Karma Akabane Character Analysis (Some Spoilers)
Here’s my full character analysis on Karma Akabane from Assassination Classroom! Enjoy!
TW for some mention of child abuse/neglect
I’ve often heard people refer to Karma Akabane from Assassination Classroom as ‘insane’ or ‘overly violent’ or ‘scary’ (even describing him as some of these things myself) but after rewatching the first 20 episodes of the first season (still re-watching the rest… though I think it helps prove my point) I’ve come to the conclusion that Karma is really none of these things… sort of. How I feel about this character who I love so much is so hard to explain that I’m going to take this whole paragraph/essay thing to try to explain how I feel about this character and what I think he means/represents.
Please keep in mind that this is MY interpretation of Karma’s character. And if yours differs from mine that’s FINE!
Part 1: Mindset (and how this relates to his intelligence)
Karma is most definitely not insane. He is a talented kid who does not feel the need to try. Because up to this point his talent has carried him enough. People have always praised him for his grades on their own and his BASELINE intelligence level with basically no studying, promoting what my school liked to call a ‘fixed mindset.’ This is the idea that there is no real room for improvement and that where you are now is where you’ll always be. These kids are the kids who ‘don’t bother to study’ because they figure (subconsciously) that where they are now is where they’ll always be, so why bother?
Karma has a similar mindset to this while not being exactly the same. His is more along the lines of ‘why bother because I am literally the most intelligent person in the room, including teachers.’ And for his entire life (up until he doesn’t do as well on his final exams) he has been constantly told that he is doing well, he is a brilliant student, he has teachers on his side as long as he keeps his grades up (which is no problem for him at all in any class under any circumstances). Not once has Karma been told that he needs to study more, or get better or he’ll fail and be deemed worthless, which makes him the opposite of pretty much everyone else in Class E. Which is one of the huge things that sets him apart from his classmates and makes it hard for him to relate to them and them to relate to him. When he’s first introduced, Nagisa is shocked at how far ahead Karma’s abilities are. And this is the kind of treatment Karma is used to.
He’s used to the SMARTEST KID IN THE ENTIRE SCHOOL AND THE SON OF THE PRINCIPAL seeing him as a rival. And everyone being jealous of his abilities. Of course he’s going to feel entitled to his grades and like he doesn’t even need to study. Because that’s what’s been communicated to him ever since he started Junior High School.
Koro-sensei has been the first teacher that has had a growth-mindset (the mindset that studying and hard work will be helpful and that praising hard work over the end result makes more sense) when it comes to teaching Karma. He’s the first to teach Karma that he does have room for improvement and that he can become an even better (meaning more over-achieving) student that he already is. Which is one reason I can rush in to say that Koro-sensei is a brilliant teacher. He’s not just capable of helping a certain type of troubled student, he can help anyone who needs him unlike some teachers (cough, cough, my Latin teacher, cough, cough).
Part 2: Social Life/Interactions (Or his relationships with his classmates and how they see him and how he sees them)
While it is never stated outright, it is heavily implied that Karma used to be a social outcast even before he joined the E Class. This is most likely due to the fact that he IS violent on some level and, as Nagisa puts it, ‘I felt like he was on a completely different stage form me.’ Basically Karma’s intelligence and skill are so high and alienate him so much that very few even try to interact with him. And often he pushes the ones who do away because he’s not interested in them. The only real friend he seems to have had is Nagisa (going out of his way to beat up bullies and people messing with Nagisa), but they drifted apart after Karma realized just how terrifying his friend really was.
Karma’s interactions with his fellow E Class students are not quite as… alienated I guess is a good word. He doesn’t seem as alienated in this class of misfits than he did when he was on the main campus. On the main campus, grades were all that mattered and as long as you had good grades you were right in pretty much every situation. But this is not the case in the E Class. In the E Class, everything matters. Personality, social skills, grades, physique, EVERYTHING. For the most part, Karma was conditioned to think that most everyone with grades below his were ultimately ‘worse’ than he was (this will connect to a point made later) and I believe it was partly his parents who conditioned him to think this way. Which is part of his intense teasing of Terasaka. Part of his interactions with Terasaka is obviously some kind of way of expressing endearment (meaning he actually likes Terasaka and enjoys interacting with him this way out of a legitimate enjoyment of spending time with him and doesn’t really know how to express himself in any other way (WHICH WILL CONNECT TO ANOTHER POINT)) but another part of it is a legitimate putting down of Terasaka (who, mind you, is the bottom of Class E) for his abhorrent grades and seeming lack of intelligence.
Connecting to the idea that Karma teases Terasaka out of endearment, at the beginning of the series, it seems more like legitimate ridicule. He legitimately believes that Terasaka deserves to be ridiculed. But as the series continues and Karma’s relationships with his classmates develops (I’d say the main turning point for this is their second encounter with Itona and Shiro) his teasing seems to become more of a way to express endearment than a way to express ridicule. He enjoys teasing Terasaka, not because he likes hurting his feeling, because he knows Terasaka will react and Terasaka understands this as well. This is just how Karma knows how to express his affection. This is the only way he really knows how to communicate with people and tell them that he likes them. And I think that Terasaka knows this, and silently agrees to accept Karma’s treatment because he knows that Karma doesn’t mean most of what he says (I also believe it’s entirely possible that Koro-sensei or even Nagisa talked to Terasaka one-on-one and asked/told him to go along with Karma’s teasing because they both understand what Karma’s like and believe that this is the best way to get Karma to connect with his classmates more)
After the Civil War episodes in season two, he becomes clearly more comfortable in interactions with his classmates (especially Nagisa) and seems more comfortable expressing his emotions and feelings about his classmates (again, especially towards Nagisa, who seems to be the classmate he feels the most comfortable with, for obvious reasons as Nagisa is the classmate he has known the longest and one of the only people he has ever had a legitimate relationship with and has ever tried to have a legitimate relationship with him). As much as I believe the Space episode is completely ridiculous from a story telling standpoint (so much so that I laughed out loud at the concept of the episode, especially after the insanely high quality of the Civil War episodes) it really shows Karma’s new levels of comfort in expressing feelings of affection towards Nagisa without using aggression. Stating that he only agreed to go into space because his friend wanted to go with him. And all his classmates are now aware of the intimacy of his and Nagisa’s relationship (to make one thing clear, when I say intimacy, I mean as in friendship, they have a very intimate friendship) and everyone respects it.
