Classroom☆Crisis

Takafumi Sep 26, 2015

8

Classroom Crisis is an original anime composed by Fumiaki Maruto, the creator of White Album 2 and Saekano.CC is a classic battle of two families. Romeo, with the Montague's, and Juli... Wait, wrong story.On one side we have the Kiryu family. The Kiryu's are a strict business-focused family, of which the three brothers fight for money and supremacy. The Kiryu family is represented at first by one of our lead characters, Nagisa Kiryu, who is basically Kuroneko's dream version of Kyousuke Kousaka. His two older brothers take on the roll for most of the show however.On the other side is the Shinamiya family, a family that has actually died out. It's represented in spirit by our other lead, Kaito Sera, the result of getting Flamen Blue's voice and putting it inside Flamen Red's body.The Shinamiya and Kiryu families once worked together on a revolutionary rocket engine as part of a group named A-TEC, eventually leading them to create the Kirishina Corporation, a company that focuses on space travel. They followed the Shinamiya principle of working to bring smiles to people's faces. When the Shinamiya family fell from grace, and the Kiryu family took over, that principle was thrown aside, and profit became the only goal of the company. A-TEC, once life and soul of the company, now a classroom of engineers and planners, comes under fire of higher management. They must survive budget cuts, keep faith in their future at A-TEC, and fight the money-obsessed Kiryu family! The class of A-TEC are just the most adorable group of friends ever. A lot of them are undeveloped, but they are cleverly shown reacting to each and every situation, in a cheesy Disney movie way. Even though a large portion of the cast we see don't get much time dedicated to them, we are shown their personalities, preferences, friend groups, and all the good stuff. The big two class members, Mizuki and Iris, are the standard mix of social and antisocial. Mizuki does everything to keep others happy, while Iris only cares about making Mizuki happy. They start off as tropes, but as you'd expect, they evolve as the series progresses. I wasn't overly happy with how Iris was "developed" because it felt very drawn out at bad times, and very sudden at the wrong times... She felt added-in. Mizuki however was very well done.The teacher of A-TEC, Kaito Sera, is the gung-ho guy. He tries to follow his unrealistically happy morals at every corner. He's a big kid, and that earlier comparison between him and Samurai Flamenco is actually a good one to make. I think that this style of character is easy to write correctly, and it's been done a lot in anime, but I always welcome it. Kaito is a fun guy.Nagisa Kiryu is probably the character the show focused on most. He gets the best treatment and the most screen-time, and it shows. He guides the story the most out of all the characters.The story of this show is certainly the highlight. It's a strange mix of cheesy friendship fun, Chuuni action, and commentary on Japanese politics, and since this is Fumiaki, there's some romance too. The title of episode 8 sums up the series perfectly... "Money, Elections, and School Festivals." It's silly enough to stay bright and easy to watch, but it's serious enough to make me care about what's happening. That's a hard balance to find, but Classroom Crisis does it.The show was produced by Lay-duce, a studio I don't actually know... So it's surprising to say that the animation is some of the best this season. It is very consistent in quality, makes good use of both bright and dull colors, and is just pleasing to look at. There is some reeeaaally nice camera work too. (Wait... Can you call it camera work in anime? Oh well.) Some of the angle choices are cleverly made to reflect or hide certain things, and the positioning of characters helps make up for their lack of direct charadev.The show has what is possibly my favorite soundtrack of the season. It's strangely nostalgic to me. I'll be picking up any ost they throw out. This includes the OP and ED.  The OP is very formulaic. Veeeery formulaic. For some reason though, I can't hear that "Hatenai sora" without getting hyped up, so it does a good job.The ED is the crux of the nostalgia this show's music gives me. I love the instrument choices. It's kinda sci-fi, but very old school at the same time. The singer sounds like that too. Props to ClariS for that.Mixed with the old style of placing still images on one side of the screen while the credits fade in and out of a black background on the other side, and I'm in love. The image choice is very nice too, especially that shot of Mizuki pulling Iris out of the shadows. They were very smart in using the ED as a chance to add more history to Mizuki and Iris. It's an ED that adds development to the show. By skipping it you are missing out on crucial information... and I love that. So with all this in mind, Classroom Crisis gets my ED of the season award.I think all of that should give you a good idea on my opinion of this show. It is very very good. It's definitely the most under-appreciated show of the season, and it's a shame. If people actually gave the show a chance, I think it'd be one of the most popular shows this season, and maybe it'd sell well enough to get a second season. Right now, that looks very unrealistic, but I'd love it if that did happen.Second season when!?

