Review: Assassination Classroom “Transfer Student Time / 2nd Period”

Spoilers follow! Read at your own risk!

“Transfer Student Time / 2nd Period” turned Assassination Classroom on its head, and it actually made me more interested, if that was possible. Here’s the thing. When you introduce a character in the way that Itona was introduced, it does nothing but get the questions going. Itona and Shiro blew me away, because they got Koro-Sensei pushed to a point that no other student (automated or otherwise) was able to get him to. Oh, and there’s that whole brother thing that Itona was going on about.

Itona got the entire class floored by proclaiming that he was Koro-Sensei’s brother. We knew this as of last episode, but now it’s known to the characters, to an extent.  There was some sort of biological modification with Itona, but to save on spoilers, it was able to put Itona on par with Koro-Sensei. This proclamation even played a part in the duel between Koro-Sensei and Itona. Well, duel is a bit misleading, because Shiro kept interfering. I know this is a bunch of assassins, but they played this fight like it was supposed to be a duel. Either way, Koro-Sensei was able to take charge, and end the duel in his favor.

Now, this is one of those “blink and miss it” moments. When Itona said that he was Koro-Sensei’s brother, you see all of these homages to other Shonen shows, like Dragon Ball Z, and Saint Seiya. Then, later on in the episode, Shiro was reading an issue of Shonen Jump with Usopp on the cover. Now, if you put that in perspective, Sonny Strait voices Koro-Sensei, Usopp, and Krillin from Dragon Ball Z. I kind of see this as a very funny homage to the past of Shonen Jump.

A lot of what went on “Transfer Student Time / 2nd Period”, but most of it was conveyed in the battle between Koro-Sensei and Itona. There was so much to take in, mostly because you’re spending most of the time trying to figure out what the connection betwen Itona and Koro-Sensei really is. Unfortunately, “Transfer Student Time / 2nd Period” didn’t really get that far. Fortunately for Assassination Classroom, that leaves a lot of room to go back to Itona in future episodes. There is a lot possible story to go with, and “Transfer Student Time / 2nd Period” is exactly what Assassination Classroom needed to get the interest back.