Characters / Assassination Classroom: Class 3-E Main

Assassination Classroom Main Character Index
The Main Characters (Koro-sensei) | Kunugigaoka Junior High School: Teachers and Students of Class 3-E | Kunugigaoka Junior High School: Faculty and Students of the Main Building | Assassins and Other Characters

The primary characters of Class 3-E from Kunugigaoka Junior High School.

Koro-sensei's page can be found here.

All spoilers in Kaede Kayano's entries are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

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Nagisa Shiota

E-11: Nagisa Shiota (潮田 渚 Shiota Nagisa)

Voiced by: Nozomi Yamamoto (Japanese, vomic), Nao Tōyama (Japanese, event anime), Mai Fuchigami (Japanese, TV anime), Lindsay Seidel (English) ^{Foreign VAs} María José Moreno (Latin American Spanish), Fernando Barber (European Spanish), Adrien Solis (French), Claudia Schmidt (German), Annalisa Longo (Italian), Marina Santana (Brazilian Portuguese)

Portrayed by: Ryosuke Yamada

"Like you've got the balls to try [killing someone]. Go right ahead."

The most often seen student, and the main perspective character. He fell into Class 3-E at the end of the previous year due to poor grades. Mild-mannered, cautious and relatively weak (not to mention rather effeminate), he prefers to observe and collect data on Koro-sensei's weaknesses rather than participate in assassination attempts. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, he is considered to be one of the best assassins in training in the class.

5th best marksmanship, boys' side.

