Today’s Review: Classroom of the Elite episode 8

Good God, the latest episode of Classroom of the Elite is wicked! All things about romance, betrayal, and madness are hen-packed into a single episode. Truly, the best episode in season 2. Before we go too far about today’s episode, we should remind you what happened so far.

What has happened?

For you who are new to this series, the Classroom of the Elite is an anime that is set in a prestigious school where the student enjoy unparalleled freedom. That is only the surface of it. In truth, the school divides the students into 4 classes, A to D, and is ranked with a merit system. They will get better treatment if they make it into the top class.

The protagonist of this series is Kiyotaka Ayanokouji. He is an emotionless genius who thinks of nothing to achieve his goal. He even treats his classmates as tools as means for an end. The entire of this series is full of mind-blowing battles. For you who like anime with less action and more talking and scheming, this anime is right for you.

Season 2 starts with the closing curtain of the survival test on an inhabited island. On the cruise, they got another test from the school. The test itself is like the Among Us game. The game that guesses who is the VIP. Each student will be divided into a group that consists of a different class. They should discuss within 3 days with the appointed time to guess the culprit. Through the scheme of Ayanokouji, the D class comes out in second place. The fact that they don’t come out in first place is because there is a traitor among them. Ayanokouji knows who the traitor is and keeps silent.

The next arc is the sports festival arc. In this arc, Horikita is the star of the show. Because of what happened on the cruise, she is marked by the leader of C class, Ryuuen. He intends to crush Horikawa. Even though they are fine in the first half of the festival, the situation has gone wary from then on. There is someone who set up the match. C class sends a weaker athlete to compete with the strongest athlete of the D class. Ayanokouji knows that the traitor is behind this as well. Turns out, the traitor betrays her class and spoils the order of the listings is none other than Kushida. But, Ayanokouji doesn’t care about the betrayal because he wants the entire class to lose.

After the loss in the sports festival, D class is faced with the next test. The upcoming final test will determine whether they can advance the class or get expelled. What is Ayanokouji plan to make them pass? What about the traitor? What’s Kushida’s motive that she wants Horikita to be expelled? Let’s review the 8 episodes now.

What is going on?

For you who don’t understand what system the final test is, let me explain it for a bit. The student will be paired with the others as a group. The score of the test will be taken from the average score of both students. If by any chance both students get off the mark, they will be expelled. Pretty sure no school usees this system, otherwise the students will go bald from stress before they turn 20. Moving on, Horikita makes a strategy that makes it possible to set up the group by who with whom. But, of course, they still need to study to overcome the test. The class decides to do a study group among themselves.

In the study group, our emotionless protagonist surprisingly got an approach from one of the girls in his class. Being as antipathetic as he is, he doesn’t care either way. Way to blow up the romance genre. Not only that, but because Ayanokouji saved Kei, she starts to develop a feeling for him. Unfortunately, I cannot see the ship sail because there is no ship in the first place. Poor Kei.

Ok, here is what makes this episode great. With no way to repair the relationship with Kushida, Horikita makes a bet with her. She wants Kushida to stay the hell out of the way if she wins the math test. Kushida also wants Horikita to voluntarily get out of the school if she managed to achieve a higher score than Horikita. This bet is witnessed by the former student council president who is also Horikita’s older brother. Because of the habit of every student to either turn on the recording or put someone on the phone, Kushida knows that Ayanokouji is hearing their conversation and wants to meet him. Kushida wants to add the condition that Ayanokouji also get expelled if she managed to win. In return, Ayanokouji wants her to tell her past and the reason why she wants to kick out Horikita.

Suddenly the scene got darker. Turns out, Kushida is an attention seeker. She enjoys being praised and getting recognition. But it ends in middle school. There was someone who was always better than her. So what will she do? She will be the sweetest classmate in her class. With all day smiling and being a people pleaser, she got crushed by her weight. She pent up the frustration on her website. Unfortunately, the website is found and spread within a classroom. They knew who she actually was. In the end, on the brink of desperation, she blurted out every secret her classmates told her and swallowed the class into chaos.

Final Thought

With the dark past of Kushida revealed, the fans split into two factions. Either the one who tolerates what Kushida did or the one who disdains her more than Mami from Rent a Girlfriend. The animation when they explain Kushida’s past is superb. For anime fans, this episode is great because it already reveals the key character’s personalities and why they ended up like that. Now we wait for the next week when the test begins and the conclusion of this arc.