Review of Classroom of the Elite III

It's been three seasons of this anime and it never fails to make me feel scammed. To begin with and as a disclaimer I want to make it clear that I have not read the novel, I am not reading it and I am not going to read it. I am one of those people who only plans to live this experience through anime. The part that I feel scammed with is that when they recommended it to me and through the same synopsis they sold it to you as if it were a survival/gambling game anime. One of my favorite genres, which is why Itend to be more critical of animes that may have this tag. I have been waiting for three seasons to experience that emotion of strategies, manipulations and deceptions that are usually seen in gambling animes, but I simply stumbled upon a school drama.

The anime has very good foundations to function as a good gambling/survival anime, which is the intelligent protagonist with the background that he was indoctrinated or experimented on to be the genius that he is. A school that governs its hierarchy through its class system where class A is the best, in addition to having a points system (the anime currency) that allows you to buy anything within the academy. All this puts you in an extremely interesting starting point to see how our protagonist will create chaos in the already defined system. Unfortunately, the seasons passed and I didn't see anything of what I expected. Starting with the fact that the only intelligent person in that school is Ayanokouji. No matter what rival they put in front of him, Ayanokouji has already won since they first looked at each other. This is because although the protagonist is a genius, the rest of the school is simply dumber than a door. To give an example of how this anime fails to be a gambling anime is the climax showdown of this season. Ayanokouji vs Sakayanagi in a chess game, to begin with it was very boring to watch and they didn't even bother to build the game well throughout the chapter. It lasted 5 minutes and they played the opening in the background in an attempt to make it seem something "epic or interesting." The resolution was the easiest way out they could find, because otherwise Ayanokuoji is unstoppable.

Now the real genre of this thing is a school drama. The story focuses on the protagonist, a person who is not in contact with his emotions, which is why he decides to go to school to live a quiet school life like the rest of the people his age. The protagonist's main rival throughout the 3 seasons is not the rest of the people who believe they are intelligent, but rather his own social life. The work focuses more on developing Ayanokouji's affectionate relationships with those around him, because he is the only thing that really hinders him. But it's not just Ayanokouji, we have the drama of Horikita with her brother, the drama of Kushida being bad just because, Hirata being Edgy. The anime is full of conversations where Ayanokouji, rather than learning from others, seems to be their guru.

In conclusion, if you are looking for an anime about survival/gambling games, you can skip this one without any regrets. If you are looking for a school drama it may fit your preferences more. The only useful function that the anime has is to serve as a complement for readers of the novel, because as an independent adaptation it leaves much to be desired. Ayanokouji is too good for this anime but it is obvious that thanks to the atmosphere of this anime it cannot exploit the full potential of his protagonist.