Despite what Karma believes up until this point (that needing friends makes you weak and working hard makes a victory pointless) it’s proven to him that having friends and being able to cooperate and working hard actually makes his classmates and teachers like and respect him more and will also make victory even more rewarding.
Part 3: Family (or relationship with his parents and how this has affected his personality and views)
So, before I dive into this section, I just wanna mention that this section is mostly speculation as Karma’s parents are literally only mentioned once in the entire anime (when the class is talking about whether or not they like their names and Karma says he believes he inherited his parents’ weird tastes since he likes his name). This is pretty much all my interpretation of what I believe Karma’s relationship with his parents is like based on his personality.
So… My perception of Karma’s relationship with his parents… You saw the trigger warning at the top of this analysis. What do you think?
Shocking I know. I think Karma’s parents are, at the very least, emotionally abusive, even if not physically. Though I would not rule that out as a possibility. I certainly believe they are at least part of the reason that Karma values his ability to win with ease and thinks of himself as better than his classmates, and definitely related to why he has some violent tendencies.
Karma’s parents likely had incredibly high expectations of him and most likely threatened him with either violence or over the top punishments for grades they believed to be ‘beneath’ him. This likely caused Karma to develop a feeling of superiority over his classmates because he was able to meet these ‘acceptable’ grades and his classmates either couldn’t or had to study a lot more to do it.
This is also related to Karma’s lack of social skills. It has already been proven that, on average, only children have fewer social skills than children with siblings (due to more interaction with other children as opposed to mostly with adults, I myself fall into this trend) and he likely doesn’t feel comfortable approaching his parents to have real conversations with them, which has likely lead to his inability to really trust teachers until one expressly tells him ‘I’m ON YOUR SIDE,’ and then, when this teacher betrays him, Karma nearly kills this man for not meeting his expectations. You see where I’m going with this. Because Karma has either been beaten for not meeting expectations in the past or threatened with a beating for not meeting expectations. After this Karma hesitates to trust Koro-sensei and actually looks forward to being able to kill his teacher because he believes that Koro-sensei will do the same thing his past teacher did and betray him again. It is only after a great deal of difficult ordeals and Koro-sensei repeatedly expressing to Karma that yes he is ON HIS SIDE and he WILL NOT BETRAY HIM does Karma begin to trust, respect, and listen to his teacher. Which obviously contributes to his attachment to Koro-sensei.
Karma’s parents also appear to be absent. From the one shot we see of Karma’s house, his parents appear to be completely absent, and Karma seems completely comfortable on his own and is allowed to go to the festival on his own and feels comfortable spending 5000 Yen (about 50 Dollars) on his own without parental permission to buy a gaming system as if he’s confident they either won’t find out or would be okay with it. Either way suggests they are either negligent/absent or have enough money that Karma’s excessive spending at random times isn’t a big deal (cause we know that pranking gear ain’t free, and I doubt Karma would actually steal stuff or that Koro-sensei or Nagisa would let him even if he wanted to). His parents’ absence/abuse is also suggested by him not talking about them often. A trait shared by Nagisa as well, who is also living with an abusive parent (though she’s abusive in a different way, and I’ll probably write more about Hiromi Shiota and her significance to Nagisa’s development in the future), almost every other character at the very least mentions their family situation, whether they have parents or not, but Karma, like Nagisa (until everyone finds out of course) never does.
Part 4: Koro-sensei (and his impact on Karma’s life and personality)
It is undeniable that Koro-sensei has a positive impact on every single one of his students. Karma is no exception. Shortly after Koro-sensei enters Karma’s life, Karma begins to learn that hard work is not to be shamed, nor is is a sign of weakness. Hard work and effort is something to be rewarded and something that makes you a better person.
Karma also begins to learn that his classmates are not his enemies, and are actually valuable assets who are all strong and intelligent in their own way. Koro-sensei teaches Karma that there is always room to improve, regardless of what his scores are and what his parents say. Or what the school claims. Koro-sensei has helped Karma get over his communication issues and the values that his parents have (likely) reinforced in his mind. In many ways, Koro-sensei has done a better job of parenting Karma than his parents ever did.
Koro-sensei is the one who taught Karma how to communicate better both with his peers and with his teachers as well as teaching him the values that Karma needs to use his intelligence/talent to full use and has helped Karma unlearn the damaging values and violent tendencies that have likely been literally beaten into him.
TLDR: Karma starts off as a violent kid with few proper social skills and kinda messed up values, likely caused by his parents being abusive, until Koro-sensei comes into his life and practically takes over Karma’s parents’ role as a caregiver/teacher who makes sure Karma is getting the right values and knows he is always capable of more.
HOLY GOD that was a long analysis!! THANK YOU FOR STICKING AROUND TO THE END IF YOU DID! I’ve been working on this for a really long time (about 3 months I think) and I’m pretty proud of it! So, thanks for reading!!
izzy806
gummygunk
germansingergirl
yousharknotpass
kaledo-art
baratheonpilled
