Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e 3rd Season

tl;dr: A sequel season that focuses less on battles of wits and more on long term plot and character development, for better or worse.

The third season of Classroom of the Elite follows follows Ayanokouji through to the end of his first year at Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School. In the same way that Ryuen was the focus of the second season, this season is focused on Sakayanagi, the leader of Class A. However, she’s very different from Ryuen in that she’s someone that has history with Ayanokouji and is fully aware of what he is capable of, and wants to challenge him head on ... without any pretenses. That only occurs near the end of the season though, so the majority of this season is her simply messing around with Ayanokouji’s class without trying all that hard.

This season continues down the direction that the second season started going down in that the focus on games and tricks is pretty much gone completely. There’s still strategies and planning involved, but they’re more just something happening on the side rather than the core of each arc. There aren’t really any epic twists where Ayanokouji turns things around and subverts expectations or anything like that. Thus, there simply isn’t as much room for Ayanokouji to shine. Furthermore, while Ayanokouji is still manipulative, his machinations are much more on the nice side as compared to previous seasons. For example, there’s nothing on the level of what he pulled when trying to take control of Karuizawa. As such, Ayanokouji has a much softer and less edgy presence as compared to previous seasons. To be frank, I’m not much a fan of that.

The focus of this season is Ayanokouji initiated character development. The majority of what Ayanokouji does this season is simply listen to people’s backgrounds and then respond to them. Ichinose and Hirata’s background comes into focus and they overcome their traumas. Meanwhile, Ryuen manages to pick himself up and come back better than ever. And Karuizawa continues along the path of increasingly becoming Ayanokouji’s loyal pawn. Though the biggest highlight was probably Horikita growing out of her brother’s shadow. Most of the character growth wasn’t all that deep, but it all being intermingled and happening in parallel with everything else going on worked well.

In addition to that, there was also a lot of setup regarding the general state of the academy and where things are going to go from here. I feel that the author, Kinugasa Shougo’s, bad habits are starting to shine through in this regard. In his other works, it feels that a lot of the time he had no idea where he’s going with his stories. He’s great at writing things in the moment and is a master at building intrigue through foreshadowing, but a lot of this build up and foreshadowing goes absolutely nowhere. This has begun to manifest this season. A lot of what was set up in previous seasons has been thrown away in favor of new stuff. And the new stuff is really cool as well. But I’m not sure how much I can trust that this new stuff won’t be thrown away either.

The art and animation are pretty similar to the previous season so there’s not really anything much more to say about them. The OP and EDs are decent enough in terms of the song and visuals. The soundtrack was more intense than previous seasons and I felt that worked better.

Promises, promises.

The inner monologue and flashbacks promise so much edge but they don't deliver. It comes off as teen angst honestly which is rather disappointing.

The show is on firmer grounds this season and the side characters are given more of a chance to show off. It does ring hollow though because in the end MC's crystal ball is still in effect. Also it does dip into stupid sometimes and some of of the sides break character when the plot needs it.

Also, again, the idea that individual achievement is a given but failure is to be highlighted and marked against the whole group ... is very outdated and negative. I genuinely question the value of this special school when the only ones to have a guaranteed future are the Class A students. It means that any other class might as well have gone to a normal school since it offers the exact same chances.

Lots of speeches and monologues this season, characters that just spill out their backstory in tears out of the blue to the MC. I mean, it made sense in the previous season because he took his time with one of the characters until he got it out of her and it was for a purpose. In this one... it's because he's the MC and we need to move things along.

Oddly enough the artwork improved this season. But I'd say the story and plot took a hit. The ending was particularly sappy for something masquerading as edgy.

Classroom of the elite is an absolutely disappointing dog pile that trample everything it trying to build up.This show is the definition of stupidity diguse as intelligent.It has a very interesting storyline about a school set up as an environment for students to compete each other,which it made to promise about a psychological thriller with high stake battle between people with people but this is where the problem start.
The show supposed to show the intelligence of the students but all the strategy it use are really simple and one dimensional with no back up or consequence that make the intelligence not very convincing and ... also make the show has no stakes because we know the main character will never lose.
And a lot of things the students do just explain as "they predict it" and no more explanation as if the author can't really explain it and just make it to be a cool moment.
The show itself is very shallow in the fan service that express through how the camera angle work and the degine of the female character.
The character is very poorly-written too
The protagonist, Kiyotaka Ayanokoji, is painfully dull. He’s portrayed as an emotionless genius, but his lack of personality makes him more of a plot device than a character. He doesn't grow, doesn't change, and worst of all, doesn't seem to care about anything, making it hard for viewers to invest in his story. His aloof attitude may be intended to create mystery, but it ends up making him unrelatable and flat.

The supporting cast isn’t much better. Most of them are one-dimensional stereotypes: the cold, ambitious Suzune Horikita is just your typical "smart but distant" girl, while characters like Kikyou Kushida are written with such exaggerated duality that they come off as cartoonish rather than complex and some character that have no meaning to tehe storyline like Sukura who just make to be the main character crush that slowly build up a slow-burning harem which has in the most morderm romcom has.The power competing between the students are reduced to shallow manipulations that lack real stakes or depth, and the show tries too hard to seem edgy but in reality it know well what it is about not a psychological battle show with many learning about human nature and the harshly reallife but rather an slice of life romcom show that offer no meaning to the things that it trying to set up from the first episode.

Visually, the show is competent but nothing special. The character designs are generic, and while the animation is clean, it’s not enough to save a series that’s weighed down by its uninspired writing and overreliance on cheap psychological tricks.

The environment is very bad too,a school with point system and a city that have anything you need in real life.That is a cool idea but the author never truly explored the deeper the nature and mechanism of this school to create more strategic potential.This is what the low-skill writer would do, instead of putting the characters straight in real world,they optimised it to be a small world because they don't have enough experience to comprehend how harsh the real world is.
Conclusion,this show is just a mediocre psychological show that trying to be something deep with many layers of meaning but turn out to be no more than a guilty pleasure show.