ASSASSINATION CLASSROOM: GRADUATION (2016 - Japanese)

Studio:       Toho Company
Director:    Eiichiro Hasumi
Writer:       Tatsuya Kanazawa, Yusei Matsui
Producer:  Juichi Uehara
Stars:     Ryosuke Yamada, Kazunari Ninomiya, Kippei Shina, Kang Ji-young, Masaki Suda, Seishiro Kato, Hiroki Narimiya, Mirei Kiritani, Tsuyoshi Abe

Review Score:

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Summary:

UT’s origin is revealed as the students of Class 3-E renew efforts to assassinate him before their March graduation.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

With six months remaining until graduation and korosensei’s March deadline to destroy the planet, Tadaomi Karasuma reminds the Class 3-E students at Kunugigaoka Junior High School of their mission to kill UT, recommending that the upcoming school festival will be an open opportunity. Karasuma also reports that the Ministry of Defense is tasking renowned sniper Red Eye to take out UT at the event. Karasuma assigns Irina Jelavic to back up Red Eye, although she plans to kill UT herself.

As a treat for his class, UT intentionally reveals that speed is his strength and if the students wish to exploit his greatest weakness, they must hold him down by his tentacles.

At the festival, UT stars in Class 3-E’s production of “Peach Boy.” UT successfully foils Red Eye’s attempts to shoot him.

Students Karma Akabane and Terasaka receive word of several high school boys having abducted classmate Kaede Kayano. Karma and Terasaka end up captured when they attempt a rescue, but UT arrives humorously disguised as Karasuma and saves everyone.

Kayano reveals that she has tentacles when she uses them to attack UT. Kayano confesses that she is actually the sister of Aguri Yukimura, Class 3-E’s previous teacher, and blames UT for her sister’s death. Kayano explains that she found her sister dead after a lab explosion and saw a squid monster covered in blood escaping. Kayano elected to inject herself with a syringe and have hidden tentacles grafted onto her body. She then transferred to Kunugigaoka posing as a student to exact her revenge on UT. Nagisa Shiota stops Kayano’s dominating attack against UT by passionately kissing her.

Shito, the mysterious man in white who brought Itona Horibe to Class 3-E, confronts UT. Shito unmasks and UT recognizes him as callous research scientist Kotaro Yanagisawa.

Urged by Kayano and the other students, UT tells Class 3-E the truth about his identity. UT explains that until two years earlier, he was the assassin known as “Shinigami – The God of Death.” Captured and taken to a secret research facility, Shinigami became the test subject in an experiment fusing anti-matter with a human body to generate energy. Kotaro Yanagisawa led the project.

Moonlighting schoolteacher Aguri Yukimura, Yanagisawa’s fiancée in an arranged marriage, was in charge of monitoring Shinigami. Over the course of the painful experiment, Aguri and Shinigami developed a romance. To celebrate a year of working together, Aguri gifted Shinigami with the present of the necktie UT currently wears.

When a tentacle experiment resulted in 70% of the moon being obliterated, the scientists discovered that an unplanned side effect of their experiment is that Shinigami will similarly explode uncontrollably and destroy Earth in one year’s time on March 13th if his heart is not stopped before his cells divide.

Aguri warned Shinigami of Yanagisawa’s plan to exterminate him to prevent the planet’s destruction. Shinigami began transforming into UT to escape the lab. Yanagisawa activated tentacle mines to attack UT. An explosion amidst the destruction fatally wounded Aguri as she called for UT to return. UT vowed to fulfill Aguri’s dying wish of teaching her Class 3-E students and bolstering their confidence.

UT points out to Class 3-E that he will die in March no matter what, and he chose to use his remaining time to give his students an education. Their class can only be completed and their bond as teacher and students strengthened if one of them, not an outsider, successfully kills him.

Class 3-E splits into two factions, with one remaining dedicated to assassinating UT. Rallied by Nagisa, the other faction considers finding a way to save UT by preventing his detonation. After facing each other in an assassination exercise, Karma agrees to assist Nagisa. However, the class collectively concludes to continue their assassination attempts in addition to finding a cure.

STAR hacks the government’s computer system and discovers that research in Yanagisawa’s possession could create a drug capable of prolonging UT’s life. With STAR’s help, Nagisa, Karma, and Itona steal Yanagisawa’s data. Manami Okuda uses the research to lead Class 3-E’s development of the drug.

Commander Hojo assumes control of the Ministry of Defense’s operation against UT. The military begins positioning a satellite laser to fire on UT from outer space.

The students are captured while trying to get their drug to UT as the military barricades UT on the school’s campus. The students use powder from their subterranean cell walls to create an explosion that lures the military guards. After playing possum, the students overtake the guards and flee.

Having initially pretended to dismiss their claims about the drug, Karasuma allows Class 3-E to escape while reminding them that they have until midnight to save their teacher. Karasuma is later dismissed from his post for disobeying regulations and not stopping the students.

Although she wanted to be the one to assassinate UT, Ms. Bitch volunteers to act as a decoy by firing a rocket launcher on the soldiers while the students break through the military perimeter around the school. The students make it to UT inside Class 3-E.

UT takes Okuda’s potion and prepares to issue graduation certificates when Yanagisawa, now sprouting tentacles of his own, breaks into the classroom. Yanagisawa explains that the data the students stole to create the drug was intentionally faked, and they actually did nothing to prolong UT’s life.

Yanagisawa transforms into a tentacle creature and viciously attacks UT. Kayano steps in front of UT to protect him. Yanagisawa swats Kayano with a tentacle and she dies in UT’s arms. UT unleashes his full fury and destroys Yanagisawa.

Having trained his tentacles for a year to prevent a repeat of what happened to Aguri, UT performs an operation that revives Kayano, although it further depletes his strength.

