Summary
Classroom of the Elitewas originally a series of light novels by Shōgo Kinugasa before it became a manga and anime series. On the surface, it looks like an ordinary high school series about the Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing School. Instead, it’s a place where students are divided by class, and the lead character Kiyotaka Ayanokōji finds himself in D-class, the school’s lowest rank.
Things just get more complicated once he gets involved with fellow students Suzune Horikata and Kikyō Kushida. But it’s not the only anime set in a school to offer chills, thrills, and spills. Here are a few more shows for fans to check out once they’ve finished beating theElite.
Updated on July 07, 2025 by David Heath:Classroom of the EliteSeason 4 is still on the horizon, but fans will be kept busy until it finally hits streaming services. Shono Kinugasa will release the first chapter of the light novel’s upcomingYear 3on March 24th in Japan, which is good for anyone who knows Japanese. Though for Anglophones and people still working throughYear 2, the translation of its 10th volume will be out on March 25th, alongside an official guidebook forYear 2.
If that wasn’t enough,Year 2’s manga adaptation will be continued by Komada Hachi under the nameClassroom of the Elite- 2nd Year 2nd Stage.As such, readers will have plenty to sink their teeth into until Season 4 comes along. But what can people who prefer anime to manga or light novels do in the meantime? If they’ve powered through this list’s original entries, they can give this update’s new additions a go and see if it clicks with them.
All the series on this list are good and all, though Mengo Yokoyari’sScum’s Wishis closer toCotE’s psychological drama. It brings romance and thenmakes things more complicatedthan just a simple meet-cute. In it, Hanabi Yasuraoka is in love with her childhood friend Narumi, but he’s in love with Akane, their music teacher. Hanabi then bonds with another student called Mugi, who has a similarly unrequited love for Akane.
To stave off their loneliness, Hanabi and Mugi agree to maintain a fake relationship until their crushes fall for them. But one falsehood turns into a web of lies that catches other, unsuspecting love rivals. It started life as a manga published by Square-Enix before making the jump to animation. The series even got a live-action TV adaptation, though it’s easier to find the anime via HiDive and Amazon Prime.
Hanabi and Mugi may feel like scum for their desires, but they’re practically angels compared to the leads inFlowers of Evil. The series is an acquired taste as, instead of animating the original Shuzo Oshimi manga, Zexcs rotoscoped live-action actors instead. As such, it gives the show an uncanny valley look that puts some viewers off, though it fits the series' themes.
Named after Baudelaire’s compendium of poetry about decadence and erotic abandon, it sees Takao succumb to his urges by stealing the gymwear of his crush, Nanako, unaware he was caught by his school’s outcast, Sawa. She blackmails him into doing her bidding, even when he becomes Nanako’s boyfriend. The three go to an ordinary high school, yet their game of psychological and emotional manipulation offers a darker take onCotE’s trio of lead characters.
At first,Talentless Nanasounds more like an action show. It’s about superpowered teenagers called ‘Talents’ being taught at an academy on a desert island to fight off monsters. The world has been doing this for 50 years, and Nanao Nakajima and his class are the most recent generation of Talented students being trained to take them on. He has no powers himself, but he does his best with his training.
It stops sounding likeMy Hero Academiaand more likeCotEwhen two new students join the class: Kyōya and Nana. As soon as they arrive, the academy’s other students start turning up dead on the island. It becomes a tense murder mystery as the surviving classmates have to work together and learn who’s taking them out before they’re all dead. Superpowers can’t save them, but maybe honed human talents can.
Danganronpablew up pretty quickly. It began as a Japan-only visual novel that caught attention when orenronen did a translated Let’s Play for SomethingAwful.com’s forums, leading to it getting a worldwide release with multiple spin-offs and tie-ins. It then got its own manga,Danganronpa: The Academy of HopeandHigh Schoolers of Despair, which tells some of the story from the other students' perspectives, and its own anime adaptation,Danganronpa: The Animation.
The anime starts kind of like the inverse toCotE, as an unremarkable student named Makoto manages to get a spot at Hope’s Peak Private Academy, a school that only takes in the best of the best. Things take a turn when he wakes up in an abandoned classroom with the other first-year students. The principal, a robot teddy bear named Monokuma, offers them two choices: live in the school for the rest of their lives, or earn their way out by killing a classmate without being caught. As such, students are still plotting to get ahead, only the stakes are much higher.
