Review of Classroom of the Elite III

I binged this anime from the first season the last few days and, like many of the other mixed reviewers, found it to be acceptable but a bit shallow. It has all these philosophical quotes about human nature and behavior, but never really goes beyond the MC feeling apathy and acting in a mildly manipulative way over a set of episodes unfolding at a very slow place. I don't think this show is bad at all, but I'd be hard-pressed to recommend it. This show has no hype moments whatsoever. Everything is understated and there are no masterful genius displays by our MC, or anythinglike that. As far as just the psychological drama genius aspect of this goes, I think you'd be better served watching something like Kakegurui. Even though I'd say this series is better on the whole, I think that one is more enjoyable as something psychological. This anime, I think, is ultimately a slice of life with a pretty meager side of psychological drama. It's not bad and keeps your attention, but it's more made up of the illusion that something smart will happen than anything that actually does.

Overall: Going into this show, I expected something different. Each subsequent season seems to stray further and further from the coherent social experiment-style psychological premise established in the first season. There isn't much big-picture plot development at all, with the only concrete changes since the start being in the maturity of the minor and supporting characters in MC's class. MC's backstory, rather than aiding the psychological side of the story, actually gets in the way of the interesting parts of the story, namely the internal competition of the classes and the strategizing. The secret genius grown in a lab MC is okay, but a bit underwhelming given the potential of someone with his apparent skills. All in all, I don't think this will be an anime I return to or really think about ever again after I finish documenting my opinion here. Worth it for passing a few hours, but I think this is the kind of show that has a high floor and a low ceiling when it comes to enjoyability. Nothing to knock your socks off, but nothing egregiously terrible or offensive to make you drop it.

Main Character: MC frequently makes comments that he'd betray anyone at any time if it benefited his interests, but he largely acts like a neutral good in the show and doesn't seem to have an overarching goal besides "living a normal life," which is completely boring as a life motivation in anything but quirky comedy. What's worse, the good things that he does basically work to create a harem, even if it's not presented exactly that way. The show builds him up like some kind of genius emotionless mastermind, but his strategies are things like switcheroos and beating someone up with random fighting skills that don't seem to match his studying and playing chess all the time backstory. I don't think the writing quality is strong enough to convincingly portray a clever character as clever. This show creates a vibe that some kind of psychological angle to going to be explored, but it's really just air with little actual substance in its plot. The main character, though he's presented as smart, does not have any strong goals or motivations. The result is that everything feels a bit pointless, or lacking in palpable stakes for him. He builds a network of connections and hides his influence to not stand out, but he doesn't have any legitimate internal goal that gives those actions personal meaning for him. He's like an emotional-less "genius" running on auto-pilot who simply responds to the stimuli around him. I think your overall thoughts on this show will be determined by how into the MC you are. I've seen too many characters just like him to get that excited, but some might like his backstory and think "living a normal life" is a compelling motivation for him.

Plot: Another big issue with this anime is that it feels like it should feel like it's building to something, but there aren't really any highs during the entire run. The pacing is too much like a high school drama as opposed to a psychological thriller. For instance, the stated goal of the anime, if not the MC, is for class D to reach class A. Guess where the class ends up after year one (3 seasons)? It's got the slice of life dynamic whereby just about any time the MC or his class could actually win, they lose; or, if they do win, it's a two steps forward one step back kind of win. The only time they advanced at all was because of MC's physical violence. Any victory they attain is a shallow, short-term one. The economy of the school with points was interesting in the first season, but slowly becomes a non-issue and loses a lot of focus. Then, the traitor classmate who was the biggest obstacle for much of the show's run becomes a total non-factor. And now, there's some annoying and unnecessary plot-line about the politics and management of the school that seems to contradict the public, government-funded structure established early on. The plot just doesn't seem focused and consistent in the way it should. The individual tests are fine, for the most part, and it's interesting to see how the MC navigates the plotting and backstabbing of other classes, but this is most interesting in the first season, with the tests getting less and less interesting with each passing season.

World-building/Cast: The best part of this show is the network of relationships it includes, which makes you consider the number of factors involved in every test. Teamwork, alliances, and leadership are all well-conveyed in this story, and so you get a sense of traits and approaches that will work well within the school. The varying personalities are well-depicted and you get a sense of the class dynamics. I didn't really have much of a problem with this aspect of the anime, but several characters had pretty ridiculous secret histories, and sometimes female characters approach and flock to MC like any run-of-the-mill harem protagonist, which is obviously a negative when it comes to organic characterization. Several characters do grow and change in a "growing up as a highschooler" type of way, which is an overall positive, but again, supports my claim that this story is ultimately a slice of life rather than psychological story.