Classroom of the Elite Season 4, Let's Talk About it

Article at a glance:
The first trailer for Classroom of the Elite Season 4 confirms Lerche is still handling the anime, despite concerns from the teaser visual.
Fans criticized the Season 4 teaser visual and are still unhappy with the new trailer’s character designs and animation quality.
Season 4 will adapt the Year 2 arc of the LN, but no release date has been announced; Fall 2025 or later is a likely timeframe.

Ichika Amasawa will make an appearance in Classroom of the Elite Season 4, of course — Can’t wait to see this gremlin

I know I just talked about Anime Japan 2025 a lot in the last article but funnily enough, this news isn’t from Anime Japan. The only reason I am talking about this is because I didn’t address the initial backlash to the Classroom of the Elite Season 4 reveal at all. I didn’t have the chance to. You see, COTE fans hated the initial teaser visual for Season 4. Rightfully so, the art looked like a massive downgrade over Season 3 and the LN. Season 4 will introduce some fan-favorite characters to the anime audience, so of course, the art is important.

So yeah, welcome back to another news article and today we are talking about Classroom of the Elite Season 4. If you recall, Season 4 was confirmed right after Season 3 finished airing. Which is when we got that controversial promotional art. But yeah, let’s get started.

A screencap from Classroom of the Elite Season 3 for comparison to Season 4 art style

What do we know about Classroom of the Elite Season 4?

As we all know, the Year 1 arc of the series concluded with Season 3. Season 4 will start adapting the Year 2 arc of the LN. Year 2 brings in a lot of new characters and changes in class dynamics. Fitting time too since the first LN volume of the Year 3 arc just dropped. Back to the anime, Kadokawa randomly put out the first trailer for Season 4 of the anime. You can check out the trailer here.

As you may gather from the trailer, most of the major staff member and all of the old cast will be back to reprise their roles in the Year 2 arc. That also means that the anime will once again be made by Lerche. This is important because initially, we were led to think that the studio might change because of how different the initial teaser visual of Season 4 looked. No release windows yet but I think Fall 2025 or later would be a reasonable guess. So let’s move on to

My Thoughts

I know a lot of people still aren’t happy with the character designs in the new trailer. And yeah, I see where they’re coming from. If you look at the LN, the artwork has always been amazing. COTE has some great character designs and the LN never shies away from showing them off. Though if you ask me, I think that the characters look fine in the new trailer. The animations do feel like a downgrade from Season 3 but hopefully, that will change by the time of the full release.

The COTE fandom has a love-hate relationship with Lerche lol. We don’t like them because the anime often skips over important content from the LN or because of inconsistent animations. At the same time, we can’t deny that when Lerche tries, their art looks awesome. So this trailer is good but this certainly isn’t it lol. They gave my boy Ayanokoji a babyface, I hope they fix that soon lol. These may sound like nitpicks but please go look at the LN art and how good Season 1 of the anime looked. You’ll understand.

That is all for now

I know, I got a little ranty there at the end but again, that’s why I made this article. I wanted to discuss the whole controversy around the art and stuff. I hope you understand lol. Let me know what you guys think in the comments. I will take my leave here. See ya!

Also, check out some Kaiju No. 8 news here!