Classroom Crisis

Episode 11

Classroom Crisis has certainly been a show of ups and downs, and the last couple weeks haven't seen it putting its best foot forward all that often. Fortunately, things finally changed for the better this week. With Nagisa's plans to one-up the CEO and A-TEC's hopes of presenting a fully flight-ready ship both going up in smoke, the show's main characters were forced to sit down and seek some comfort this week, which meant Iris, Nagisa, Mizuki, and Kaito finally got more scenes together. Classroom Crisis shines when it focuses on the relationships between these four, and this week demonstrated that through an episode stuffed with poignant and endearing character moments.

The episode opened with plenty of momentum, forgoing its opening song in order to quickly engage with the fallout of last week's two failures. After revealing that Iris was recovering in the hospital, the episode quickly began jumping between scenes of Nagisa's brother unveiling his full plans and Kaito meeting up with his old friend Dr. Li. The contrasting threads ended up coming together to reveal that the CEO's plans didn't just involve expanding his company's non-flight-related ventures. His investments in asteroid mining have given him insider knowledge on a swiftly approaching fuel crisis, and in light of that, he's decided to move into military development, with an eye for profiting from the soon-to-come energy wars. The perfect businessman, a man who sees coming tragedy only as an opportunity to make the shareholders happy.

Fitting in perfectly with that corporate-minded ethos, the CEO further revealed that he didn't really care about Nagisa's past, and wasn't at all offended that Nagisa sought violent revenge. He'd been grooming Nagisa all this time not for any emotionally driven plot, but simply because Nagisa was a talented worker he wanted on his team. The disbanding of A-TEC was based in the same principles - the CEO could care less about the founders' legacy, he just wanted Kaito's expertise free to assist in his military ventures. And as the CEO called Nagisa “a mere stand-in,” we learned the full truth of the relationship between Nagisa and Iris. Iris was Nagisa, or at least, was the “Nagisa” heir to Shinamiya legacy. The current Nagisa was a mere retainer, who had taken the mantle of Nagisa Shinamiya to protect Iris from the consequences of her title.

All that dramatic plotting and revealing made for a very dynamic and engaging first half, and the CEO's philosophy made him come across as a far more compelling and thematically appropriate villain (essentially representing the endpoint of Nagisa's pragmatism) than Nagisa's prior brother, but it was the second half of this episode that stole the show. In the wake of learning about Iris's crash, Nagisa rushed to her bedside, only to find her already gone. Feeling conflicted and dejected, he once again wandered back to the A-TEC hangar, where he ran into Mizuki.

There, he tried to pull the same trick he'd pulled with Kaito three episodes ago; playing the villain act, trying to get Mizuki to validate his fears, trying to make people hate him so he could more easily disassociate himself from his feelings. But Mizuki was having none of this - she lightly mocked him at first, and then when she saw how badly shaken he was, she sympathized, acknowledging how hard he'd worked. Nagisa wanted to give up or be given an easy path, but Mizuki respected and cared about him too much to do that. “Let's struggle, Nagisa-kun,” she said instead. “I can't tell you what you should do, because all I can do is fiddle around with machines. But let's struggle together.” It was a perfect emotional moment, topped off with a kiss and embrace between two characters who've grown together and separately across this series.

The last scene of the episode was another winner, as Kaito and Nagisa finally got back together as friends, hashing out their future plans and enjoying each other's advice and company. Classroom Crisis may not succeed in all it attempts, but pretty much any time it puts any two of Nagisa, Iris, Mizuki, and Kaito in a room together, it demonstrates a knack for character writing and thoughtful, well-earned emotional catharsis that demolishes the competition. This episode was an emotionally satisfying and well-earned demonstration of Classroom Crisis doing what it does best.

Rating: A

Classroom Crisis is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Viewster.

Nick writes about anime, storytelling, and the meaning of life at Wrong Every Time.