Assassination Classroom, Vol. 02: Time for Grown-Ups

This volume begins with the addition of a new English teacher, Irina Jelavich, who is secretly a professional assassin. She tries to kill Koro Sensei but, like an idiot, doesn't follow instructions and uses real bullets. Her efforts fail, and she basically has to beg the students to let her continue on as their teacher. Then we meet the students' next enemy, the diabolical Principal Gakuho Asano, who designed the school's Class 3-E system and who wants to keep them in their place. He sets them up to fail their midterms. Then it's time for a school trip to Kyoto, where the students are supposed to lure Koro Sensei to prime spots for snipers to shoot him. Unfortunately, several girls from the class are kidnapped.

I was not fond, at all, of show more the addition of Irina, aka Ms. Fan Service. She constantly hung off of and kissed Nagisa, a junior high student, because he had the best info on Koro Sensei and could therefore be useful to her (and yet she didn't listen when she was told that Koro Sensei could only be killed by special bullets and knives?). Also, her "defeat" by Koro Sensei looked like an allusion to tentacle rape.

I liked this volume more when it focused on Koro Sensei again. I loved the detail about Koro Sensei creating customized tests for each student, based on their strengths and weaknesses. It seems like Matsui is already starting to forget the series' original goal, though. When the school trip came up, the only real reference to assassinating Koro Sensei was the thing about picking prime spots for snipers to get him. They probably could have gotten a good assassination attempt in while Koro Sensei was still suffering from car sickness, but they didn't even try.

This volume ended with a 6-page crossover manga that pitted Assassination Classroom's Koro Sensei against the main character of The Mishaps of Kusuo Saiki (The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.). It was okay, I guess, but I haven't read or watched the other series.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

Volume 2 did not grab me quite as much as Volume 1, and the addition of a sexy female assassin/teacher (seriuosly, they are always sexy) did not really help the story. In fact, the sexiness introduced by this character felt downright out of place, not only in the story, but at the junior high school at where she teaches. I did like getting to know the students in class 3E more, and Kori-sense I was still a fun, threatening character. Onwards to Volume 3!

The second volume in this manga series is just as hilariously weird as the first. I'm not sure where the story is going, but I can't wait to find out.

It's been awhile since I read volume 1, and I had forgotten pretty much everything except the basic premise of the book, so that colored my enjoyment of this a bit. But I also felt it didn't quite have the same heart at volume 1, and some of the new characters were fairly annoying.

The new foreign language teacher adds to the humor of this series with her antics and attempts at teaching. Her last name doesn't help her either. In this volume we learn about the principal and see a bit into his character. Poor Class 3-E.

Class 3-E gets a new foreign language teacher and she's not exactly thrilled to be their teacher.
To be frank, I'm pretty sure she's here for two reasons: Comedic factor and big boobs.

We also get to see how and why Class 3-E is treated so badly. Two words: Evil Principal.

This series had 21 volumes.

I love this series!