The Spy Classroom anime was…no other way of putting it…a disappointment. The series got bashed online, not just in the English-speaking world but also in Japan. When it comes to anime, being based on a popular series of light novels is definitely no guarantee of quality (as any Classroom of the Elite fan will tell you), but even fans of the source material found themselves feeling pretty conflicted about the adaptation decisions.

So what went wrong with the Spy Classroom anime, and is there any chance of the series improving when it enters its second half next month?

Note: This post contains spoilers for the anime’s first 12 episodes.

Rushed Pacing in the First Three Episodes

The first four episodes adapt the first volume of the anime. The question of “how many episodes should it take to adapt a light novel volume?” doesn’t have a universal answer; it can be anywhere between 3-6 episodes, or even a whole season. In the case of Spy Classroom, the episode count was appropriate on paper, but in practice, episodes 2 and 3 suffered from funky pacing. This was because an entire middle section of the original book was shifted to after the climax in the anime. This was done to preserve a twist, but on the other hand, the twist in question came off as underwhelming because there was no foreshadowing.

The basic story of Spy Classroom is that a team of seven girl spies assemble under their teacher (who is brilliant at spycraft but inept at teaching) in order to take on an Impossible Mission. The twist is that an eighth girl shows up later, but all the characters pretend she doesn’t exist in order to trick the enemy, who is spying on their verbal conversations. Other than the team leader Lily, the book identifies characters primarily by their hair colour instead of their names, so it nudges you into losing track of how many of them are in the house at any given time.

It’s a genuinely clever literary trick where you can see the author’s crime novel influences (like Confessions by Kanae Minato and Bullet Train by Kōtarō Isaka), but tricks that play with physical descriptions of characters is hard to pull off in a visual medium. It is especially tough when the eighth girl, Erna, literally shows up in the second chapter and has a whole adventure. In the anime, her story is relegated to a flashback after the Impossible Mission, so there is no dramatic tension anymore. Her reveal in episode 3 comes off as an asspull in context, and episode 4 just serves to retroactively fill in the plot holes.

As the YouTuber Yutoma commented in the video embedded above, the jump between “training for the Impossible Mission” and “doing the Impossible Mission” was so abrupt that it felt like a time skip. Episode 4 is an improvement in the sense that it makes the narrative coherent again, but the first three episodes are definitely a wall that makes the series hard to get into. Spy Classroom did not get off to a good start.

Half a Season of Filler

If you’ve got a charitable mindset, the whole kerfuffle with Erna’s reveal might be forgiven as a necessary evil because of the differences in narrative mediums. After one flashback episode, you would expect the plot to get back on track again, right?

Alas. The next three episodes also take place before the Impossible Mission, which would make any casual viewer wonder if the anime has forgotten what the overarching story actually is. The episodes adapt stories from the first short story compilation volume, which was released after volume 4 of the main series. Because each story in the volume takes place at a different point in time chronologically, the book had its own narrative framing device to make the stories tie into a specific theme, relevant after the events of volume 4. Stripped of this context, the anime adaptation comes off as C-grade filler.

This is the part of the post where I quietly admit that the source material wasn’t exactly genius literature to begin with. At the very least, the short stories are definitely not the strongest writing in the series. The fun of Spy Classroom is in the over-the-top spycraft and watching the girls take on challenges way beyond their skill levels. Basically, it’s like reading a Shonen Jump manga. Watching the Spy Classroom anime is like watching a version of the Naruto anime where Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura take on every single petty mission in town instead of getting on with the Land of Waves arc.

The Spy Classroom anime eventually gets on with the plot in episode 8 and starts adapting volume 2. By this point, all the momentum is dead, but at least there are stakes again. Unfortunately, the anime kicks its viewers in the teeth one last time in episode 12 by adapting another filler story, just for funsies.

Lacking interviews with the anime production stuff, I will assume that the rationale here was to bring all the girls together for the ending, given that the characters were split up at this point in the story. Because every girl is voiced by an A-list voice actress, I can somewhat understand the logic behind giving them as much presence as possible. The original story was careful to focus on only a few characters at a time so as not to overwhelm a reader, but the anime released unique trailers for every girl. Overall, this seems like an anime where the marketing was at odds with the actual story.

Will the Story Improve in the Second Half?

The good news is that the anime’s second half should stay on track to adapt the main story in the second half. Most of the stories in the first short story volume have already been adapted, so you could say that the worst is behind us already. Yes, I know that’s not much consolation, but if you enjoyed episodes 8-11 of the anime, you can expect something more in line with that in the second half.

I would also like to compliment the production values in this anime a little. As a studio, feel’s best days are behind it, but the series did still have some good animators on board like Hibiki Yamaguchi and Teruaki Tokomaru. The occasional over-the-top spy acrobatics were animated with aplomb. This anime definitely could have looked a lot worse (although that is no guarantee that the visuals won’t decline in the second half, I suppose).

All in all, I don’t have expectations that the anime will restore all the goodwill it has lost even if it is demonstrably better compared to the first half. I just wanted to write this blog post to explain why the series did not catch on despite being adapted from a popular light novel series. Basically, my motivation for writing this post can be summed up in this tweet:

"The LN is actually good, guys! Pls believe me!!!" I yell every time there's a mediocre anime, but this time I'm telling the truth I swear, I'm not turning into a corncob

— 🐸🐸 Frog-kun 🐸🐸 (@frog_kun) January 23, 2023

Conclusion: please read Spy Classroom instead of watching the anime, especially if you enjoy light mysteries and Shonen Jump manga.