Assassination Classroom vol. 2

The subtitle for this volume is “Time For Grown-Ups,” and that turns out to be a bad and good thing for this series.  In that order.  Things start off with the introduction of someone who is at this point an unworkable assemblage of cliches and character types before we get to meet this series’ Lex Luthor in the second half.  Forward progress for “Assassination Classroom” is basically a wash here, but things end with a setup that leaves me optimistic for its future.

We’re introduced to Class E’s new English teacher Irina Jelavitch after its many-tentacled and ostensibly unkillable Koro Sensei rescues her from some no-goodniks in town.  This is all part of her plan as she’s actually a trained assassin who has been recruited to kill this alien teacher.  All well and good, except that she’s apparently quite terrible at her job.  Her initial plan goes immediately awry and rather than act like a teacher, she spends her time condescending to the students of Class E.  They’re not shy about letting her know what they think of her either.  By the end of her introductory arc, however, she’s reached an understanding with the students and will teach them what she knows of conversational English — “You’re incredible in bed!” — while continuing to find ways to kill Koro Sensei.

It’s clear from the start that Miss Jelavitch’s purpose is to provide a shot of sex appeal for this title.  The people who run Shonen Jump know that their young male audience love boobs and adding a sexy female assassin is the easiest way to provide that here.  The problem is that in addition to being an assassin sexpot mangaka Yusei Matsui decides that the best way to integrate her into this series is to show her being utterly terrible at her job.  Rather than coming prepared, she winds up putting the moves on Nagisa to get the lowdown on Koro Sensei and then spectacularly botches her first attempt on the alien’s life when she tries to have him killed with regular bullets.  She also fails to maintain any kind of believable cover as a teacher, telling her students to go in the back and study during class while she strategizes with her iPad.  Adding further insult to injury is how her strong-willed demeanor is effectively broken through the humiliating results of Koro Sensei’s slimy swedish massage and her demure apology to the class for her actions.  While no one was expecting her to kill Koro Sensei, you’d think that managing a classroom full of kids would be no problem for a professional.  Apparently that’s not the case.

Miss Jelavitch doesn’t work as a character because she’s an uncomfortable mix of a couple different character types and the proscribed development of her character is at odds with them.  Mangaka Yusei Matsui is in such a hurry to integrate her into his series that he forgets to develop her as a real character first.  Instead, she’s a combination of sexpot, assassin, and arrogant outsider who needs to be taught a lesson that have all been bolted together in an unwieldy narrative fashion.  The most amusing thing about her is the class’ mispronunciation of her last name as “Hellabitch” which is a very mean-spirited pun.  I winds up being funny regardless because it’s hard to feel offended for a character who doesn’t feel believable in the slightest.

Things pick up once we’re given a proper introduction to the school’s principal, Gakuho Asano.  If you’re wondering why Class E has had to suffer as an example to the rest of the school in being a place you never want to wind up in, it’s all his fault.  Believing that the best way to make 95% of the school work hard is to have 5% of it as a scapegoat that is hated and looked on as losers by the rest, his method is actually proving to be successful.  Of course, as Class E’s teacher it’s up to Koro Sensei to break this system wide open.

That’s going to be extremely difficult when Asano proves himself to be just as slick and cunning as the Man of Steel’s greatest nemesis.  Not only is he a part of the system, preventing Koro Sensei from resorting to mere violence to deal with him, the principal is one step ahead of the alien at most every turn here.  Asano is the kind of guy who will slip in and give a last-minute teaching session to everyone but Class E in order to ensure that they’ll do well on their midterms.  That would be the midterms he has just changed to reflect the content of this last-minute lesson.  Matsui also gives him a design that exemplifies the “banality of evil” concept, yet has enough smarminess to make him enjoyably hateable.  Even though he’s the kind of antagonist who is meant to have the plot on his side, I don’t hate him for that yet.

I think that comes down to the whole Superman/Lex Luthor relationship that he has with Koro Sensei here.  In fact, the whole setup for this series actually has the distinct ring of Silver Age “Superman” about it with its alien teacher trying to an inspire a class in a school run by an evil mastermind set on seeing him fail.  The whole “destroying the Earth in a year” part?  Well, the Silver Age was when “Superdickery” was in full swing.  Regardless of its parallels to “Superman,” the Koro Sensei/Asano dynamic works well here and provides a solid base to work from as it slowly pushes the assassination setup to the sidelines.  If Matsui can actually find a way to make his version of Lois Lane work as an actual character then I might have a reason to be genuinely enthusiastic about this title’s future.