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• Abusive Parents: His mother Hiromi, is one of the My Beloved Smother variants. She forces him to conform to her version of his life and future (i.e., what she couldn’t achieve when she was younger) without considering what he actually wants, frequently tells him she wishes he were born a girl, ( going as far to invoke Dude Looks Like a Lady by refusing to let him cut his hair) and gets incredibly violent when he shows even the slightest hint of disobedience. The saddest part is that he could’ve chosen to live with his father, where he’d clearly be happier, but instead chose to live with his mother out of concern for her mental health, which likely ties back to his lack of self-preservation.
• The Ace: Even before he trounced Takaoka, he was the only normal human to threaten Koro-sensei to the point where he had to use his molting ability. He is also readily acknowledged as being the go-to guy for information and analysis. Most of the embarrassing information shown in the assassination video for Koro-sensei was his contribution.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: When Takaoka forces him to ask for forgiveness on his knees to get the antidote for his friends, he immediately complies. However, he does not bow his head until specifically ordered to, and even when the former puts his boot on his head, he doesn't let his face touch the ground.
• Animal Motifs: A snake, symbolizing his viciousness and his ability to hide in plain sight, like a snake in the grass.
• Anime Hair: He seems to have odd pigtails on the back of his head, but since he was never seen with his hair down — even when swimming — for a long time it was believed that that was its natural shape. Chapter 112 reveals that they actually are pigtails.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: He only needs to put on a skirt and some hair decorations to pass off as a really convincing girl, and even caught a guy's attention like this. According to Hayami, he looks so feminine, it's unnatural. Justified, since Hiromi, who wanted a daughter, makes him look like a girl.
• Audience Surrogate: For younger audiences in Japan, a character who struggles in school and suffers from a lack of confidence would be extremely familiar to a lot of people. By this interpretation, that would make his ability to summon up will when needed and his various talents Wish-Fulfillment.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: His abilities are hardly superhuman, but he still possesses the best sensibility and instinct in the class when it comes to planning an assassination (even Karasuma's analysis in Roll Book Time rates his reconnaissance stat a full 6/6, whereas the rest score 3/6). Then he reveals that he has the ability to analyze someone's motives by looking at his/her body language alone. It becomes amplified after he's temporarily paralyzed by the Reaper, and he describes it as being able to see a mental image of each person's individual "wavelength of consciousness".
• Badass Adorable: Nagisa is the shortest, most androgynous and meekest of the boys. And he is also one of Class 3-E's most natural assassins, cemented by destroying Takaoka in a duel with real knives — twice — and ambushing Nakamura, Terasaka, Muramatsu and Yoshida during the civil war game before choking Karma to submission for a total of five kills, the most in the class.
• Badass Teacher: His occupation after the Time Skip. Especially when Nagisa was put in charge of one of the worst classes full of delinquents and misfits. He'll still see that they graduate.
• Bad Powers, Good People: At one point, Nagisa becomes frustrated over the fact that his only redeeming talents are his terrifying assassination skills. After using those same talents to save his mother from being killed by an assassin, he resolves to find a way to use those talents to help people, one way or another. In the epilogue, he finds his creative expression through teaching and rehabilitating delinquents.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: At the climax of the civil war game he defeats Karma with the kind of brute force he specializes in (i.e., a triangle armlock) in order to make a point.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: He still looked pretty good despite being a bit roughed up during his final fight with Takaoka in the Assassination Island arc.
• Beware the Nice Ones: On one hand, he's a genuinely sweet kid who gets along with just about everyone in the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits that is class 3-E. But on the other hand, his stealth and sheer bloodlust can make elite veteran soldiers shit bricks. And as it turns out, his habit of noting down people's weaknesses also serves well with character assassination, his other specialty.
• Big Brother Mentor: To little Sakura. Like Koro-sensei, he uses his knowledge of basic assassination techniques to help her pass a math test and avoid being intimidated by her classmates.
• The Big Damn Kiss: As Kaede is rampaging, he manages to distract her by kissing her long enough to induce a Post-Kiss Catatonia which allows Koro-sensei to remove the tentacles.
• Book Dumb: Relatively speaking. He did fall into class 3-E due to poor grades, after all. But when it comes to applying the knowledge he has, he's more like a Teen Genius.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick:
  • The three things he wants most are to get to know everyone in his class, to live without leaving things unfinished, and to kill his teacher.
  • That's not the only time Nagisa's train of thought blithely dips into surreal and slightly disturbing territory. Read the journal entry Koro-sensei grades in Chapter 2. It looks like a normal journal entry, discussing Nagisa's favorite food and where his family went for dinner the night before (a sushi restaurant). He notes that his favorite food is takosushi, and that Koro-sensei looks like an octopus. His entry abruptly ends with him wondering what Koro-sensei tastes like.
• Character Narrator: Most of the anime and manga is narrated by Nagisa.
• Chekhov's Gun: Those hairbands Nagisa always wears around his wrists. He's almost never seen without them, and when he isn't it's usually a drawing error. He has them just in case something happens to the ones he wears in his hair, because he's embarrassed by how long it is, but his mother doesn't allow him to cut it.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • The "sure-kill technique" he learned from Lovro, the stunner clap, is left unmentioned and unexplained for several chapters until he uses it on Takaoka in their second duel.
  • He also managed to pick up a bit of Irina's kiss technique. He uses it as a Cooldown Kiss to interrupt Kayano's tentacle-induced rage. However, he's only skilled enough to do a 15-hit combo.
• Child Prodigy: He has a natural gift for assassination, able to note weakpoints at a glance and conceal his bloodlust when attacking.
• Classical Anti-Hero: Though he's more than willing to assassinate Koro-sensei, Nagisa is the shortest guy in the class, physically weak compared to the rest of the students, and has a few confidence issues thanks to being dropped into Class 3-E (as well as some major domestic issues). Didn't stop him from standing out as one of Class 3-E's best assassins.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: Kayano clearly has a crush on him, as well as, implicitly, Nakamura and (according to the Roll Book Time) Kanzaki. On top of that, Sakura also develops a Precocious Crush on him. For his part, Nagisa's low self-esteem makes him none the wiser. It's even Lampshaded in a Volume 11 extra, when he charms Sakura, while Meg and Hiroto look on.
  Hiroto: He's scary...
  Meg: Even more terrifying that he doesn't even realize it...
  Everyone's beginning to see how dangerous he is.
• Cornered Rattlesnake: Nagisa is forced to fight Karma after the latter disagrees with his suggestion to save Koro-sensei instead of killing him and provokes him into defending himself if he feels so wronged. Karma is naturally stronger than him that it takes two students to hold him back, but once the actual Civil War games begin, the two fight with anti-Sensei knives and Nagisa manages to win after holding out against Karma for a good while.
• Curtains Match the Window: Blue hair and eyes.
• Cutlass Between the Teeth: Nagisa holds a combat knife with his mouth so he can limber up before he fights Takaoka. It's become one of his trademarks poses in both official and fan art, such as in his character image above.
• David Versus Goliath: His fight with Takaoka is one.
• Deadpan Snarker: He has his moments, though it’s more in the English Dub. One example is when Okajima is showing them a picture of the new transfer student:
  Sugino: Woah! It’s a girl?
  Nagisa: (dryly) And you’ve already made her your screensaver.
• Death Glare: Nagisa sends one to Takaoka when the conditions for his assassination method are finally met. He is smiling, but that only makes it even more chilling.