ThatAnimeSnob Sep 26, 2015

3.5

I had no intention of reviewing this fucking piece of shit, which is obvious to tell it’s a fucking piece of shit without having to watch it. But then some redditors kept pesting me about it, and insisting that it is the best anime of the year. It is not about a boring slice of life piece of shit where some generic high school students try to build a spaceship. It's a drama focused more on political alliances and corporate conspiracies. They kept insisting I should watch it and realize what an amazing show it is. O, then, I was convinced to watch this fucking piece of shit so I can tell you all how it was a fucking piece of shit all along. Here are my impressions for every episode. Episode 1: - Some guys are talking about a dangerous hostage situation. They make sure to show us how dangerous the whole thing is by shoehorning a high school girl dressing. - The plot is apparently about a serious space program, where they are building a rocket. Instead of focusing on the cool sci-fi aspect, they just show a generic high school. Apparently the director said that creative work plays a large role in the story, setting the story in an academy that builds rockets, would be a good fit for anime. Because nothing oozes more creativity in anime, than a high school setting. - A high school girl somehow hijacks a prototype spaceship and flies to space with no security standing in its way or needing clearance from air control at the base. I guess opening hatchets to the vacuum of space all by yourself is as easy as riding a bicycle. - There is a rescue mission to save an important person, and instead of a cool action scene where they save a businessman, turns out it was all a hoax, and the victim is the done to death transfer student cliché. Way to go high school settings, you are so creative. Episode 2: - There are a lot of sci-fi ideas about the futuristic setting and they are all infodumped on us by an unseen narrator, which makes it boring. But don’t believe it’s about building a rocket because redditors said it wasn’t.- There are politics about how space programs are funded, and how it takes a lot of negotiation to be done properly, yet the characters behave like they are in a silly school competition where all it takes to build a half a billion rocket is to believe in yourself. Episode 3: They make a big fuss about cutting down the budget of the program as means to show how cruel the real world is, before revealing it was all a hoax again and ending it with lukewarm sex jokes. Episode 4: Now they try to make it seem like finding a sponsor for your program is a nasty business where everybody is trying to take advantage of you for political power. And everything gets easily resolved when without even trying, the leader of the project gets promoted and finds the money through a loophole. Just because the transfer student said so. Episode 5: Having found the money they needed all this time, the students rush to spend them accordingly by going to the beach and giving us done to death fan service stereotypes. It's totally a drama focused more on political alliances and corporate conspiracies. Episode 6: Now that vacations are over, they can finally focus on building the damn spaceship. Only they don’t because they waste it on studying for school exams. One of them has problem passing the exams but once his drama is revealed in a flashback, the students give him motivation to study harder and passes the exams. And that’s it with this conflict. Episode 7: The ship they are on is high jacked and we get a fighting scene that ain’t bad. Yet they had to ruin it by making one of the girls unlocking the memories she had lost because of amnesia. Because nothing spells good storytelling without amnesia. Episode 8: Big political parties are having an election war. But let’s disregard all that and focus on a school festival where they eject a bottle in the air. Episodes 9-10:More political stuff happen, and surprisingly the school stuff are kept to a minimum. This is a major improvement compared to the previous episodes, and one can only wonder why it wasn’t like that since the very beginning. Even so, it’s not like there are crafty mind games and complicating backstabbing amongst corporations. We are just shown them talking for a few minutes and reaching to an agreement just like that. It makes politics seem very simple to get what you want. It also doesn’t help how they throw in the amnesia bullshit, where it turns out that girl is the real heir. The show is about serious politics guys. Episode 11: Turns out the corporation plans to make weapons out of their school project, and the transfer student gets abducted by the one dimensional asshole he dethroned during the political stuff. At this point the show became a silly shonen where the good hearted teenagers want to stop evil adults who love to torture people and want to make money by selling guns. And we might as well throw in a love triangle out of nowhere to make the whole thing feel even more like a C grade sitcom.Episodes 12-13:And then the finale happens where everything gets resolved fairly quick and easy, and just for the lulz they leave things open for a sequel with the only bait being “which girl will he choose?” and not what are they going to do with the company. That is the only reason people want a second season for. The end. It was stupid, boring, had schools and love polygons for no reason, and anime fans have lowered their bar below sea level for liking what is essentially a reskin of Robotics;Notes. Cool stuff are happening in the world but we just have to fucking destroy everything by focusing on a fucking school about fucking teenagers, building a fucking machine, and having a fucking romance. Just watch Planetes and forget this piece of shit.

ritheania Sep 27, 2015

7.5

This is the type of anime where it only becomes interesting later on. there are some technical stuff and political crap but i dont think its too much. romance wise is really very mild, but seeing the characters grow is probably is best part. if there is a season 2 definitely will watch! really appreciate the op btw XD