VAs, a short 7-minute featurette on the top 10 moments of Season 2, and the usual clean opening/closing animations and trailers.

7/10

Very Good - Bronze Award

The first half of this final season didn't fill fans with hope for a conclusion the quality of which the story deserved. Despite this, the creators have managed to pull it off at the final stretch. Assassination Classroom is a quintessential Shonen series, filled with adventure and humour, and while this anime adaptation has had plenty of lows to go with the occasional highs, this finale delivers a satisfying conclusion.