Title: Assassination Classroom Vol. 15
Author: Yusei Matsui
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 195
Genre: Shonen, Battle, Comedy
Publication Date: April 4, 2017
The Story
Volume fifteen of Assassination Classroom is divided into one major story arc, one filler story arc and one story wrap-up arc. First of all, we pick up with Principal Asano having a flashback to when he was the creator of Class E. We got to see his past and how he now faces certain death. Like I had anticipated, Koro-sensei saves Principal Asano from the blast when he opens the test book and the two of them settle on a mutual ending… with the caveat of the Principal requesting permission to stop by and try his hand at assassination sometime. There was a pretty humorous wrap-up with the Principal and his son Gakushu threatening each other with lawsuits. After that, we got a quick little filler chapter with the students putting on a play. Nothing really special here, but it did serve as a nice little break before we got caught up in one of the most compelling story arcs I’ve read in this series thus far!
For the rest of the volume, we were treated to quite a shock! The hooded man, who once used Itona to attack Koro-sensei, has returned and said his greatest weapon will be unleashed. That weapon came in the form of Class E’s Kayano who had been suppressing her tentacles this entire time! She was in Class E for one reason only: to enact revenge on Koro-sensei for the murder of her sister! I’ll touch upon this in greater detail in the Characters section, but the amount of backstory we got for her and how it all ties into the main story was VERY well written! This has been one of the best story arcs Yusei Matsui has done and it segues into the cliffhanger ending where Koro-sensei reveals something about himself! This leads me to believe that Volume 16 will be a flashback/info dump volume, but I can’t wait for it. It looks like we are going to FINALLY learn the truth behind Koro-sensei.
Characters
There was a LOT of character development in this volume between Principal Asano, Kayano and Koro-sensei. First off, with Principal Asano… as I mentioned earlier, he was revealed to be the creator of Class E. He wanted to be nothing more than an exceptional teacher to his students, but that all changed when he went to visit a student named Ikeda after he had moved on from Class E. It turns out that Ikeda was bullied and ended up committing suicide as a result. This made Principal Asano question everything he had done up until this point. It made him decide that he will settle for nothing less than breeding winners through education. This is the motivation and drive behind who he is today. While he is absolutely ruthless, he wants nothing more than winners graduating from his school to prevent the same situation as Ikeda. This painted the Principal in an entirely new light and you can see that his heart is truly in the right place, but his methods are just downright cold, callous and brutal. His shelled seemed to have been cracked once Koro-sensei saved him and he learned the lesson of needing to be a better teacher… and a better father. It was quite the humbling tale and one you wouldn’t expect for a character like him, but it really makes a lot of sense.
The biggest reveal happened with Kayano. Kayano’s mother was an assistant to a scientist. She was found murdered one day by her daughter. Her daughter looked on and saw the murderer with her own eyes. As you probably may have guessed, it was Koro-sensei. Ever since she witnessed it, she become enraged with revenge and resolve. She would stop at nothing until Koro-sensei was dead and so she suppressed the pain from her tentacles this entire time, waiting for the one, perfect moment where she could stage her attack. The time for it was now and even Koro-sensei had a huge amount of difficulty fighting her off. What shocked me even more was how the fight was resolved. It involved Nagisa walking up and planting a huge kiss on Kayano’s lips! I can just hear everyone shipping Nagisa x Kayano after this scene, but it allowed her Kayano to come to her senses long enough to remove her tentacles.
This leads up the Koro-sensei’s big reveal. He says that after this event, it’s confession time. He was known as the original Grim Reaper Assassin! While that’s all the development we got, that one statement carries HUGE implications with it. First off, if he was the former Grim Reaper, that obviously means he was an assassin. That means that Koro-sensei, at one point, was human and it also means that Kayano’s mother was a target if he was the one who murdered her. Of course, that all may or may not be true since Volume 16 is still a ways off, but all should be revealed next chapter. The other interesting aspect is that Koro-sensei says that he is going to die either way, but either they assassinate him, or he dies and takes the world with him. This can only mean one thing… that Koro-sensei is unstable and his powers will, most-likely, cause him to become a bomb upon his death and when he dies, that explosion will take out the Earth with it.
Final Thoughts
This was, hands down, one of THE BEST volumes of Assassination Classroom I have read. The backstories on the Principal, Kayano and that HUGE tease with Koro-sensei were just phenomenal! There’s just one huge plot hole missing here, though. If the Earth will be destroyed when Koro-sensei dies… then how did the moon get destroyed? Koro-sensei claimed he did it, but that would mean Koro-sensei would already have died at this point. I have a feeling we will get our answer next volume.
I know this series has had constant filler arcs and has re-used a lot of the same stories (Such as the mid-terms/finals arcs), but I feel like this volume made up for all of that. If the storytelling can persist into Volume 16 at the same level as it is now, we’re going to be in for two of the best back to back volumes this series has produced. There are 21 volumes total for Assassination Classroom so there’s only six left. With the story getting closer to the end, it makes sense that Yusei Matsui is starting to drop the heavy stuff on us now. I have a feeling it’s just going to get even more epic from here on out!
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This item was provided for review by Viz Media
