Koudo Ikusei High School seems like a paradise with state-of-the-art facilities and where almost 100 percent of students go to university or find employment.
However, while the students appear to have a good amount of freedom, only superior students get favorable treatments.
After being careless on his entrance exams for a particular reason, Ayanokouji Kiyotaka finds himself dumped in D-Class with the other inferior students.
It has a setting that isn’t terribly uncommon, but Classroom of the Elite goes above and beyond with the story it tells. It is a story full of cleverness, cunning, and delightful pragmatism. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Classroom of the Elite, then head on down below.
Anime Like Classroom of the Elite
For Fans of Competitive Classrooms
Assassination Classroom
After the moon is mysteriously turned into a permanent crescent by an unknown calamity, the students of class 3-E at Kunogigaoka Middle School are presented with a daunting task – Assassinate the creature that blew up half the moon before the year’s end or die when the world is destroyed.
The creature in question, dubbed Koro-sensei by his class, is super fast, super strong, and by all respects, indestructible. However, while the students try and learn how to destroy him, they also learn that he is the best teacher that they have ever had.
Both Classroom of the Elite and Assassination Classroom follow the absolute reject class of a very competitive academy. While the students are not really helped by their teacher in Classroom of the Elite, Assassination Classroom has a teacher encouraging them to rise above being called useless.
Each series pretty addictively follows students thriving in their own ways due to the actions of the main characters, but Assassination Classroom, obviously, has a little more action and comedy. Classroom of the Elite is more grounded in realism and often features a colder disposition to the drama compared to Assassination Classroom’s more empathetic approach.
Regardless, both series are about solving the problems of a class full of characters rather than just focusing on a single character’s problems.
Kakegurui
Hyakkaou Private Academy is an institution for the elite of society with a very special curriculum.
These students are the children of the wealthiest people in the world, but they won’t need athletic prowess or book smarts for a successful life, they will need to know the art of the deal and how to read people.
So instead of traditional classes, this school features a curriculum of rigorous gambling where the winners live like kings and the losers suffer.
However, they haven’t seen anything yet until they meet new student Yumeko Jabami.
Like Classroom of the Elite, Kakegurui takes place at an academy for the elite where students thrive and struggle in a hierarchy system. However, instead of ranking students and dividing them by class like Classroom of the Elite, Kakegurui allows the students to set their own class system based on the results of high stakes gambling.
Both series feature an enhanced intensity to the dramatic situations, so much so that they almost feel like taut action scenes in and of themselves. It is this intensity that draws you in even when it is just two people talking.
Baka and Test
Akihisa Yoshii attends a school where the student body is divided into classes based on the results of tests. Unfortunately, after helping a fainting girl on his placement exams, Akihisa is placed on the lowest rung – F Class.
Although in this school he can fight with augmented avatars empowered by test results to steal the perks of higher classes, Akihisa is an idiot and his classmates are none too bright either.
Really, Baka and Test is like a more comedic and less serious Classroom of the Elite.
Both series take place at elite academies where the top class gets treated well and the bottom classes get scraps. In both series, you follow the bottom class as they struggle to do better and deal with their own personal issues.
If you liked the set up of Classroom of the Elite, Baka and Test really is just a comedy version of it.
Danganronpa
Hope’s Peak Academy is an elite high school where those accepted are given special titles that showcase their skills. This year, only fifteen were accepted, and one of them was the completely normal Makoto Naegi who got in on sheer luck.
The students are thrilled to be in such a prestigious school. That is, until they are trapped inside the school by principal and bear Monokuma who tasks them with killing one of their peers and not getting caught by the others in order to escape.
However, if they are caught and found guilty in a trial, they will be executed instead.
Both Classroom of the Elite and Danganronpa take place in an elite school that pits students against each other. However, while in Classroom of the Elite they aren’t at risk of imminent death, Danganronpa puts actual lives on the line with its competitive edge.
While Danganronpa goes over-the-top big with its characters, both series lean very hard on interesting character stories to carry the plot and fuel the drama. Although, Danganronpa uses more murder for drama.
Food Wars
Ever since he was a child, Souma Yukihira helped his father cook in his restaurant, constantly challenging him to cook-offs in anticipation for the day when he would finally win.
However, when his father suddenly decides to leave to go on a trip around the world, Souma is sent to the Totsuki Culinary Academy, an elite cooking school where only the top 10 percent graduate.
