Recently South Africa has been going through power outages on a daily basis. During these scheduled outages I have made sure to have my laptop and phone charged so that I can entertain myself for the four or so hours we are without electricity. As such, I have found myself going through quite a few short running anime, like Classroom Crisis.

• Genre: School, Sci-Fi,
• Type: Series
• Episodes: 13
• Duration to watch: +/- 4 ½ Hours
• Age restriction: PG 13
• Release date: July 2015
• Animation Studio: Lay-duce
• Does it have a manga: No

ABOUT Classroom☆Crisis:

A-TEC is a classroom of Kirishina Corporation’s brightest minds spearheading aerospace development. Nagisa Kiryuu, the new transfer student who is also the newly appointed chief of A-TEC and the younger brother of the corporation’s CEO, the normal daily routine of A-TEC gets tossed upside down. From having the best of the best the class is forced to face budget cuts and downgrades. The class, led by their teacher, Kaito, a XXX, work to develop a successor to their most powerful rocket, the X-2 in hopes of saving their class. They need to work to find ways to outmanoeuvre their new chief who has been instructed to shut them down. Meanwhile, Nagisa climbs the corporate ladder in pursuit of his own mission. In spite of this, their separate battles soon reveal that much more is going on in Kirishina Corporation than meets the eye.

My Thoughts on Classroom Crisis:

A hostage, a death and a debt. An interesting start. Watching the actions of the ‘business’ adults you can quickly pick up that there are family tensions. It is quite clear that business is being placed before blood. To the point where the kidnapping is referred to as only mere ‘troublesome business’.

The introduction to the class and the teacher was fun. It was clear it is not the typical setup but Kaito’s attitude as a teacher was lacking. His main focus starts off on the ‘work’ side of things, but it was good to watch him step up to the plate and start taking his teacher role more seriously. It was interesting to watch Nagisa and Kaito work the dynamics of balancing their respective roles throughout. Watching Nagisa adjust from Kaito’s boss to his student at times was amusing.

I felt the whole memory loss aspect from Iris was an unnecessary aspect. Or rather, more her real identity. I felt it didn’t really add anything to the plot and everything else going on, more like they were just sprinkling on extra drama for the sake of drama. There was already enough going on from internal family struggles, politics and power balancing.

 

The pacing of the anime was really well done. With only 13 episodes it could have easily felt rushed but it never did. The anime manages to cover month’s worth of time without actually sacrificing their pacing which was pretty decent to see. The aspect of the Union was amusing, as well as seeing the delicate balance and careful power plays by the parties vying for the votes.

The anime did keep typical tropes which I did appreciate but also questioned. Yes, Nagisa needed to transfer in to get the ball rolling on the whole story, however, did they really need to have an episode where they went to the beach and an onsen? Did the boys really need to try peak on the girls in the bath? Did the girls really need to outsmart them?  Was that all really needed?

Favourite Character:  Mizuki Sera

She is intelligent, capable and a team player. I love the fact she is a ‘mechanic’ and can actually build and is not just a ‘paper-pusher’ and really enjoyed the fact that she is not overly pushy or dramatic. She knows how much to prod and when to pull back. Honestly, she is a really good leader and supporter of the team. I also ship her with Nagisa. I think they would make a great supportive, well balanced and caring couple.

Character I am most confused about: Iris Shirasaki

Not sure if I like her or if I am annoyed by her. I tend to sway between the two. As the test pilot, I admire her skills but find her lack of ‘team-play’ disconcerting, with her going off on her own and doing extremely risky things are not okay and puts the whole team at risk.  Deciding on everything based on what her friend is doing is kinda sad but I do like that she is a really caring friend and honestly looks out for Mizuki. I wish we had more revealed about why Iris is so determined to follow Mizuki. Their friendship really is admirable, I just wish we had a bit more information.

Would I recommend Classroom Crisis? From the heading of this review, I am pretty sure that you have guessed that this is an anime I will happily recommend and sure there are some things that I wish were more fleshed out and explored, but on the whole, I am happy with the anime. It was fun to watch and I even enjoyed the somewhat open ending leaving possibilities for the relationships.

What did you think of Classroom Crisis?

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