• Decoy Protagonist: Subverted with regards to Kayano. The latter spent a whole year nursing an ultimately misguided grudge against Koro-sensei for her sister Aguri's death and used Nagisa to hide her true intentions. Ultimately, however, it was Nagisa who played a key role in the last quarter of the series by saving Kayano from her tentacle-induced madness, helping the class change their objective to saving Koro-sensei from his impending explosion (reclassifying their original objective of assassination as a last resort), having to deal the fatal blow on Koro-sensei before a government anti-sensei laser fires on him, and finally following his footsteps as a teacher.
• Dissonant Serenity: Walking up to Koro-sensei with a grenade around his neck and knowing full well he could get seriously injured or even die with nary a change in his usual expression? Check. Taking down an elite veteran soldier by casually walking up to him as though he were walking to school and slashing at his neck? Check. His ability to completely hide his (considerable) killing intent is his greatest strength, making him the most assassin-like of all the students.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength: Karasuma's assessment in the Roll Book Time notes that he has little idea as to how terrifying his assassination skills are until his first duel with Takaoka, and even after that he still sees no limits as to its true potential.
• Dragged into Drag: Because he looks so girly, Nagisa has suffered this a few times courtesy of Nakamura. He's been forced to crossdress during the girls' infiltration mission in the Assassination Island arc, got his pants swapped with Nakamura's skirt during the School Festival, and at the Koro-sensei Q! Spin-Off, accidentally charmed the whole class with Kayano's cute two-piece swimsuit.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: He has Girlish Pigtails and a slim, feminine-looking body (minus boobs). This is lampshaded during Chapter 43's pool time, where Nakamura saw him wearing trunks and admits that until then she was confused about his true gender. He also only needs female clothing and some accessories to pass up for a girl in Chapter 66 / Season 1 Episode 19 and accidentally charm another boy. This is deconstructed, however, when it was revealed that his mother deliberately set this up because she always wanted a daughter. Upon learning this, Nakamura apologizes for her previous teasing. And then immediately forces him to crossdress again for their cafe.
• Effeminate Voice: Nagisa is an androgynous-looking boy who has managed to easily pass off as a girl when forced to wear a skirt. Fittingly for his appearance, Nagisa is voiced by a woman.
• Even the Guys Want Him: When a disguise makes them think he's a girl, that is. And possibly even when they know he's a boy.
• Expressive Hair: Subtly. His pigtails droop when he's feeling particularly down. They lift up and become wing-like when he's surprised or his killing intent is switched on.
• Extreme Doormat: He allowed himself to be abused by his Control Freak of a mother without saying a word, because every time he tries to defy her, she flies into a rage. Fortunately, this has come to an end when he saves her from an assassin.
• First-Name Basis: Everyone calls him by his given name. Really everyone. This is a bit odd in a Last-Name Basis setting.
  • Chapter 178 reveals that this setup would make it easier for him to re-adopt his old surname if his parents ever get try to patch things up, which they do as requested by Koro-sensei.
  • This gets upped by his students during his student teacher tenure who also call him by his first name with no honorifics.
• First-Person Peripheral Narrator: While Koro-sensei is the central character, Nagisa provides most of the narration, usually in the form of explaining the thoughts of the whole class.
• Follow in My Footsteps: After saving his mother from an assassin using the same skills he honed throughout his childhood with her, Nagisa decides to follow Koro-sensei's path as a schoolteacher.
• Gender-Blender Name: "Nagisa" is an androgynous name, though more often given to girls. Makes sense since his mother wanted a daughter.
• Girlish Pigtails: Seriously, look at his hair. You can't deny that those are pigtails, and he looks very girly with them. He did this out of a need to put his shoulder-length hair in control because his mother wouldn't allow him to cut it. Also, he originally mulled a ponytail, but Kayano suggested his current style so he could stand out enough for her to be able to blend in with the "background characters".
• Guile Hero: He's a tricky one, no doubt about it. The standout example would be Hidden in Plain Sight during the civil war game by matching his camouflage to Karasuma's so he could stand back-to-back with him, allowing him to keep an eye on the entire battlefield and take out Nakamura and the delinquent trio at once.
• Height Angst: He is a little dismayed at the fact that he hasn't grown much even after seven years.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: He's at least competent at everything he does, but you wouldn't think so by how low his opinion of himself is unless his killing intent is switched on.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Sugino and especially Karma.
• Hidden Depths: Nagisa is heavily implied to be more than just the main perspective character, as evidenced in a training session in Chapter 38 / Season 1 Episode 13, where Karasuma challenges the kids to attempt to attack him with their anti-sensei knives (which are harmless to humans). A monstrous snake suddenly attacks Karasuma, later revealed to be a symbolic representation of Nagisa's sneakiness. Later, when Takaoka challenges the class to fight him with real knives (believing that, like his other recruits, they'll choke because they've never used a real weapon), Karasuma gives the knife to Nagisa, who immediately dispatches him. Even Karma notes from time to time that there's something deeply disturbing about him, which was implied to be the reason they drifted apart for some time before landing on Class 3-E.
• Honor Thy Abuser: After it's shown how obsessive and abusive Nagisa's mother was towards him, their subplot ends with Nagisa forgiving her and her being a Karma Houdini.
• Icy Blue Eyes: Whenever his bloodlust takes over, his usually kind innocent baby blues turn into piercing gems that can bring even a pro to a standstill.
• I'll Kill You!: Nagisa asserts this to Takaoka after he destroys the antidote needed to save his classmates. His classmates are perfectly willing to believe he'd actually go through with it.
• Important Haircut: Nagisa tells his mother that once he feels like he has earned his desired results in Class E, he will cut his hair after graduation. In the epilogue, we see that he has lived up to his word.
• Inelegant Blubbering: After dealing the deathblow to Koro-sensei, he's the first of the students to break into heavy sobbing. It's not pretty.
• Insecure Love Interest: Nagisa has such low self-esteem that he thinks there's no way a girl falls for him. He actually thinks Kayano might hate him for kissing her.
• Kill the Ones You Love: At the end of the series, the whole class were forced to kill Koro-sensei, but special mention goes to Nagisa, who volunteers to deal the fatal blow.
• Killing Intent: He can make middle school bullies and two of the government's most elite soldiers lose their composure and tremble in fear through killing intent alone, symbolized by a gigantic snake. This is played with come Chapter 128, where it is revealed that some of his covert bloodlust actually belongs to Kayano, who used him to conceal herself until the time is ripe for killing Koro-sensei.
• Legacy Character: In the epilogue, Nagisa, now a schoolteacher himself, takes on the legacy left by Koro-sensei in rehabilitating social outcasts, symbolized by his serpentine aura being replaced with an image of his beloved sensei.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: He's known to everyone as a kind, meek student without any noteworthy physical abilities, though a few characters catch glimpses of his potential as an assassin.
  • When Karasuma chooses him to fight Takaoka in a duel, most characters couldn't comprehend why... until Nagisa flawlessly takes Takaoka down using his wits and killing intent, even though the match was rigged against him.
  • When he's normal, he's so normal Karma thought he was so un-scary that it was scary because Karma had just seen how dangerous he could be but couldn't detect anything about him that gave that away. And when he's not normal, even when facing a vastly stronger opponent his classmates seem to be more scared of him than for him.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Kayano admits that the only reason she never completely lost her mind due to the loss of her family and her misguided vendetta is because Nagisa filled her heart with warmth.
• The Load: Lampshaded by himself, as he points out that accompanying his female classmates while being dressed up as a girl was completely pointless in the end. Though, Karma thinks it would be obviously funny.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: He has shoulder-length hair, which only contributes to his girly looks. Turns out his mother doesn't allow him to cut his hair because she wants him to look like a girl.