Here, Souma learns that not only are some of his classmates top-tier chefs, but they also engage in intense competitions called ”food wars”.
Although the premises are wildly different, both Classroom of the Elite and Food Wars take place at elite, non-traditional schools. Both schools greatly shower rewards on those who excel while leaving those who are mediocre to suffer and be at risk for expulsion in order to motivate them to do better.
Obviously, the big difference is that Classroom of the Elite takes place at an academic-focused elite school while Food Wars takes place at an elite cooking school.
Both series feature interesting characters and follow a main character who gets involved in most of their stories. However, Food Wars like to create more over-the-top characters in both design and personality. This adds a sort of shounen action element to the show as well as comedy – something that Classroom of the Elite often lacks.
Liar, Lair
Academy Island is a city of schools where students battle in games against each other to win Stars. Each student shares the same goal, to win and collect enough stars to snatch the prestigious title of Seven Star.
Hiroto Shinohara, a new transfer student, shakes things up by unseating Sarasa, the previous years’ Seven Star, and introducing himself as the Seven Star that will reign over all. However, what they don’t know is that it is all just one big bluff.
Hiroto beat Sarasa by sheer luck and uses the special ability of the star he won to pretend to be the new Seven Star even though his rank is much lower. Now he must use every lie, cheat, and manipulation to stay at the top.
While Classroom of the Elite takes place at a singular elite academy, Liar, Liar goes even bigger by taking place on a whole island fully populated by elite schools. Furthermore, both series build their plot around these school/s encouraging their students to compete and use any means necessary to excel.
While they both have similar settings, Liar, Lair is often more about playing actual competitive games whereas Classroom of the Elite is often just about manipulating people and solving their issues. Liar, Liar is also a harem series.
Aside from the setting, both Liar, Liar and Classroom of the Elite also share a main character whose primary gift is cunning. They are good liars and great at manipulating others.
For Fans of Cold, Cunning, and Talented Main Characters
My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU
Hachiman Hikigaya firmly believes that a joyful youth is something that people make up just to lie to themselves.
After writing an essay criticizing relationships, he is forced to join the Volunteer Service Club that is aimed at helping others solve their problems.
With the only other member being the icy Yukino Yukinoshita, they use their wits and cold views on society to help others.
The biggest similarity between Classroom of the Elite and My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU is that both series feature a majorly disinterested, pragmatic male main character and a seemingly unapproachable female lead, both of which who are not quite what they seem at first glance.
While SNAFU appears to lack the same strategic element, it is, in fact, very calculating when it comes to the situations that the characters find themselves in.
That said, while both series get their plot from character stories and drama, My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU does eventually morph into an actual romance.
The Irregular at Magic High School
After magic, once thought to be folklore, was turned into a technical skill, schools to teach it opened all over.
At one such school are siblings Tatsuya and Miyuki Shiba. While Miyuki excels, her brother is placed in a lower class due to his seemingly magical ineptitude. However, he has rather unique abilities that make him quite irregular.
Both Classroom of the Elite and The Irregular at Magic High School take place in an elite academy where the students are separated based on their abilities.
While The Irregular at Magic High School is a more action-heavy fantasy series that just so happens to be set in a school, both series feature a main character that is placed into the low-performing class, but are incredibly talented.
In Classroom of the Elite, Ayanokouji was placed there through purposefully tanking his entrance exams. Alternatively, The Irregular at Magic High School has the main character placed in the lower class due to their system not being able to accurately assess his unique (and OP) abilities.
The Fruit of Grisaia
Yuuji Kazama is a new transfer student to Mihama Academy. As an assassin that was raised by a notorious terrorist, all he craves is a normal school life.
However, with the school consisting of the principal and five other – all female – students, he finds his new school life off to a strange start.
As he gets to know each girl, he finds them just as irreparably damaged as himself, but their shared traumatic experiences bind them together.
Both Classroom of the Elite and The Fruit of Grisaia feature incredibly cold and pragmatic main characters that seem to have minimal interest in others. So, of course, both series are about the main characters solving everyone else’s problems at an elite, non-traditional academy.
The big difference between these series is that The Fruit of Grisaia is unmistakably a harem, since his five other classmates are all women. While both series love their drama and intense moments, The Fruit of Grisia goes so deep with it that it detaches its plot from reality a bit, but not in a way that ruins the series. It just stops feeling like a school anime in the second season.
