Classroom Crisis

Episode 9

Today's Classroom Crisis is called “Joyless Victory,” and it doesn't take much sleuthing to unravel that title. With the general election approaching, Nagisa is tasked by his brother Yuji with bringing down the Oozora labor party's candidate, leaving room for the pro-Kirishina Seimin candidate Furubayashi to sweep the election. And Nagisa does indeed destroy the existing Oozora candidate - by convincing Furabayashi to switch to the Oozora party, knocking out his competition and earning Nagisa allies both in the government and the union. Of course, not everyone is happy with this decision, as the plays Nagisa makes here end up hurting both Yuji and his newfound family at A-TEC.

This was Nagisa's big Lelouch moment, basically, where he got to turn the tables and destroy one of the brothers he'd been plotting against all his life. And as Lelouch moments go, it was maybe a little underwhelming - like with the union's betrayal of Kaito earlier, even though this made for a fairly reasonable twist in real-world terms, it didn't manage quite the punch required in dramatic ones. This issue was somewhat compounded by the fact that this whole union-business election drama is apparently just a bit too lofty for Classroom Crisis' assumed audience, meaning the characters ended up over-explaining Nagisa's gambit instead of just letting his actions speak for themselves.

That issue of overtelling also somewhat extended to this episode's emotional beats, as a conversation between Angelina and the rest of A-TEC resulted in her basically outlining all the major points of Nagisa's character conflict. This is a shame - Classroom Crisis' story and characters are strong enough to stand on their own, and this kind of expositional storytelling only makes it seem like the show lacks confidence in either itself or its own audience.

Fortunately, those awkward issues mainly stuck out because the rest of this episode was excellent. Nagisa's conversations with his political allies were tightly written and nicely reflective of this show's ambiguous feelings on this kind of career maneuvering. Nagisa's “betrayal” of A-TEC wasn't some big cackling about-face - it was simply a tactical move he had to make to secure the goals he'd always been fighting for. And in the wake of his decision, we got to see Nagisa beat himself up over it in a very natural way, when he went back to the garage and ended up running into Kaito.

This sequence was easily the episode's best scene, and one of the best moments Nagisa and Kaito have shared all series. Troubled by regrets over the way he'd treated A-TEC, Nagisa intentionally played up the villainy of his actions, trying to provoke Kaito into yelling at him. Nagisa's a shrewd business dealer, but when it comes to his emotions, he might as well be a child - he's never had anyone to feel loyalty to, and so he needs someone else to make things simple for him. But instead of treating him like an enemy, Kaito demonstrated the nuance he'd learned over this series, saying that he's not going to validate Nagisa's feelings, but that as a friend he felt disappointed and sad. “If you're going to betray us, betray us brimming with confidence. Don't look at me like you're about to cry.” And as both of them approached tears, Kaito hit him with the stinger: “you don't even believe that you can make yourself happy, do you?”

This was an uneven episode of an uneven show, but as before, its best moments easily justified its weaknesses. Classroom Crisis continues to ride on the strength of its characters as it moves into the final act.

Rating: B

Classroom Crisis is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Viewster.

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