• Love Martyr: The Graduation Book Time reveals that when his parents separated, he chose to live with Hiromi out of concern for her wellbeing, even if he has to bear the brunt of her hysteric fits. He's willing to put up with her constant abuse and My Beloved Smother tendencies just because he loves her and doesn't want her to be alone.
• Marshmallow Hell: Irina tries to extract information on Koro-sensei's weaknesses by smothering him with her breasts. A couple of outsider students find themselves incredibly jealous of him.
• Maybe Ever After: His and Kayano's status is up in the air as of the epilogue.
• Mellow Fellow: His mask of serenity works because it is completely genuine most of the time: barring exceptional situations like the premise, Nagisa prefers to go with the flow of what others are doing and minimize conflict. He's just very quick to switch into 'assassin mode'.
• Nerves of Steel: Nagisa tends to keep his cool whenever he's in a situation where his life is at risk. Koro-sensei notes that this is one of the important aspects of an assassin.
• Nice Guy: Nagisa is meek, very sweet towards his classmates, and won't easily let his emotions get the best of him. Even after showing off some terrifying displays of bloodlust, his classmates still respect him for his kindness.
• Nightmare Face: An unusual example, but his innocent smiling faces have given Takaoka some serious nightmares.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: He briefly suffers one from Takaoka in their final showdown in Episode 22. It doesn't put Nagisa down, however, and ends up terrifying him with his sheer assassination skills while never failing to put on a sweet smile like it was nothing.
• Not So Above It All: While he's usually Class 3-E's Only Sane Man, he won't hesitate to get a little mischievous when a plan calls for messing with Koro-sensei or one of the uppity students from the main campus.
• Oblivious to His Own Description: It has been remarked that he is the only person who doesn't realize just how dangerous his Killing Intent is.
• Oblivious to Love: Even after the 15-hit kiss combo incident, Nagisa is pretty unaware of Kayano's crush on him. Karma warns her that Nagisa will never figure out how she feels unless she tells him directly.
• Odd Friendship: With his long-time friend Karma (in contrast to his good chemistry with Sugino). Where Nagisa is meek but subtle, Karma is outgoing and reckless.
• Older Than He Looks: Seven years later, and he's only grown a paltry three centimeters (barely an inch). As a result, he looks way too young for a 22-year-old.
• Ordinary Middle School Student: Thoroughly normal, though in keeping with this trope there are a couple hidden special things about him.
• Out of Focus: During Season 2 Episode 8, which heavily focuses on Karasuma. This is probably the only episode where he doesn't even get a single line.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: He is the shortest boy in the class at 159cm (5'2"), and he can take down people taller and bulkier than him with ease.
• Post-Kiss Catatonia: He passes out after receiving a 30-hit kiss from Irina.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Before tasing Takaoka unconscious in their final fight, he simply "thanks" him.
• Psychotic Smirk: Has an utterly chilling one when he gets serious.
• Rage Breaking Point: After keeping his composure together while trying to appease Takaoka in order to obtain the antidote to the lethal virus afflicting his classmates, he finally loses it when Takaoka destroys the antidote anyways.
• Raised as the Opposite Gender: The reason for his feminine tendencies. His mother is a psychotic Control Freak who doesn't let him cut his hair, and often wishes aloud that he was born a girl.
• Red Herring: Perhaps the ultimate example, in that some of his bloodlust actually belongs to Kayano.
• Sanity Slippage: Suffers a brief but terrifying one when Takaoka destroys the antidote despite Nagisa having complied to his demands. Though Terasaka is able to snap him out of it quickly enough, his classmates are all willing to believe that he could’ve and would’ve actually killed him.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The Sensitive Guy to Karma's Manly Man.
• Shrinking Violet: While not nearly as timid as Okuda, he's fairly quiet and withdrawn, so only speaks when he feels he has something to contribute. This greatly assists his assassin skills, because no one can see him coming. He probably developed these tendencies so he wouldn't provoke his mother's violent temper.
• Shy Blue-Haired Girl: A male example. He is a reserved, polite, and quiet boy, in stark contrast to Fiery Redhead Karma.
• Significant Birth Date: The Roll Book Time reveals that he was born on July 20, the same as Eishi Sasazuka from Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro, series author Yuusei Matsui's previous work and himself another natural assassin. Also the birthdate of Alexander the Great, a strategic genius.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Male version. He is certainly not your traditional badass, but he can make himself appear so innocent that a man intent on beating him into submission was stunned into inaction long enough for him to get in position for what could easily have been a killing blow. Even in their rematch, when his opponent was expecting it.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Although he probably has his dad's hair and eyes, everything else on his face makes him resemble his mother.
• Supporting Protagonist: From Chapter 1 onward, he's been making note of every strength and weakness of Koro-sensei. Subverted come Chapter 177, where he volunteered to deal the fatal blow to Koro-sensei.
• Tiny School Boy: He's only 159 cm tall, which makes him the shortest male in his class, plus he's generally shorter than many of his female classmates save for a very few. This, of course, subjects him to endless teasing.
• Tears of Joy: His reaction after seeing his parents reconcile under Koro-sensei's guidance.
• Tears of Remorse: After finally landing the fatal stab to Koro-sensei at the end of Chapter 177 / Season 2 Episode 24, he immediately breaks down crying over being forced to kill the one person who helped him discover his passion and transcend his inner demons.
• Tranquil Fury: When Takaoka blows up the antidote needed to save his friends, he develops Dull Eyes of Unhappiness and not-so-calmly announces his intention to kill him. After Koro-sensei and Terasaka talk him out of diving into a full-blown Unstoppable Rage, his anger cools into a peaceful, terrifying smile as he prepares to use the "secret killing technique" on Takaoka.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: It's present for the entire class, but he's a very notable case. He's just too much of a natural at assassinations, which becomes even more troubling when juxtaposed with his usual behavior.
• Waistcoat of Style: He's the only one student who wears the waistcoat without the blazer over it.
• Was It All a Lie?: He asks this to Kayano/Akari when she reveals her true identity and motives. She coldly states that it was and everything was just an act to carry out her revenge. However, Nagisa refuses to believe this, and it pays off after Kayano, freed of her tentacles' control, admits that her school life had a profound effect on her.
• Weak, but Skilled: Takaoka notes that Nagisa is the weakest of the boys, with physical stats closer to that of a girl's. A few pages later, Karasuma is staring at Nagisa in awe as he managed to take down Takaoka in a matter of seconds and noting that Nagisa's talent never would have been discovered in the course of a normal school life. Ends up on the less-favorable end of this trope when fighting Karma during the civil war game. While he got Karma into a powerful chokehold almost instantly, Karma was able to negate it and stand up, with Nagisa still locked around his neck, from sheer strength. While Isogai and Maehara struggle to rein in Karma, Nagisa was easily restrained by Sugino.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: It's not brought up often, but his parents haven't looked him in the eye ever since he landed in Class 3-E, and he would very much like to make, if not them, at least someone proud of him. And he's literally willing to kill to reach that goal.
• We Used to Be Friends: Chapter 144 reveals that Nagisa and Karma used to be closer during seventh grade, but slowly grew apart until they were just classmates. Nagisa thought Karma grew bored of his mediocrity. In truth, Karma feared his covert bloodlust. Once they were both in Class 3-E, they started interacting with each other again, but their relationship is now clouded with some lingering doubts and fears.
• Weapon Specialization: His usual weapon in the exams is a sledgehammer with a golden head and a red handle.
• When You Coming Home, Dad?: Nagisa outright says that his father left home because he didn't want to deal with his mother's psychosis. Therefore, they don't get to see each other often, which is unfortunate because theirs seems to be one of the very few positive parent-child relationships in the series. Nagisa seems to like him much more than his mother, who he lives with. This turns out to be true as in chapter 113, which reveals that his mother is quite abusive.