Charlotte
Yuu Otosaka has the ability to slip into other people’s mind and control them for five seconds at a time. He has been using it to get good grades, but after he is caught by the enigmatic Nao Tomori, he is forced to transfer to a special school to safeguard children with these powers from discovery.
At this supernatural new school, he is forced to join the Student Council where he uses his powers to hunt down other young people who are using and abusing their own powers.
While Charlotte is notably different in that it follows many school children developing supernatural powers, it is a series about the main characters corralling them in an elite school.
Yet, it isn’t that both series take place in an elite sort of school that makes these two series most similar. It is that the main characters become cold and shut off to others after a certain traumatic incident. Regardless, their entire story is still about them helping others, despite the cold personality.
The Eminence in Shadow
Like most kids, Kagerou wanted to be a hero, but unlike most kids, he never grew out of that phase. He constantly trained his body to achieve it. In modern Japan, he was unable to achieve that goal, understanding that he could never reach enough power to be the type of hero he wanted to be.
However, when he was reborn in a new world, he pretends to be just another character in the world. He recruits people into his organization, Shadow Garden, and decides to target a sinister cult that is lurking in the shadows that he wishes to occupy.
While The Eminence in Shadow is a fantasy isekai anime, like Classroom of the Elite, it puts a gifted manipulator from the shadows in the main character seat.
While Classroom of the Elite features a school plot and a main character that manipulates situations with intellect, The Eminence in Shadow is split between his low-key school persona at magic school and the shadow organization leader and OP magic user he is at night.
Both series are about main characters who pull the strings like expert puppet masters, but each have magnificent gifts that allow them to overwhelm others.
For Fans of Moves and Countermoves
Talentless Nana
Earth has been assaulted by monsters that have come to be known as the “enemy of humanity.” To combat this, secluded schools were formed to train children with extraordinary powers to fight back.
However, that is an elaborate lie.
The truth is that these super powered children are the threat to humanity and one powerless girl has been sent to their school to kill them off.
Although Talentless Nana is set in a unique and elite school, it differs from Classroom of the Elite in two distinct ways. The school is about training super-powered heroes, and it is also about the main character murdering those heroes.
In both series, the main character is cold and cunning, although Nana wears a cheerful mask in front of others. While Classroom of the Elite has notably less murder, both series place a huge emphasis on the main characters being clever and manipulating things to get the outcome they want.
No Game No Life
In the real world, siblings Shiro and Sora are NEET shut-ins. However, in the virtual world, they are a legendary gaming duo.
One day, after a strange email, they find their reality taken away as they are transported to the realm of Tet, God of Games. Here, Shiro and Sora must play games to defeat the sixteen races of this world as well as Tet in order to become the new gods.
Both Classroom of the Elite and No Game No Life are relatively action-free anime series that still feel like action-dense series. They do this by highlighting strategy and putting incredibly intelligent main characters in situations where cunning can overcome all.
However, while Classroom of the Elite is a reality-set school series, No Game No Life is a fantasy-set isekai. Furthermore, No Game No Life has intelligent, but not emotionally cold characters. This means it often features more comedy than the more drama-focused Classroom of the Elite.
Tomodachi Game
Although he suffers from financial hardship, Yuuichi Katagiri has always been kept positive by his friends. They even inspired him to furiously work in order to get the funds to go on the school trip with them.
However, when the gathered money goes missing, his friends are blamed.
Days later, the friends all get mysterious letters that end up with them being force to join a Tomodachi Game where each game they win together lowers a debt.
However, when betrayal and secrets start pouring out, these simple games become a malicious test of trust.
Both Tomodachi Game and Classroom of the Elite follow highly intelligent main characters put in a situation where they can really flex that by manipulating people. However, instead of manipulating people to ruin, usually both series are about how that main character can get the best possible outcome for everyone.
In these situations, you also see the main character’s colder, more shrewd side at work. However, while Tomodachi Game is more about him being this cold person as an alter ego, he is nice on the outside and trying to be kind as well. Alternatively, Ayanokouji is more cold on the outside to protect his softer interior.
However, while Classroom of the Elite is a school series set in an elite academy, Tomodachi Game is more about a high stakes gambling game threatening to crumble a friend group.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Classroom of the Elite? Let fans know in the comments section below.
Hi so I just was looking for animes like classroom of the elite and I just wanted to say you guys should add Tomodachi Game to it because it is really similar to it in a way I really hope you consider it because they really are similar , thanks