Classroom of the Elite (ようこそ実力至上主義の教室へ)

This concludes the debriefing

on Kiyotaka Ayanokoji,

as well as the other 156 members of the second year class.

I trust you've memorized all of the information.

As for your mission,

you are to have Ayanokoji expelled

before the end of April,

and have him return to the White Room.

To succeed, you'll need to be careful in your tactics.

As you're aware,

if the details of our involvement

were to be known,

it could cause enormous damage to the teacher's reputation.

I see you're displeased.

To you, he isn't worth this effort.

I know you don't think Ayanokoji deserves

to be treated as our masterpiece.

As such, I've set the stage for you.

This is your opportunity to prove

that you're superior to him.

If you're as talented as you believe yourself to be,

having him expelled should pose little challenge for you.

A moment.

I have one last thing to ask.

You wouldn't happen to be hiding anything from me, would you?

A battle involving the students of the White Room.

Forced to hunt or be hunted.

Though it's merely a game between children...

I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

Hey, look.

They turned the blackboard into a computer screen.

-That's pretty cool. -Hey, Ayanokoji.

Oh, Miyake.

You didn't turn up at very many of the group meetings

we had over spring break,

so I was a bit worried about you.

I was busy.

Didn't mean to worry you, though.

Obviously, you didn't have any obligation to attend,

and there was nothing to study,

but we missed you, especially Haruka and Airi.

I didn't know.

I'm sorry, I'll try to make it to them more from now on.

I'm glad to hear it.

It'll be good having you there again.

What were you talking about?

Nothing.

Uh, Suzune?!

What the heck? I almost didn't recognize you!

Yeah, it's like you've become

a totally different person, Horikita!

It's only a haircut.

Hardly a cause for alarm.

Oh, well, uh, it's not like it's bad or anything.

I was just surprised, is all.

In fact, I think it actually looks pretty great on you,

Right? You think so too, don't you?

Yeah, of course.

But can I ask what made you do it?

If you must know, it's a symbol of my resolve.

Since we've entered our second year,

I intend to fight to improve Class D's ranking.

We'll succeed.

I'll do whatever it takes to make that happen.

Oh, I see.

I could let mine get long,

to sort of balance things out a bit, you know.

You're making quite the racket.

Take your seats at once.

Before we get started with our lesson,

there is something you'll need to do

that will be crucial for your lives here

moving forward.

I want everyone to access the school's homepage,

and install a new app to your cell phones.

Officially, this application is known as "Over All Ability."

Or OAA for short.

OAA?

This app will be used by everyone regardless of year.

Through it, you'll have access to a variety of resources

you should find helpful,

such as individual data on all registered students.

Have a look at your own data for starters.

Ma'am, quick question.

What's with all the letter ranks?

It's like something pulled right out of a video game.

Indeed.

These are individual assessments of your abilities

made by the school, based on your performances

on last year's exams.

And should you wish to,

you can view the abilities of students

from other years and classes.

It gave me an "E" in academic achievement.

The ratings will be updated at the beginning of each month.

So, even if you're ranked as E right now,

if you achieve a perfect score on your next written test,

your rating will most likely rise to an A+.

Whoa.

Problem is, a bad score is going to linger

as a blot on your record.

And everybody in the school

will be able to see it on the app.

Your first-year ratings

are simply a record of your past, nothing more.

As such, they won't affect your evaluations moving forward.

The administration sincerely hopes that OAA

will inspire anyone with less than stellar marks

to improve their rating.

So it's a tool to drive higher achievement?

No, surely there's more to it.

This app represents equality,

and all students will have access.

Ideally, everyone being judged by the same benchmarks

will promote interaction between class years.

However,

I suspect there is an ulterior motive behind this.

This is merely my own conjecture,

but it's possible any student

whose general evaluation doesn't meet a certain standard

by the end of the year

will face some kind of punishment.

Punishment?

You mean, expulsion?

What? Are you kidding me?

I'm sure some of you may not be happy with your ratings,

but it's an evaluation of your current standings.

If you don't like it,

I'd advise you to spend this year

forcing the school to accept your true talents.

So we're fighting alone now.

The introduction of this app

turns the whole concept of fighting together

as a class on its head.

Their fear and confusion is understandable.

Oh, and another thing.

This was adopted from a proposal

from student council president, Miyabi Nagumo.

He's created a system

where all students are evaluated

on their own individual ability.

Seems Nagumo's making his dream a reality.

Furthermore,

the first special exam of your second year

will use an unprecedented concept,

though I don't believe it's one

that should pose too much of a challenge for you all.

Put simply, you will work in pairs on a written test.

And as for your partners,

those'll be picked by you from among the new first-years.

Why are we working with first-years though?

In previous years, the school hasn't encouraged interaction

between the different grade levels.

We think this may have negatively affected

the development of your communication skills.

But other second years,

they're the ones we're competing against, right?

Yeah, that does feel kinda weird, doesn't it?

If you think about it,

when you eventually enter the workforce,

you won't always be interacting with people from your grade.

At times, you may find yourself in competition with first years

or even third years.

You may select your exam partner

from any of the first-year classes.

The test will take place in two weeks.

That should give you more than enough time

to find somebody to work with.

We haven't interacted with the first - years before.

It'll be hard to build a relationship from nothing.

Perhaps that's part of what the OAA app is for.

It will span five subjects for a total of 500 points.

You should try your best to achieve a high score

because if you exceed certain benchmarks,

the rewards will be substantial,

and the inverse will be true as well.

I knew it. If you fail, you're gonna get expelled!

Partnerships must be mutually agreed upon,

and once they are decided,

they cannot be undone for any reason.

As you can tell,

for this exam,

there will be a high demand

for academically proficient students.

Please, ma'am,

if we can't find a partner before the two weeks are up,

what happens then?

Anyone who fails to do so

will be randomly paired up on the day of the test,

and as a penalty,

a five-percent deduction will be applied to their scores.

You'll be in big trouble if you can't find anyone.

What am I supposed to do, Hirata?

Let's be real. There's no way a first-year's going to pair

with someone with my grades.

I'm pretty worried about it as well.

Calm down, everyone.

I'm sure we can figure something out.

Right.

We need to regroup and think things through.