Lying wounded, UT points out to his students that now is the perfect time to destroy him before the laser gets into position. Conflicted over whether to spare him or to kill him, the students ultimately hold down UT by his tentacles while Nagisa, acting as the leader of the class, says goodbye and stabs UT through the moon emblem on his tie. UT’s body dissipates into orbs of glowing light as the students mourn.

Wearing a tie similar to UT’s, Nagisa becomes a schoolteacher. When his undisciplined students try taking control of the classroom, Nagisa overpowers them with his assassination skills, keeping them fearfully in line.

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Review:

Excited to enroll in a second semester of mirthful mayhem with the misfit students of Class 3-E and their smiley faced, sentient squid sensei?  Well, consider dialing down your enthusiasm by a notch or two as less-sharp sequel “Assassination Classroom: Graduation” trades in a fair slice of the first film’s weird whimsy for a follow-up filled with bleak backstory.

The celebration over UT’s survival at the conclusion of “Assassination Classroom” (review here) is short lived.  “Graduation” picks up with only six months remaining in the school year, which is the same span until UT delivers on a deadline to destroy Earth if his pupils cannot kill him first.  Mr. Karasuma puts on a pep talk to remind the class of their planet-protecting assignment, extinguishing emotional affection for korosensei as efforts are renewed to assassinate UT once again.

After an entertaining opening involving UT stealing the stage as lead actor in a school production of “Peach Boy,” the student spotlight swings onto Kaede Kayano, a fresh face in Class 3-E with a surprising connection to UT’s past.  When that connection comes out, UT is forced to tell his students the stunning truth behind how he came to be their teacher, as well as who he really was before sprouting yellow tentacles and gaining the ability the move at Mach 20.

For all of the initial intrigue that might accompany the prospect of digging into UT’s secrets, the actual reveal comes with a feeling closer to what Dorothy undoubtedly discovered upon peeking behind The Wizard’s curtain.  UT is/was a character built on mystique.  By stripping that mystery away with a tabloid tell-all origin story, “Graduation” loses some of the imaginative magic of “Assassination Classroom” through attempts to be more linear and logical.

A colossal component of the “Assassination Classroom” charm is the amusing absurdity of a smiley-faced squid monster winning students’ hearts while simultaneously instructing them in assassination arts, specifically for use in murdering him.  “Graduation” spends less time being this brightly colored and delightfully bonkers in concept.  This second spin through Kunugigaoka Junior High is dour and dark.

Whereas the heart of “Assassination Classroom” beat strong by exploring student-teacher bonds, “Graduation” slows down the laughter and lunacy to put a different kind of relationship at the fore.  Although the student-teacher arc gets back on course during the last act, the midsection of “Assassination Classroom: Graduation” concerns UT’s previous life in an ill-fated love affair leading to his transformation in truly tragic fashion.  And boy is it slow to develop.

Stepping backward in time results in prequel-like plotting burdened by a brake pedal of extended exposition.  The first film went full bore on the fun factor, never having a need to put explanation over entertainment.  While nowhere near the disappointment level this might suggest, a comparison might call to mind “The Phantom Menace” here: a story filling in blanks for which an audience doesn’t have a predominant interest in the first place to arrive at an end point already known.

One reason “Assassination Classroom” was enjoyable was because its creative characters were so infectiously lovable.  Take away their screen time to make room for a grim flashback romance and “Graduation” is not running on the same battery that made its predecessor what it was.

It’s not that UT’s love story is poor.  It is merely on a more muted wavelength than everything else in the “Assassination Classroom” saga.  This emphasis results in a melancholic mood, which is probably not what fans wish to see most from a manga-inspired movie otherwise motivated by energetic mania and frantic martial arts frenzies.  The two movies are so different in tempo and tone that I mistakenly assumed different directors were responsible.  (They aren’t.  Eiichiro Hasumi directed both installments.)

“Assassination Classroom: Graduation” runs nearly two hours, though spending a big bulk of it in the past leaves less room for the present.  Remaining runtime becomes a rush to squeeze everyone onscreen, with several formerly primary personalities, particularly Karasuma and Miss Bitch, relegated to inconsequential inclusions.  Other minutes are misspent on montages of smoking beakers and eyedroppers poking lab cultures as the kids experiment on a potion when the script could be thickening threads like Nagisa’s crush on Kayano, which begins and ends on a passionate kiss that perplexingly goes no further, a frustrating fate for several dying on the vine subplots.

Something else slowing the sequel’s momentum is lack of a clear, consistent antagonist.  The evil P.E. teacher of “Assassination Classroom” rallied both the bullies and the bullied of Class 3-E onto common ground, bonding them as understanding classmates.  Here, the enemy is less clearly delineated as a vague countdown clock to prevent UT’s impending detonation.  The film adds a face to the threat later, but as with other elements of the sequel, the character coming in behind it isn’t fully fleshed.

Having spent much of this review critiquing drawbacks, I should be clear that I watched the film twice and found much more heartfelt emotion embedded underneath the story on the second pass.  I’m hard on “Graduation” partly because its predecessor was one of 2015’s top films and I anticipated a sequel similar in style.  Perhaps individual levels of appreciation will also correspond to expectations related to what the first film delivered compared to what the second film does differently.

End credits are oddly accompanied by clips coming primarily from “Assassination Classroom” instead of from “Graduation.”  This reminds that the most memorable moments favor the first film while the second has a disappointing dearth of sly style with a devil may care attitude.

“Assassination Classroom: Graduation” certainly isn’t negligible or forgettable.  It simply doesn’t quite capture the same sort of spirit to hold its head at the high level of the more entertaining original.

NOTE: The film’s Japanese title is “Ansatsu kyoshitsu: sotsugyo hen.”

Review Score:  65

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