Assassination Classroom

I'd say it's very good. It's one of those quirky series that are more than just quirks.

By the way, Mangatopia just released Chapter 67. The students are up against Gastro the gun-eater now. Oh and Terasaka shows off his new toys.

edited 1st Dec '13 4:39:59 AM by fillerdude

I also love it (or else I wouldn't spend my time doing unofficial translations) but some people don't stay with it. It depends on your tastes, and I think a lot of people come in expecting something very different from what they get. Firstly, while this is a shonen manga, in terms of action don't expect it to be like Naruto or One Piece, or even Fullmetal Alchemist. It's focused much more on developing the characters and their skills, so I'd classify it as a slice of life manga with some action in it. The action that is present is every bit as cool as in the shonen Holy Trinity, but it's a more subtle kind of cool, which I think makes it even better if you're tired of massive explosions.

its probably going to swerve towards more seinin based action now because as of the current most chapter in Japan (as far as I know).

Taka has destroyed the antidote and Nagisa is about to fight him to the death.

(Snipped)

edited 6th Dec '13 9:20:53 PM by Montegoraon

And now, chapter 70. There's a bit in here that disturbs me more than anything I've ever seen in a shounen manga before, you'll know it when you see it.

(Snipped)

edited 6th Dec '13 9:20:31 PM by Montegoraon

That's fine by me. I hate the Shounen Big Three, and tend to prefer Slice-of-Life (Tamayura and ARIA are among my favourite anime/manga).

chapters 71 72 (raws) are out.

Nagisa is a scary mofo. Apparently 71 reveals that Nagisa's killed someone before and was an assassin in training before he was part of the class but I'd wait for a translation before adding anything to his part in the character section.

edited 13th Dec '13 8:58:10 AM by Silentedge89

Holy crap what?

Say, whaaaaaaaat?

That reminds me, Nagisa disguising her himself as a girl was just hilariously awesome. Thank you, Karma.

Translations for 71 can't come fast enough.

Oh yes. Finally what all the fans were thinking all along.

Uh, sorry, that's not correct. That flashback is from the time in chapter 57 when Lovro offered Nagisa special training. He wasn't an assassin before Class E. Here, these are English scripts of the remaining chapters.

69: http://pastebin.com/0begGysK 70: http://pastebin.com/UPGL3cSt 71: http://pastebin.com/e8TydX3X 72: http://pastebin.com/UM72czKX

Nagisa, by the way, is sick in the head. That part where he's thinking about "thanking" Takaoka. I don't know if he's being facetious, but since he's speaking in an internal monologue he might be serious. Whether he is or not, he takes some information he heard in passing previously and uses it to inflict mundane Mind Rape on the guy. Beware the Nice Ones indeed. His capacity for cruelty is unbelievable.

Binging the manga since I've just been dropping stuff recently.

The school's setup makes absolutely no sense, even using the logic of the example about the ants.

The translator keeps adding in translation notes. Bad idea.

Some of the purely cultural things worry me. It's someone bad for a student to be an amazingly talented artist? I mean, jokes about the worthlessness of art degrees aside there can be some pretty damn good money in it if you get the right job.

Less critical (I do like this manga, by the way) Nagisa taking down Takaora is pretty damn badass. Way cooler than anything Karma, Ritsu or Koro have done. It reminds me of Casey at the Bat and I don't know why. I haven't thought of that poem in forever.

edited 27th Dec '13 9:19:07 PM by Arha

The school's system is an exaggeration of the actual Japanese school system, but not that big of one. In the real world they teach that if you don't get good test scores and rank really high, you're going to be a failure in life, and they really hammer that message home. The Kunugigaoka system is just taking that to its logical conclusion. After all, those guys who fall into class E weren't going to make anything of themselves anyway, right?

And yes, they also strongly discourage pursuing artistic careers. that sort of thing isn't seen as reliable or respectable.

When the old translator would put notes, including both translation and cultural notes, on a separate page at the end, I preferred that. For the current translator, some of the notes that were put in were completely unneeded, but they've been getting better about that. I don't begrudge their use, though. Most people who've read and understood the raws agree that it's top tier in terms of difficulty.

But they do get high scores and the chairman's model doesn't work even putting that side. There were 26 students in class E during the first test and about 190 students that took that test in total. If he's trying to use them as an example to get 95% great students, he's already failed because the numbers are already 1/7 considered failures. The chairman cannot seriously believe in his methods this strongly when they flat out don't work. So I am forced to believe that his actual motive is just being an asshole, not to actually make an improved school model or whatever.

And yes, I thought Japan might genuinely discourage the arts, but it still doesn't make sense to say 'These two are equal in every way except the second one also has a few additional bonus talents.' That's why it bothers me.

Well, about the numbers, the middle school section has 570 students in total, and there are 26 members of class 3-E. That's 4.5 percent of the school.

And it's not artistic talent that's seen as negative, but the habit of expressing yourself artistically. Doodling on your test sheets, for example, whether your drawing skills are good or bad. Japanese teachers regard that as a distraction from what their students are supposed to be learning: irrelevant historical trivial, troglodyte-level comprehension of a foreign language, and how to spout the teacher's opinions on classical literature back at them.

There should be Class Es of other years then shouldn't there?

Nope. There's no indication that a class 1-E or 2-E exist. If they did, they'd go to the same old school building as class 3-E, and it'd be impossible to hide the assassination from them.

I just noticed that at the end of the previous chapter, while everyone else was raising their weapons against the three hitmen, Karma was holding...mustard and wasabi.

He was being fair.

Huh. I guessed right. These guys showed up obviously instead of picking a fight because they had no intention of picking a fight at all.

Cleavage cupholders?

You say you're a pro but you're still shoving a gun in your mouth! Well it was expected they wouldn't fight.

Truly a woman who knows how to use her assets.

I also liked that the three hitmen were gaming, and that Karasuma didn't waste any time in trying to kill Korosensei.

edited 19th Jan '14 1:58:27 AM by fillerdude

Is it strange that when Nagisa smiled as he shocked Takaoka, I found Nagisa so irresistably...cute?

Well, no, that's why it terrifies Takaoka. He's just so serene and unthreatening, yet has complete power over him.

Chapter 74, in which Koro-sensei becomes a sleazebag Shipper on Deck, fails, is chastised and finally is joined by his students for more antics.

Nice Breather Episode. The author has a really good grasp of how to handle pacing and his arcs. After a tense and literal escalation of challenges and danger, with a climax on the roof, the logical progression to establish a different mood is to send the same characters to a sort-of underworld. It's the best way I can think of to slowly lower our heroes back to their everyday life, figuratively.