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Karma Akabane

E-1: Karma Akabane (赤羽 業 Akabane Karuma)

Voiced by: Nobunaga Shimazaki (Japanese, vomic), Nobuhiko Okamoto (Japanese, event and TV anime), Austin Tindle (English) ^{Foreign VAs} Iván Fernández (Latin American Spanish), Dario Torrent [1st voice], Clemente López [2nd voice] (European Spanish), Bastien Bourlé (French), Marco Sven Reinbold (German), Federico Viola (Italian), Gabriel Martins (Brazilian Portuguese)

Portrayed by: Masaki Suda

"I think not enjoying yourself in a classroom where it's okay to kill is such a waste."

Nagisa's long-time classmate who joined late due to being suspended from school for trashing his teacher's office. He started off holding a major grudge against all teachers, and as such is one of the students most dedicated to the assassination. Koro-sensei helped him get over that particular issue, but he is still a near-sociopath who loves to beat people who aren't his classmates into unconsciousness.

3rd best marksmanship, boys' side.

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• Academic Athlete: Karma is one of the best students in academics and sports (in fact, he would be one of the Five Virtuosos if he hadn't stood up for the bullied class 3-E student). Too bad he's a lazy delinquent.
• Arc Villain: He was an antagonist to Koro-sensei in Chapters 4-6 (Season 1 Episode 3).
• Ax-Crazy: At the beginning of the series, he has a crazy obsession with killing Koro-sensei and is always keeping some sort of weapon with him for that. It gets toned down after he learns to respect his teacher and work with his friends.
• Badass Bureaucrat: What he wants to be when he grows up. In the epilogue, he enters a government admission test, with the intention to carve his name into Japan's political history.
• Badass Boast: To no one's surprise, he has some of those from time to time. After his first encounter with Koro-sensei he says, "Don't run away, Koro-sensei. I'll show you what it means to be killed" complete with his Animal Motif, a snake eye, in the background. He also delivers the lines, "You're not gonna rank in the first place, I will" to Gakushuu Asano, even after previously failing to beating him and receiving a good dose of a Humble Pie. And yes, not without sticking his tongue out, of course.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: He is an aversion because the 3-E girls agree that he is plenty cute but aren't interested in him because he's also psycho.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: By the end of the anime, he achieves his goal of assassinating Koro-sensei, which caused a civil war between him and Nagisa, but his reaction clearly states he ultimately didn't want to go through with it.
• Biting the Handkerchief: Played for Drama, but him biting his test papers is a clear sign of how upset he is over failing to beat Asano Jr. in the math portion of the first term finals, and on top of that performing worse in the midterms when Class 3-E had a handicap. This is omitted in the anime adaptation, as he only crumples them.
• The B Grade: In the anime version, he leaves the class immediately after everyone's test results got revealed then he is seen crumpling his own test papers all alone by a tree in anger. The manga plays it up with him going far as biting the corner of his test papers.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Aside from assassination attempts, he never seems to put much effort into anything, even training. Not that it affects his overall performance much. Comes to bite him in the ass during the first term finals where he performs badly enough to go from 4th to 13th place in school rankings. Certainly, he still did great for someone who didn't study at all, but he could have done better. And all parties involved know this.
• Brutal Honesty: Goes well with his direct and courageous nature, as he has no qualms about pointing out people's flaws to their faces regardless of whether it hurts them or not. When the whole class was cautious about mentioning the weird dialect a dangerous assassin had, Karma casually comments on it like he was talking about the weather.
  Grip (the assassin after breaking glass with a single bare hand): What a drag-nu. [...] Come on out-nu.
  Class 3-E: We're all too afraid to say it, but... well...
  Karma: (offhandedly) You sure say "nu" a lot, old man!
  Class 3-E: There it is! Thank god for Karma!
• Blood Knight: He is usually the first one who gets involved in a fight, even when he hasn't agitated for it in the first place. He even has a happy expression on while engaging in real combat with an adult assassin! Koro-sensei notes that Karma prefers fighting opponents all-out, over executing a covert assassination.
• Break the Haughty:
  • Karma gets a little too proud of his early successes against Koro-sensei. However, all he really managed to do was to draw his full attention, causing him to put Karma in his place by dealing with his attempts in the most offhanded and humiliating ways until Karma is driven to a Suicide Attack. Fortunately for him, Koro-sensei always fixes what he breaks.
  • Chapter 54 really puts him in his place when his overall ranking slips after failing to adequately study for the first-term finals. This ends up deconstructed later on. Afterward he starts calling himself an idiot, remarking that Koro-sensei would get on his case if his scores in the next finals were anything but perfect, and when he does get a perfect score he obviously feels more relieved than excited and accomplished.
• Broken Ace: On one hand, he is one of the most physically capable students, having ranked third in marksmanship, as well as the best in academic performance and the second-best track record among the normal human students when it comes to threatening Koro-sensei. On the other hand, he is still not all there, however good he is at things he tries. It's partly down to having been let down before.
• Broken Pedestal: A teacher he looked up to protected him from the consequences of his Bully Hunting habits because of his good grades... until he targeted the "wrong" person, who so happened to have been caught bullying a Class 3-E student. The pedestal breaking is (very) graphically depicted by the teacher crumbling to dust until only a skeleton remains. ^*The implication is obvious, this teacher is dead to Karma. This is then followed by showing the aftermath of Karma utterly trashing said teacher's office in retaliation, with the teacher himself being completely terrified even though Karma did not lay a hand on him.
• Bully Hunter: It was this hobby of his that landed him in Class 3-E when he beat up a top-ranking student in defense of a member of said class. He still gets a massive kick out of seeking out and harassing individuals with nasty personalities.
• Character Development:
  • Sheds his Brilliant, but Lazy traits after his Break the Haughty moments, as shown in Chapter 76, when a panel depicting his room shows that he has actually been studying. It pays off during the second semester midterms, where he ranks second, and is the only student in Class 3-E with improved scores despite having insufficiently prepared for the exams. His character development is so evident that even Koro-sensei and his peers comment on it.
  • In the final exams, Karma is faced with a math question even Asano struggles with. After calmly reading it through, he realizes the answer while acknowledging the talents of everyone around him. Before, he simply disregarded other people's strengths, but after getting the highest mark in the exam, he admits he wouldn't have been able to come that far without E Class and Korosensei.
• Chekhov's Gun: He has very sharp canines unique only to him. They actually come in handy near the end during his fight with Nagisa when in order to prepare for the Stun Clap, he bites his tongue hard enough to make it bleed, and it turns out to be effective.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: He's often seen wearing a wide, open-mouthed grin, especially when he's in the middle of ruining someone's day.
• Combat Pragmatist: Justified by the nature of the series. His real strength lies in his intelligence and traps.
• Deadpan Snarker: Karma is always one to dish out sarcastic and sardonic remarks to pretty much everyone around him.
• Delinquent: He often skips classes, loves to pick fights on streets and anywhere, and was suspended before the beginning of the series. Plus, He's also the only character in the series confirmed to have been suspended. Not even Terasaka has gone that far.
• Empty Eyes: Karma's eyes lack the shine his classmates have, making him appear just a bit... off◊ compared to the others. The only other characters like this are Asano and his father. All three of them pretty much qualify as manipulative psychopaths. Though, he sometimes has a certain shine in his eyes when he's excited and provoked enough.
• Everyone Has Standards: While Karma has no problems committing wanton violence, and even goes out of his way to seek it at times, he only does so to people he feels deserves it. And despite this tendency, even he is unnerved by the revelation of Koro-sensei's past as the "God of Death". Karma may be a delinquent with a violent streak, but he has his limits too.
• Evil Redhead: At first, he gave the impression of a genuine psycho, with his red hair a visual cue to how fascinated he was with spilling blood. He becomes more of a Fiery Redhead afterward.
• Fatal Flaw: Played with. His biggest flaws are his excessive pride and laziness despite being a genius, though his pride can occasionally be his strength. Most of the time they lead him to failures which he learns from, through the help of Koro-sensei, to accept losing sometimes.
  • His Brilliant, but Lazy trait is a flaw when his ranking slips after not studying enough for the first-term finals, relying too much on his genius without putting much effort into studying like everyone else.
  • His pride is considered a strength when Koro-sensei asked him to use his I Shall Taunt You skills to provoke the members of the baseball club and their supporters.
• Fearless Fool: He is definitely reckless and fearless.
  • He admitted to Okuda that his lack of fear scares him, as he feels he's incapable of being alert, which he realizes could cost him dearly in certain situations.
  • Subverted with Nagisa, who Karma eventually admits scares him enough that he has to suppress a violent urge to beat him to a pulp, so much so that it's what caused Karma to distance himself from Nagisa before they were both sent to E-class.
• First-Name Basis: Most of his classmates, as well as Koro-sensei, call him by his first name. He's called by his last name only very occasionally.
• Foil: Gakushuu might be one being set up for him, seeing as both students are the strongest of their respective classes. The fact that Karma lost to him during the first-term finals really got to him. Their parallelism is particularly noticeable in the anime where design choices have made them look nearly identical at a glance, aside from their hair and eye colors. Both of them also receive a Wake-Up Call.
• The Gadfly: Oh boy. Karma has made riling up people and annoying them for no reason his hobby. When Terasaka warns him against challenging Koro-sensei, he retaliates by mentioning that it's not like a certain someone who was scared and peed themselves, referring to that time Terasaka also tried to challenge Koro-sensei but got intimidated by him instead. And this is Karma in only his first appearance.
• Genius Sweet Tooth: The smartest student in Class 3-E and has an apparent love of sugary beverages.
• Guile Hero: His Establishing Character Moment is him offering Koro-sensei an introductory Handshake of Doom with a hand that's secretly covered in anti-sensei fragments that successfully cuts off Koro-sensei's hand and throws him off.