IfCotE’s students were separated by class,Kakegurui’scast is determined by the luck of the draw. Only the children of the country’s wealthiest and most influential figures make it into Hyakkaō Private Academy, with its graduates guaranteed to join their ranks. The hierarchy of the school isn’t determined by grades but by gambling. Those who bet big and win big earn the esteem of their peers, while the losers become their debt slaves.
Luckily for new student Yumeko Jabami, while she looks like the average high schooler, she’s a compulsive gambler addicted to the thrill of high stakes. She takes sheer joy in betting based on sheer intuition, which shakes up the school and draws the attention ofthe Student Council. How far can she go before her luck runs out? Check out the series and its sequelKakegurui xxto find out.
6The Daily Life Of The Immortal King
The Ultimate Hero Tries To Act Normal To Keep The World Safe
Technically,The Daily Life of the Immortal Kingisn’t an anime, but a “donghua,” an animated show, movie, etc, made in China. It might be a pedantic point to make, but likeKorea’s manhwaand aeni, donghua may become more familiar as it expands beyond Asia and goes global. Particularly with the popularity of Haoliners Animation League (HAL) and their projects likeHeaven’s Official BlessingandPsychic Princess.
However,Immortal Kingis closer toCotEwith its school setting, and a lead character who’s more special than his lower class suggests. The difference is that Wang Ling is deliberately acting average to disguise the fact he’s strong enough to destroy the whole planet. He tries to suppress his volatile power with an amulet his parents gave him, but as his emotions get stronger, and more threats turn up, it threatens to break out and overwhelm him.
Heading back to Japan,The Fruits of Grisaiais anadaptation of a visual novelthat’s kind of likeCotEif it were a harem series. Transfer student Yūji manages to get into Mihama Academy, where he hopes to live the life of an ordinary high school student. However, he soon discovers the school is anything but ordinary, as it only has one principal and five students, all of whom are (of course) girls.
As he gets to know them, he learns the girls essentially live in the school, which serves as a sanctuary from their traumatic memories. But it also keeps them from coming to terms with their trauma, leaving them to rot like fruit fallen from a tree (hence the title). So, it’s down to Yūji to help them move on from their past. This is a tall order as Yūji, despite wanting to be ordinary, has his own closet full of skeletons.
There are quite a lot of series, be they drawn or animated, that follow apparent no-hopers who hold more potential than anyone thinks. It’s enough forImmortal Kingto flip that on its head and forCotEto make it a psychological drama rather than some shōnen series of challenges. But there’s nothing wrong with playing a trope straight, asThe Irregular at Magic High Schoolshows.
At the start of the 21st century, magic was proven to be real and turned into systemized technology thatpeople could learn about and master. Magical genius Miyuki ends up on First High School’s elite First Course, while her brother Tatsuya is stuck on its Second Course for low-scoring “Weeds.” However, he has a knack for combat, technical knowledge, and some lesser-known magical abilities. Tatsuya may prove his worth by being irregular rather than regular.
Baka and Test:Summon the Beastscould almost bea comedy spin-offofCotE, as they have very similar premises. Fumizuki Academy divides its students and budget into classes, with the best students & supplies going to Class A and the worst to Class F. The only way students can move up the ranks is to pass tests with bestial-looking spirits called “Avatars.” The more hits their Avatar receives, the more points they lose until they get a zero and face demotion.
This happens to Mizuki Himeji, who ends up in Class F despite being highly intelligent. Alongside the other misfits in her class, notably Akihisa “Baka” Yoshii, they declare war on Class A and vow to take their classroom for themselves. The series started as a light novel series by Kenji Inoue; then it got a 2-season anime series and a two-episode OVA that can be seen in full on Crunchyroll.
World Triggergoes for a more overt sci-fi theme thanCotE’s dystopian school. It revolves around Mikado City, where a portal called a ‘gate’ appears, revealing monsters called ‘Neighbors’ that threaten to overwhelm humanity. Luckily for them, a mysterious organization called Border comes in to use the Neighbor’s Trigger technology against them, evening the score between the two sides.
Four years later, life in Mikado largely went back to normal. But there’s still no peace between humans and Neighbors. So, when a humanoid Neighbor called Yūma starts living among humans, he needs help blending in. He befriends Osamu, a student and Border trainee who teaches him about human customs while keeping his identity secret. But why is Yūma playing human? Catch the series in full to find out.
