Classroom of the Elite: Starting with Airi, Unlocking a Host of Skills

Advanced Nurturing High School. A “paradise” surrounded by three-meter-high walls and completely cut off from the outside world. Every month, students receive personal points worth 100,000 yen, the school’s facilities are extraordinarily luxurious, and nearly 100 percent of its graduates find jobs. But beneath this glamorous facade lies a system governed by merciless rules. Class rivalries, point competitions: the winners rise to Class A, while the losers fall into the abyss. Every student has a price tag. Toru Kanzaki, a new student in Class D. His grades are average, his physical abilities unremarkable, and his only real talent is a keener-than-usual insight into people’s hearts. On the first day of school, on the bus, he meets a girl hiding in a corner, desperately pulling her hat down over her face: Sakura Airi. Quiet and withdrawn, she barely seems to exist, as if she is deliberately erasing herself from the crowd. But deep in her eyes, Toru sees something he knows all too well: unease about the world, and a stubborn determination to keep going. At that moment, he reaches out to her. From the truth behind Sudo’s brawl to the covert battle of the VIP Exam, and then the schemes for survival on the Uninhabited Island, one carefully designed Special Exam after another pushes Class D to the brink. Conspiracies and calculations, betrayal and alliances. In this school where ability reigns supreme, there are no absolute enemies and no friends forever. The one thing Toru Kanzaki knows for certain is this: he will protect those worth protecting, then climb to the top over his opponents’ corpses. Starting with Sakura Airi. And he will find more companions along the way.