• Hands-Off Parenting: The Class Roll reveals that he's from a wealthy family and his parents are rather free-spirited, living under the motto of doing things immediately. It's also stated that his parents spend most of the year traveling and are rarely home as a result, which probably explains his unchecked violent tendencies.
• Hellish Pupils: His pupils change to ones similar to snakes' on some rare occasions. Especially before he started taunting Nagisa relentlessly.
• Heroes Fight Barehanded: Although he can use other weapons like knives and guns, hand-to-hand combat is his preferred fighting technique and the one he's most skilled at. Plus, Karma says he doesn't need one, when Grip, the assassin that Karma has to get past, tells him to bring a better weapon.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: After choking down his helping of Humble Pie, he quickly picks up the habit of calling himself stupid.
• Humble Pie: And Koro-sensei takes the opportunity to rub it in even further, knowing that those humbling experiences will keep him from ever half-assing things again in the future.
• I Shall Taunt You: A common tactic of Karma's that he's very skilled in. If he isn't doing it himself he's coaching others on how to do it. This side of his gets exploited by Koro-sensei during the ball game tournament arc.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Karma is initially introduced as a lunatic who was suspended for his problematic behavior at school. However, it's soon revealed he actually had been a Bully Hunter, in addition to being an excellent student. What landed him in Class 3-E wasn't his penchant for mayhem, but rather for siding with a Class E student who was being bullied.
• Karmic Trickster: Not that his name and habit of hunting bullies isn't a warning... and you do need that warning for when he gets serious. Do not provoke him, or else mayhem will ensue.
• The Leader: He takes on this role at various times, and he's particularly Type I for Class E's Red Team. He's surprisingly an excellent one too, as he's able to recognize both the strengths and weaknesses of his classmates and how to put said traits to good use. Lampshaded, as Karasuma once stated that "he's most suited to take command" due to his "devilish brain."
• Maniac Tongue: Karma's Character Tic. He tends to stick his tongue out every time he's being playful, it's like his own version of the "Silly Me" Gesture.
• Manly Tears: At the end of Chapter 177, having helped Nagisa assassinate Koro-sensei, Karma is seen openly shedding tears for the one person who helped restore his faith in authority figures and learn the importance of effort.
• Meaningful Name: "Karma" refers to the concept of a person's experiences being a result of their past actions, and fitting for a Bully Hunter, Karma enjoys giving bullies a dose of their medicine, if a little too much. He also reveals that his parents loved India, and he actually likes it. This could also apply to him in general, for when he gets too arrogant for his own good that he faces unpleasant consequences.
• Mr. Vice Guy: Karma displays a wide variety of vices and flaws, such as slyness, arrogance, recklessness, and bloodlust. He learns how to subdue most of them, but some, like being cunning, remained with him.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: He has a perfectly average build, and yet is the most physically powerful student in the class, even more so than the muscular Terasaka. He can even pose a threat to trained assassins. And when Nagisa gets him in a tricky chokehold, Karma is able to quickly stand up despite Nagisa hanging off his neck and shoulders.
• Nervous Tics: He tends to bite his nails when he's particularly stressed. It escalates when he doesn't study for his exams and fails to reach a top score in anything and he actually chews the papers.
• Nightmare Fetishist: When asked which girl in 3-E he liked, he immediately said Okuda because of her skill with chemistry, and thus her ability to brew deadly poison. In the anime, he has an Imagine Spot of her as a cackling witch stirring up something in a cauldron and himself as a demon, and called it a "match made in heaven". His friends are not so sure about the "heaven" part though.
• Not Afraid to Die: Karma jumped off a cliff as part of an assassination attempt. He wasn't sure if Koro-sensei would even try to rescue him, and even if he did, if Karma's plan had gone as he intended he would have fallen to his death after killing Koro-sensei. He's since become a lot less willing to throw his life away, though.
• Odd Friendship:
  • You wouldn't think a courageous, reckless, and confrontational guy like him would be friends with a meek, shy, and soft-spoken boy like Nagisa, but they are.
  • He's also close friends with Okuda, the only girl in the class who doesn't find him scary. In return, Karma doesn't feel the need to be cautious around her, and even confesses to her about his insecurities regarding his lack of fear. The guidebook even refers to their friendship as the most easygoing of the male-female relationships in Class E. The oddness of their relationship doesn't go unnoticed by their peers, who are as baffled as well.
• Older and Wiser: Played with. In the Assassination Classroom movie "365 Days", which shows both Nagisa and Karma revisiting their school after the time-skip, he seems more mature and less "crazy" as he reflects upon everything that happened with Class 3-E... till he goes back to his sly self and starts picking on Nagisa.
• Oral Fixation: Chews things (fingernails, paper, whatever) when he's seriously upset.
• The Prankster: He loves to play all types of pranks on literally everyone, like him torturing an adult assassin, even after he already defeated and tied him up, by sticking, ghost pepper, the spiciest pepper in the world, up his nose of all places.
• Pretty Boy: Many of the girls state that he's pretty good-looking and would've been a ladykiller if it weren't for his psychopathic tendencies.
• Psychotic Smirk: Has this disturbing smile◊ whenever he's being his... abnormal and threatening self, though it's more apparent in the manga.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • On the receiving end from Koro-sensei after he gets lower scores than previously on the first-term finals. Of course, it was to help him learn and grow, but it was still harsh-sounding enough to qualify.
  • Gives a ruthless one to Nagisa, as well.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • The Red to Nagisa's Blue, as shown by their hair colors. Karma is violent, vicious and arrogant, while Nagisa is calm, withdrawn and not very confident in himself.
  • And to a much lesser degree, The Red Oni to Okuda's Blue one, as he is cocky, somewhat demonic, outgoing, and mischievous, unlike Okuda, who's mild-mannered, bashful, and socially awkward.
• Sadist: Coming in hand-in-hand with his Blood Knight tendencies, Karma clearly gets a kick out of bringing cruel and unusual harm to people, and often looks for excuses to get involved in fights or pull nasty tricks. He does, however, draw the line at hurting people who he feels haven't done anything to deserve it, and mostly limits himself to being Bully Hunter. His propensity for violence is undeniable, though, as during the class civil war game Karma's inner monologue displays a disturbing amount of genuine, gleeful desire to beat Nagisa, one of his closest friends, to a bloody pulp.
• Shipper on Deck: He is one for Nagisa and Kayano, although it's mostly so he can make fun of them.
• Slasher Smile: Does this creepy smile very often when planning something sinister.
• Sociopathic Hero:
  • Unlike Nagisa, he isn't just capable of violence but enjoys it. A lot. It's frighteningly obvious he gets a thrill out of torturing people physically or psychologically, and his victims can end up injured or in serious pain (and some are just of the Amusing Injuries type). Thankfully, he has enough of a moral compass that he strictly limits his violence to anyone who dares to threaten others, especially his classmates.
  • Played with during chapters 147 to 149 with Nagisa of all people, although in context it was within grounds. Karma admits that Nagisa's natural killing talent scared him so much he's had to suppress the urge to beat Nagisa up in pre-emptive self-defense, which he couldn't bring himself to actually do when the playing field was obviously unbalanced. When the Civil War Game ends up giving him an actual opportunity to do so, he does not hold back, and the manic grin he has on for the majority of the fight is borderline disturbing.
• Strong and Skilled: Zigzagged. Karma is noted by multiple people to be both smarter and stronger than most of his peers. However, due to his Brilliant, but Lazy attitude, he doesn't hone his skills much relying more on his wits and hand-to-hand combat to win. Though this mostly depends on his "rival", as he can be Strong, but Unskilled when he's up against the more naturally talented Nagisa. But according to Itona, he is Weak, but Skilled when compared to Terasaka, who's better than him only in terms of "raw energy and physique". That being said, he can still effortlessly subdue Terasaka using one hand, despite being way skinnier than him.
• Takes Ten to Hold: When he and Nagisa were brawling at one point and their classmates had to break them up, it took only one person to restrain Nagisa, who has a tiny physique, effortlessly, while Karma had to be held back by two students who were struggling due to his strength.
• Too Clever by Half: Karma is a genius and is proud of this fact but he overestimates this skill and doesn't put genuine effort into doing tasks that require studying which proves to be a huge mistake he learns from it.
• Trademark Favorite Food: The Roll Book Time states that milk beverages are his favorite food but it's been translated into "my own cooking." He specifically seems to like sugary food (strawberry milk and ice cream).
• Troll: When he starts really enjoying himself, he can cross the line from the Bully Hunter to outright troll in seconds. And, you really don't want him to do that when he's holding tubes of wasabi paste or anywhere near Scotch Bonnets... comes rather too close to For the Evulz for comfort.
• True Companions: Despite his sometimes aloof behavior, he gets along very well with his classmates and he never harms any of them, despite being a Blood Knight. He's also a Bully Hunter because he cares for his classmates and underdogs.
• Wake-Up Call: Gets this after the mid-term exams. His classmates studied hard both to ace the exams and win their bet with the elite of the school. But since he relied too much on his natural talent and didn't study, he doesn't even make it to the top ten. Kuro-Sensei chides him for it and tells him just because he has talent, that's no excuse to stop honing it, especially when his other classmates are doing their best to better themselves. Karma takes it to heart and becomes more active with the other E-Class students going forward.
• Xanatos Gambit: Tries this to kill Korosensei. The plan goes that he will jump off a cliff holding an anti-Sensei gun, so when Korosensei goes to save him, he will kill his teacher. However, he still wins if Korosensei either doesn't try to save him or evades the shot, as Karma will still die and Korosensei will have failed as a teacher. Korosensei, then, manages to save him by forming a web out of his tentacles and covering them with adhesive mucus to restrain Karma from shooting him.
• Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: Karma has yellow-gold eyes, and is most dangerous for his high intelligence and prankster tendencies. They also resemble the eye color of most snakes which is his Animal Motif.

