Gabbing Geek Manga Review: Assassination Classroom Volume 1

Well, here we are, with more weird stuff from Japan.

I’m still loving it for its weirdness.  Here’s a quick review for the first volume of Assassination Classroom.

Assassination Classroom is set in a world where an apparently evil creature, some sort of octopus thing with a giant smiley face for a head, could be out to destroy the world.  He or it (I am not sure) has already destroyed most of the moon and says he will do the same to the Earth in roughly one year unless something kills him, but he’s also able to fly at Mach 20, making him too difficult to hit.  But, for some reason, he wants to give everyone a fighting chance by…teaching a class of Japanese middle school students, a remedial class.  What is he teaching them?  Standard lessons, and also how to kill him.  He’s vulnerable to certain types of weapons that don’t harm humans, but he’s too fast to hit.

But he’s also encouraging, seems to care about his students’ education, and even acts as a mentor to booster their self-esteem and confidence.  Sure, the government is offering a ten billion (yen? dollar?) reward for the being they call Koro Sensei (based off the Japanese words for “octopus” and “teacher”), and the government isn’t afraid to stack the deck since, you know, this thing seems more than willing to destroy the Earth, but why does this whatever it is want to be a good teacher to a group of troubled students?  Writer/artist Yusei Matsui sure has a weird thing here, but it’s also a lot of fun.  Eight and a half out of ten polite requests for poison lessons.