The fourteenth volume of Assassination Classroom picks up where the previous one ended – with Class-E holding a festival and selling food in competition against Class-A. This is a fairly fun, light-hearted storyline, with the most appealing part of it being that it brings back a number of characters from previous volumes. It’s a nice little treat for fans, and helps make things feel more closely tied together.
While that is an enjoyable storyline, the most interesting part about this volume is it’s focus on Principle Asano. Until now, he’s just been a fairly shady side character who doesn’t do a huge amount (other than be a pretty abusive father). In this one, he throws his hat in the ring and decides to try his own assassination attempt on Koro-sensei.
For the first time, the status quo for Class-E feels at stake. Koro-sensei is even given his walking papers. To me, this was the most tense the story had become since they went to the island, and it’s really cool to see Asano as a really competent foe for Koro-sensei. This volume even made me feel something for him, so it was good to see Asano used in an interesting way, at last.
Though it was a slightly more easygoing instalment compared to the previous volume on the whole, I think I enjoyed it just as much. There’s some good character development and the feeling that things are coming towards an ending continues to forebode.
Rating: 9.3/10
