Classroom Crisis continues to be, well, whatever Classroom Crisis is. The show has rough edges, but a lot of great qualities, and an extremely strong thematic/emotional core. At this point I feel like the show itself is basically like its own protagonists – everyone’s counted it out, and nobody seems to be watching it, but damnit, there’s something worth rooting for there! Especially in this dire-ass season, it makes me sad Classroom Crisis seems to be somehow slipping through the cracks.
Anyway. This episode was fun. You can check out my full review over at ANN, or see more specific notes below!
July 25th, Summer Vacation
Great shot of Kaito standing in the doorway, backlit but pressed in on both sides
“Only five of you again today, huh?”
They need 500 million just to keep going
Mizuki jokes about them getting part-time jobs to lighten the air. Mizuki is very good at managing people without appearing to
Title: Clash! Union Battle
Kaito appeals to the union to protest for his division
They get their support! And start up protesting
So now he’s gonna be used as the union’s political pawn
The union is using him, but he’s also being given a big opportunity. This is how the give and take works, just like with the idealism versus pragmatism. And I don’t want Kaito’s idealism to just “win”
And of course the president is pissed they’re causing more trouble, but more visibility actually helps Nagisa Kiryu
“But to join forces with the Oozora Party!” and there it is. The union gambit has shown Nagisa a chink in his brother’s armor
Nagisa makes Kaito the assistant chief of the advanced technological development department
They make him an executive, so now he can’t be in the union. Whoops
Kind of a cop-out conclusion. I guess because this show can’t really go any deeper into the politics here. It’s a very surface-level conflict, since we’re in a show that actually has to explain what a union is
Kaito wants to be a leader as good as the prodigy engineer he was
Kaito’s spirit keeps them strong
And the rest of the team comes back
Ahahaha, that “no underage workers pulling overtime” joke was great
“We won’t know unless we try!” “Yeah, but I know.” Great exchange
And Nagisa says his requests were totally in order, and reasonable. He’s basically training them to be a better company, in his own way
I think I would like this show a lot better if I hadn’t just watched Planetes.
They both tackle a lot of the same themes, albeit from different angles, but Planetes does it with a better cast and without the easy solutions.
A big part of what’s fascinating me about CC is that I can’t quite entirely nail down their “angle” yet. At least not for 100% certain.
You mention about how you don’t want Kaito’s viewpoint to “just ‘win'”, and I agree. In fact (just personally speaking) I’d go further and say that I find Nagisa to be a rather more compelling character. His points tend to make more sense, and character-wise he comes across as less… entitled. Not to mention that he just plain seems to have gone through way more crap than the other kids, if the nasty scars on his back in the ep. 3 stinger are any indication, along with how his brother seems quite fine with arranging his flat-out death if the opportunity arises.
Now, of course, that portrayal has to be intentional to some degree; they’re clearly intending to make Nagisa sympathetic, so he’s (probably) not going to go down in flames… or at least not irretrievably so. And yet… it’s still inescapable that while (objectively speaking) he has a lot of the traits that are common protagonist ones, thematically the show seems to be painting him with the meta-plot trappings of an antagonist.
So how far is the show going to go with that, ultimately? How are they going to reconcile the meta-cues they’ve been giving as to his antagonist status with how they’re also building sympathy for him? How much is he going to have to “lose” to satisfy that?
It adds a bit more of an element of uncertainty that wouldn’t be so present if the story had just been framed as a more Code Geass-ish “brilliant wunderkid wages Lelouch-style corporate war against his corrupt siblings”. In fact… it kinda gives him an odd sort of “extra underdog status” to an extent you don’t often see, since he’s not just facing off against the Implaccable Corporate Empire, he’s also simultaneously facing off against the Plucky Heroes With Main Character Billing In The Optimistic Title Sequence.
And really, who can hope to prevail against that?
So, in addition to the story itself, just from a craft perspective I’m really interested to see exactly where they go with this, how they balance it all. On one end of that spectrum you have many different degrees of “Nagisa, the sympathetic antagonist who can maybe come over to our side after losing and Learning the Error of his Ways”. Whereas to the opposite extreme, you have “Nagisa, the stealth protagonist who gets hit with the thematic trappings of an antagonist in a bid to reduce the audience’s certainty that he’ll come out on top.”
The actual reality could fall in any of a hundred different points along that spectrum, and I’m quite curious to see where the writers for this show ultimately land it. That extra little uncertainty on how exactly it’ll all balance out is pretty fun.