Assassination Classroom Vols. 1 - 10 (Yusei Matsui)



I was going to read the whole series since it's only 21 volumes, then Toby Fox dropped Deltarune Chapter 5 - funnily enough, right when I got the plot with the flower merchant - and my attention got diverted elsewhere. Sorry Koro-Sensei, guess we're only doing the first half this time around.

Kunugigaoka Junior High's 3-E is theoretically the remedial class of the school but it's... more complicated than that. One day the class comes in to find out their teacher has been replaced by an alien who's going to destroy the world at the end of the school year, unless they can kill him first. Easier said than done because he has a bunch of special powers and can move at twenty time the speed of sound. So in addition to Math and Biology they're learning gun combat and bomb-making. The story alternates between high school drama and the students of Class E having to use the skills they're honing as assassins to escape kidnappers or retrieve an antidote for their poisoned classmates.

So back to what I said about Class E's role in the school being more complicated than "the remedial class," the school is set up like a caste system with Class E being lowest, which makes them the punching bags of the rest of the school. They're constantly humiliated and used as scapegoats to keep the rest of the school in line out of fear they could end up in Class E. And this isn't by accident, it's deliberately set up that way by Principal Asano, who himself needs to be the best at everything... for the sake of being the best. The whole thing feels like an exaggeration bordering on strawman until you remember, oh yeah, Japanese society is actually like that. It's like how the Phoenix Wright games seem over-the-top to us, but they're really satires on how fucked up the Japanese legal system is. But the irony is, because the other classes only care about their own social status and staying out of Class E, they're really not learning anything in contrast to the kids in Class E who have a teacher who teaches them to give a shit about the subjects they're learning.

Again, I have half the series to go, but a question I'm wondering is why Koro-sensei is going to destroy the world when he doesn't seem particularly malicious and even seems to enjoy the food, entertainment, and human boobies it has to offer. My guess is he doesn't want to destroy the world, but he knows something is going to make him go berserk on that day and he needs to be put down like a rabid dog before that can happen.

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Deltarune: Chapter 5 (PC)



Chapter 5 is in a weird spot, being the last stretch of game before the climax and resolution. As I mentioned before in the Grant Morrison project, it's the weakest chapter storywise so far (gameplaywise would be Chapter 3). Yeah, Fox explicitly stated it's meant to be the game's last breath of levity before the Roaring brings everything crashing down, but I played through Chapter 5 twice and I'm still not entirely sure what it contributes to the overall story. Chapter 1 lays out the foundation about the Dark Worlds and the Roaring Knight and hits us with that "boy, that escalated quickly" cutscene at the end. Chapter 2 gives us time with Noelle and introduces the Roaring. Chapter 3 is mostly a filler chapter, yes, but ends with the bombshell reveal of the Roaring Knight and introduces the three codes needed to get into the bunker. Chapter 4 tells us more about the prophecy and gives us a taste of the Roaring by showing us how catastrophic just one Titan is and how fucked everyone is going to be when an army of them gets unleashed.

All we've learned by the end of Chapter 5 is something bad happened in the past that led to Asgore being removed from the police and Toriel divorcing him which... I think we all already knew? And okay, we got one of the three codes to the bunker at the very end. Otherwise it's all just vague foreshadowing, like the opening scene with half-dead Kris and Flowery teasing Ralsei. Maybe when the last two chapters put the puzzle together Chapter 5's pieces will make more sense.

So how about the whole "last breath of levity" thing? I mean, it's Deltarune, a hybrid of RPG and bullet hell shooter filled with colorful characters (literally in this chapter's case), with the big gimmick of the chapter being hack-and-slash platforming segments. And a shitload of references to other games from Phoenix Wright to Illusion of Gaia to Persona 2: Eternal Punishment.

Also, Yellow is best flower, fight me.

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