Let’s Talk About Classroom of the Elite Year 2…

Article at a glance:

• Year 2 exams are more intricate and involve multiple school years, introducing great new characters, but lack the high-stakes punishments of Year 1.
• Promising characters like Kiryuin feel underdeveloped, with missed opportunities for deeper exploration and context.
• While Year 2 remains enjoyable with an engaging plot and intriguing new characters, some decisions, like the anti-climactic outcomes of key events, leave room for improvement.

Right, I know that I am about a month late to jump on this bus but catching up with light novels takes time. And you all already know how much the Fall 2024 season kept me busy. So well, here we are finally talking about my thoughts on Classroom of the Elite Year 2. I think I made an article on Year 2 previously as well but a lot has changed since then and a lot of interesting stuff happened especially in the last 2 volumes.

Now, if you ask the CoTE community, Year 2 has been a real mixed bag. It has some amazing moments and yet some things could’ve been handled better. And I think I sit in the same boat. And yeah, I will try my best to give examples for every point I make. So let’s talk about Classroom of the Elite Year 2.

My Thoughts on Classroom of the Elite Year 2

Let’s start with the exams. Because I feel like the exams act as an analogy for the strengths and issues of Year 2. So the exam patterns have improved a lot. The exams were complex even back in Year 1 but they’ve somehow stepped up the game in Year 2. Many of Year 2’s special exams involve other school years which is pretty cool because it means more exposure to interesting characters like Kiryuin, Amsawa, Yagami, etc. But the thing is, many of these exams lack “punishments”.

The punishments for coming in last place or failing a special exam were brutal in Year 1. While in Year 2, even at the end of the year, the final special exam didn’t have a punishment for the class that came in the last place. Yes, we had the Ryuen and Sakayanagi bet to make things interesting but in the end, both of them lost and neither of them got expelled. Yes, it makes sense to keep both of them for the upcoming Year 3 but come on, why build so much hype around it if that was the case?

Aside from that, I wish we got to see more of characters like Kiryuin. She’s a badass and we only got to see her in action for like 2 special exams and change. And this extends to Ayanokoji too, by the way. He got some great character development towards the end of Year 1 and we see almost nothing of it in Year 2. I don’t mind keeping his goals a secret but I would really appreciate a hint or something just to contextualize his actions during the final volumes of Year 2 better.

Also goes without saying, that Shunsaku Tomose’s art is just god-tier.

That is all for now

To sum up, I don’t hate CoTE Year 2, far from it. I quite enjoyed Year 2, it introduced some characters I really like and the plot was engaging all around. I just wish there were things it handled better and some decisions frustrated me a little. But yeah, let me know what you guys think in the comments. I am aware that the opinions surrounding Season 2, especially the last few volumes are mixed. But yeah, with that said, I will take my leave here. See!

Also, check out my thoughts on Grisaia Phantom Trigger here!