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Kaede Kayano (Unmarked spoilers)

E-7: Kaede Kayano (茅野 カエデ Kayano Kaede)

Also known as: Akari Yukimura (雪村 あかり Yukimura Akari), Haruna Mase (磨瀬 榛名 Mase Haruna)

Voiced by: Yo Taichi (Japanese, vomic), Ayana Taketatsu (Japanese, event anime), Aya Suzaki (Japanese, TV anime), Monica Rial (English) ^{Foreign VAs} María García (Latin American Spanish), Eva Andrés (European Spanish), Fanny Bloc (French), Rieke Werner (German), Veronica Cuscusa (Italian), Carol Sodré (Brazilian Portuguese)

Portrayed by: Maika Yamamoto

"A true blade is one you don't even show to your close friends."

She's one of Nagisa's closest friends, and like him, she usually stands in the background and supports the others. She is the student who came up with Koro-sensei's name.

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• A-Cup Angst: She's really self-conscious about her chest, and claims to be a B-Cup whenever asked. A Running Gag is her bringing it up regardless of how relevant it is to the current situation.
• Aesop Amnesia: Even after learning (in the flashback arc) that dishonesty is a painful and ineffective way of dealing with life's problems, she still instinctively lies to get herself out of awkward situations.
• Affectionate Nickname: She is called "Kayanocchi" by Okano.
• Alliterative Family: Akari Yukimura (her real name) and her older sister, Aguri.
• Alliterative Name: Kaede Kayano.
• Apology Gift: Doubling as a Valentine's gift, Kayano gives Koro-sensei a picture of her sister in a bikini. A nice little gift for someone with just over a month to live, and partly as atonement for her misplaced vendetta against him.
• Artifact Alias: Kaede Kayano isn't her real name, but she asks her friends to keep calling her that as a nickname even after her real identity is revealed, since she came to like it.
• The Atoner: She is the first to join Nagisa's "blue" (save Koro-sensei) side during the civil war game as penance for having attempted to kill Koro-sensei out of Misplaced Retribution.
• Back from the Dead: Koro-sensei managed to maintain every last drop of blood and cell the second Reaper blew out of her chest, and carefully put it all back.
• Badass Adorable: Like Nagisa, Kaede is both cute and deadly even after her tentacles are removed. She would have wiped Okano clean out in the civil war paintball game had it not been for Kimura catching her from behind. The exact stats of her true capability are yet to be seen, but it can be assumed that they are the same or similar to Itona's.
• Becoming the Mask: She infiltrated Class 3-E to be able to kill Koro-sensei as part of a personal vendetta, though she genuinely enjoyed school life and even started to warm up to Koro-sensei, more so after her tentacles were removed.
• Berserk Button: She hates big boobs, and it's usually Played for Laughs. Though there are certain exceptions.
• Break the Cutie: In the space of one day, Kayano realizes that her excruciating year-long vendetta against Koro-sensei was all for nothing, that she was really in love with a boy she told him she despised, and that she nearly murdered a (relatively) innocent man. She spends the next two weeks recovering both emotionally and physically.
• Cain and Abel: Played with, as she's a roundabout Cain to Koro-Sensei's Abel (who'd be her brother in law had he married her sister).
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Shown to be jealous whenever Irina kisses Nagisa.
• Combat Tentacles: In Chapter 128, two long tentacles pop out from the back of her nape.
• Comically Missing the Point: When the students push to have Irina kicked out of Class 3-E, her reason isn't her initially poor teaching and lack of faith in the class, as it was with the other students. It was her boobs.
• Damsel in Distress: In the Kyoto arc, and it would have happened again in the Assassination Island arc if the class hadn't decided to forego the hostage trade-off and just infiltrate the Fukuma Palace Hotel.
• A Day in the Limelight: Despite the fact that she's a major viewpoint student, she usually stands in the background or supports them. She shines in Chapter 80 for the first time, with very little foreshadowing. Chapter 128 onwards is all about her.
• Declaration of Protection: For Koro-sensei, once she learns of his past and the true circumstances of her sister's death, to the point that she immediately joins Nagisa's "blue" (save Koro-sensei) side during the civil war game.
• Desk Sweep of Rage: In the manga, during her enrollment meeting, she did this so the headmaster would place her in class 3-E.
• Determinator: While she's usually a support type character, she's very adept at getting things done when she really puts her mind into something. According to Itona, having tentacles is an agonizing experience for any normal human. Kayano was able to wear them for a full year without even hinting about how much pain she was in. In Chapter 131, he guesses that this was only possible because she never actually used the tentacles during that year. Once she does, her mind starts eroding fast.
  [reading about tentacles]: In exchange for overwhelming strength, lack of maintenance causes fierce pain...?' Fine by me.''
• Disney Death: During the final battle, the second Reaper stabbed Kayano in the gut as she's distracting them away from Koro-sensei. Fortunately, Koro-sensei managed to gather every bit of Kayano's spilled blood and cell, and after the fight was over, he surgically replanted each one using his tentacles, before resuscitating her back to life.
• Disproportionate Retribution: She punches Terasaka for jokingly insulting her acting skills.
• Don't Think, Feel: She could smoothly express her feelings for Nagisa (through jealousy of other girls) right up until she started thinking about them.
• Evil Costume Switch: After revealing her true identity and becoming controlled by her tentacles, she changes her uniform for a black Minidress of Power.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: After revealing her true identity as Akari Yukimura, she leaves her long wavy hair at the loose instead of the cat-ears-looking hairstyle.
• Fatal Flaw: She is absolutely, unrepentantly driven by emotion. Because of this, she attempts suicide to get revenge for her sister, nearly murders an innocent man, doesn't anticipate Nagisa's "counterattack" (or the fact that it would work because she felt deeply for him), and later has a Heroic BSoD when her emotions conflict with one another. Her plan would probably have worked if she hadn't gotten so wrapped up in "Kayano"'s emotions and mindset.
• Foil: Of the red variety, to Nagisa. She'd probably like to be something a little more intense, but until he bothers to notice, she'll settle for being the friend he can bounce ideas off of who occasionally makes good points of her own. She provides much of the useful excuse for his First-Person Peripheral Narrator status.
  • In chapter 131, it's retroactively revealed that their character arcs began the same way: killing themselves in the hope that doing so would destroy Koro-sensei.
  • To Karma, as well. Unlike Karma, whom Nagisa knows for a long time and is a genuine friend despite his psychotic tendencies, she is only known by him for a year and, despite her nice girl image, only hangs out with him to cover up her hatred towards Koro-sensei. While Karma is open with his bloodlust, she hides her bloodlust in plain sight. Lastly, Karma wants to kill Korosensei for fun, while Kayano wants to kill Korosensei for revenge.
• Foreshadowing: Prior to the reveal in Chapter 128, there are many, many hints that point towards Kayano's true nature.
  • In Shiro's first appearance◊ in Chapter 29, he appears surprised seeing one of the students in Class 3-E. While the following panel has Nagisa in the forefront, it also has Kayano in the background, glancing away from Shiro's sight. In Chapter 128, Shiro mentions how Kayano averted her eyes as soon as she saw him.
  • Additionally, in Chapter 88, Shiro mentions in these◊ panels◊ that there is someone with greater bloodlust than even Itona. While many translators would often use male pronouns to refer to the person (presumably since Nagisa is in the focus as usual), the original Japanese text actually uses Gender-Concealing Writing, masking the fact that Shiro wasn't referring to Nagisa, but to Kayano.
  • Kayano mentions that she can't swim, shortly before Koro-sensei is revealed to also be weakened in water.
  • Multiple◊ panels◊ depict◊ Kayano with nearly well-hidden thin tentacles extending down her neck.
  • Chapter 80's ending has Kayano outright saying, "A true blade is one you don't even show to your close friends," and mentioning that she has more "jelly-like" blades to kill Koro-sensei with.
• Friendless Background: If she had any positive relationships in her life other than her sister, we don't hear about them. To be sure, the life of a child actress doesn't leave much room for making friends- which may explain her Heel–Face Turn.
• Functional Genre Savvy: She blended perfectly into the classroom by finding a student that looked like a protagonist and attaching herself to them as, essentially, an in-universe sidekick. This kept her Beneath Notice for most of a year, but then her tentacles drove her to abandon this knowledge and her sanity, after which she started making very bad mistakes.
• Genki Girl: An upbeat character, especially when it comes to pudding and other sweets.
• Genre Blind: Her plan to exploit tropes was mostly effective, but she didn't take into account the part where it placed her beside the protagonist, someone with the ability and motivation to stop her. She also presumed that the students would be a useless peanut gallery unimportant to her showdown with Koro-sensei when a major point of the series is that none of them are useless.
• Hair Intakes: Invoked. She seems to have a cat-ears-looking hairstyle, but it's shown not to be natural.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In the final battle, she draws the enemies' attention so that Koro-sensei can recuperate, knowing full well it's unlikely she'll survive but still does so as part of her atonement. She is Impaled with Extreme Prejudice as a result.
• Hidden Depths: She is the best hidden of everyone in Class 3-E, beyond even Nagisa. Most of her personality is a facade made to hide the hatred she harbors for Koro-sensei, who she assumes killed her sister. The facade, however, gradually becomes real.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Happens to her during the final battle, courtesy of the second Reaper. Koro-sensei resurrects her using his newly-learned medical knowledge.
• Implied Love Interest: She's seen hanging out with Nagisa quite a lot and is implied she has feelings for him, which is later confirmed after his 15-hit kiss combo, but it still isn't clear if Nagisa reciprocates those feelings. Ultimately, the epilogue doesn't give us a definite answer either.
• In Love with Your Carnage: As a fellow predator, she thinks Nagisa's complete concentration on the act of killing people is hot.
• It Runs in the Family: One can only wonder if being sisters caused both she and Aguri to fall in love with natural assassins: Nagisa and Koro-sensei, respectively. Even Yanagisawa laughed about how she died in front of him like her sister did.
• It Only Works Once: She could mask her true feelings as "Kayano", but after she threw off the act once, doing so became much harder.
• It's Personal: Unlike the other students, she has a personal reason to kill Koro-sensei: to avenge her sister Aguri.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Despite her feelings for Nagisa, she decides to not let him know how she feels so he can concentrate on his chosen career as a teacher and she doesn't want to distract him.
• Knight of Cerebus: An odd example because she was present from the very beginning, but the reveal of her true nature is a major Wham Episode that makes the whole class rethink everything about her and leads directly into even more major reveals about Koro-sensei's past. Kayano herself laments that her actions spoiled Class E's happy days while trying to protect him from the second Reaper.
• Letting Her Hair Down: At the end of the Kyoto arc, after taking a bath. Does it again after revealing her true self.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Kayano actually proves that she can fight on par with her fellow students when she manages to keep up with and dodge all of Okano's attacks. Apparently being a child actress as honed her very well physically, but she had to hold back due to her real plan (and also the tentacles she'd previously had caused so much constant pain that she couldn't concentrate enough to use her full potential).
• Lost in Character: Somewhere along the line, without knowing it, she came to love her supposed 'friends' and care about the classroom's future. Even during her tentacle rampage, she never threatened to attack them.
• Master Actor: She's actually a talented child actress, renowned for her skill to play any kind of role flawlessly. Due to this, she was able to fool Kunugigaoka into believing the fake identity she created. In a positive manner, her career has helped her learn some combat skills, shown in her duel with Okano during the civil war game. During Valentine's arc, it's shown that she loses this ability when it comes to her feelings for Nagisa. The epilogue reveals that she has returned to showbiz.
• Maybe Ever After: Her and Nagisa's relationship remains ambiguous as of the epilogue, with her body language implying she may be pregnant, even as she deflects Hara's questions about their status.
• Misplaced Retribution: She thought Koro-sensei killed her sister Aguri. In truth, Aguri was fatally struck with an antimatter tentacle meant to contain him while trying to stop his rampage after learning he only has a year left to live. She herself just happened to get there shortly after Aguri's death and before Koro-sensei took off, causing her to assume that he killed her.
• Mundane Utility: In the epilogue, she uses her assassination skills to do her own stunts during her acting career.
• Neutral Female: She increasingly appears to become this, standing on the sidelines rather than contributing much in the way of action, which also puts her Out of Focus. This is turned on its head with The Reveal of her true identity, showing it to be a deliberate ploy on her part. In the final battle of the series, she ends up as far from this trope as possible by being the only student to actually partake in it, with her willful Heroic Sacrifice providing the key to Korosensei's victory in the process.
• New Transfer Student: She transferred to the class early in the year in order to get the chance to kill Koro-sensei and avenge her sister.
• Nice Girl: She's a fairly nice student when she's not being plagued by her A-Cup Angst. Even after revealing herself as the vengeful but misguided Akari, ultimately she proves herself a loyal friend.
• Not Quite Back to Normal: A comment by Yanagisawa indicates that she retains superior spatial vision even after her tentacles are removed.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Her real name is Akari Yukimura. "Kaede Kayano" is actually the name of a one-shot character she once played and that she decided to use as an alias to infiltrate the class. Since she has come to like it, she wants everyone to keep calling her by her alias.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Okano's reaction to Kayano not being disgusted by Yada's big boobs.
  • In Chapter 80, she appoints herself the leader of the "Pudding Killsplosion Plan". The other students lampshade that she's always devoted to logistical support.
• Out of Focus: Even though she's supposed to be a main character just like Nagisa and Karma, Kayano doesn't really stand out much and has only been prominent in her A Day in the Limelight chapter. This changes once she reveals her true identity.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Her skills lie in logical and logistical support and pudding-making, not combat, so she becomes this when compared to the likes of Nagisa and Karma. She's actually not what she appears to be. Being far more skillful than Nagisa and Karma, she invoked this trope by using her skills as a prodigal child actress to hide her true intentions to kill Koro-sensei as part of a vendetta.
• Painting the Fourth Wall: A hilarious example in Chapter 83. Several students are Burning with Anger over the frame job on Koro-sensei, but we can tell by the flaming "0" over her head that Kayano is much angrier about being declared "Forever 0". Later, she screams at the real culprit that her cup size is B... and this time the flames form the shape of an "A". Nagisa even notices!
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Like Nagisa, she is the shortest student in the class at 146cm (4'9"), but she has also shown herself to be quite the fighter.
• Playing with Fire: She can set her tentacles on fire when her body overheats.
• Post-Kiss Catatonia: In Chapter 132, Nagisa knocks her out with a 15-hit kiss.
• Pregnant Badass: In the epilogue, she's retained enough of her training to be able to do death-defying stunts on her own even though she is implied to be pregnant.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Once she reveals her tentacles and her true identity, her eyes turn red.
• Replacement Goldfish: Shiro states that he intended to make her a villainous replacement for her deceased older sister.
• Rescue Romance: One reason she fell in love with Nagisa was that he saw her at her absolute worst and still wanted to save her.
• Revenge Before Reason: She states she doesn't care what she has to do, who she gets involved or even if she dies, the only thing she wants to do is take revenge for her sister, who she thinks was killed by Koro-sensei. This is later subverted, as it turns out she was merely under the influence of the tentacles, and in reality, she had already become fond of Koro-sensei, enough to start questioning whether she should hear his side of the story before taking action.
• Seashell Bra: A feature of her fish costume is seashells on her chest. It is practical because there is little for them to cover.
• Stage Name:
  • As an actress, she uses the stage name "Haruna Mase".
  • Even Kaede Kayano is a stage name, taken from a one-shot character she played in the past. Her real name is Akari Yukimura.
• Stepford Smiler: She'd been acting like a normal happy girl while masking her bloodlust and tentacle-induced agony.
• Super Drowning Skills: She can't swim worth beans. She had to wear a lifebuoy to keep afloat during a plan that involved pretending to be a fish creature. Her reason for not being able to swim is revealed in Chapter 128 where she seems to be similar to Koro-sensei and Itona, who also cannot swim.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: She has golden eyes, and it's later revealed she's not as normal as she seems. She has tentacles like Koro-sensei and Itona.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: After Nagisa kisses her to quell her bloodlust, he expresses concern that doing so ruined their friendship. Kayano, who had been hoping for a little more than just friendship, quickly replies that they're still friends... thereby shooting herself in the foot.
• Sweet Tooth: Chapter 80 reveals her love for pudding when he gets the opportunity to use it for an assassination. This makes her similar to Koro-sensei and Itona who also wield tentacles, like her.
• Switching P.O.V.: After revealing her secrets, she narrates several chapters in place of Nagisa because it's more dramatic that way.
• Tender Tears: She cries in relief after Nagisa assures her that the class still acknowledges and loves her as Kaede Kayano, even after revealing herself as the vengeful but misguided Akari Yukimura, and again in grief in the ending after she and Class 3-E were forced to kill Koro-sensei, who she swore to protect as her last living reminder of Aguri.
• Tentacle Hair: Downplayed. She has tentacles that almost appear to be on her head, though they're actually implanted in her neck.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: In the sports festivals, she participates in the net race game and she crawls really fast through the net because she has a flat chest.
• Unwitting Pawn: Not only was her vendetta against Koro-sensei pointless and misguided, but ultimately it benefited no one but Yanagisawa, who not only abetted her theft of one of his tentacles, but also intended to use her as his backup for his own (petty) vendetta in case Itona fails (which he does).
• Walking Spoiler: The reveals about her post-Chapter 128 are one of the biggest twists in the entire series.
• Wham Line:
  • "I love you, Koro-sensei. Now, die."
  • "I'm the younger sister of Aguri Yukimura. Get it now, murderer?"
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Her tentacles amplify her bloodlust toward Koro-sensei during their decisive fight until she's maniacally ranting about wanting to kill him in a way that made Itona look tame.
• Write Who You Know: "Kayano" is essentially a happier, more normal version of Akari. Things like her chest envy, her feelings for Nagisa, and fiery temper remain consistent throughout both.
• You Killed My Father: She wants to kill Koro-sensei because she blames him for the death of her sister.

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