Transcription
A monster. That's the word used to describe Anakoji by every single person who ever oversaw his training. But depending on who you ask, you'll get a completely different answer.
For the scientist who helped Anayakoji perfect his skill set, Inakoji was nothing more than a demon, thriving in an environment that would strip any normal person of their humanity. However, Ayanoji's father welcomed the monster with open arms because that's exactly what he needed to smash through the corrupt world of politics. And with that ambition in mind, we begin Anakoji's descent into the White Room.
For the longest time, the White Room has been the classroom of the elite's best-kept secret. Because we all remember the glimpses of children just breaking down—everyone except for Inakoji. And all the abilities Inakoji has are set to be cultivated in the White Room, which makes sense because originally the place was designed to equalize human potential, allowing the less fortunate to compete with the naturally talented. This meant having a place to train brilliant scientists to craft a winning curriculum and, of course, world-class instructors. But if we're keeping it real, this is all just an excuse. The real purpose of the White Room is to amass political power for Ayakoji's father. That's it.
You want to talk about tools? Let's forget about every other character in Classroom of the Elite and talk about Anakoji because this man is the original tool. He is tool zero. He was legit born to be yeeted into the White Room. His dad hired a hostess, paid her money to have a baby with him, and then relinquish all the rights. All of this just to craft the story so he can say that he put his kid in the White Room. Why? To drum up that juicy, juicy investment money. Of course, nothing like a good story to get the money rolling.
Here's a bonus. Inoji's mother, Mommy Dearus, named him after the host she was infatuated with. So, technically speaking, Inoji does fit under the label of less fortunate in the White Room.
And it only gets worse from here because the White Room was divided up into generations—up to three, each testing a different difficulty level. Unsurprisingly, the harder the curriculum, the more dropouts. But in the fourth generation, Anekoji's father made the ungodly decision to try the beta curriculum. A curriculum so insanely outside the realm of human possibility, you're just standing there asking yourself, "But why?" Well, for Anikoji's father, he just wanted to see what happens. As he puts it, "I would like to see the human limits this one time in the White Room. I don't care if they all drop out." And for this experiment, he used up his stock of disposable children, including his own son, parting with some comforting words: "If you don't want to die, you're on your own, Kyotaka."
The earliest test Inakoji remembers is at 2 years old and one that involves gummy bears. The instructors took gummy bears and hid them in one of their hands. The kids had to answer which, and if they guessed correctly, they would get a tasty snack—and even baby Anakoji enjoyed his gummy bears. But guess wrong three times, and you get no more guesses. At first, the test was simple because the instructors hid the gummy bears in plain sight. So, everyone got it right. But things got interesting when the scientists started hiding the gummy bears behind their backs. Because even as a baby, Inoji was cooking. The man just discovered probabilities. Since he couldn't see the scientists hide the gummy bears, it was effectively a 50/50 chance. So, he prioritized speed. Even thinking about the concept of prioritizing things as a baby is absurd. I have trouble with it as an adult.
Inoji's guess was wrong, but it gave him precious information to work with because he realized that there is no time limit. So, rather than make a guess, he waited and observed the other kids, and he noticed a pattern. The scientists all had the gummy bears in their right hand. So he guessed right and got another snack, realizing the test is about pattern recognition rather than probabilities. But this is when they throw him a curveball because in the next round the scientists wouldn't open their hands until everybody made their pick. Forced again into a 50/50, he uses up all his tries but one.
And this is when we get a glimpse into what makes Anakoji different from every other White Room survivor. There's a term coined by a Maltese physician, Dr. Edward de Bono, called lateral thinking. In simple words, it's a way to creatively approach problem-solving. Most would call it thinking outside the box. And thinking of this whole problem in a different context, Inukoji realized that they never asked him to point to which hand. They asked him to point to where the gummy bear was. So, Inoji didn't point to the left hand, but he didn't point to the right hand either. He pointed behind the scientist, eloquently quoting, "Gummy hand? No." This shocked the scientists because the other kids couldn't even conceive of a third option—as they proclaimed, he is the only child with a different point of view.
But believe it or not, even as a child, this wasn't his most impressive feat because the gummy bear incident didn't happen from his perspective. It was him remembering what happened years later. Children often forget their earliest memories, especially from the age of 0 to 3. It's because newer memories often bury older ones, but there are rare situations where one can remember. And Inoji is such an anomaly. He could effortlessly retrieve his childhood memories. And this gave him such an incredible advantage because while the other kids forgot, Inoji just added an extra 1,095 days of additional training in his most formative years, creating a chasm between him and the competition.
And the payoff is obvious when the White Room kicks into full gear at the age of four. The earliest test Anunnakoji can recall includes five different writing systems, including hiragana and the alphabet. And just scoring well wasn't enough because you're graded on every little thing, including your handwriting. No one ever asked the kids if they could solve the problems or not because the ones who can are the only ones left. This is what it means to be in the beta curriculum. And it's within these tests that Inoji discovers his greatest weapon. The one thing that would propel him further than what anyone else would ever be able to achieve in the White Room's history. His uncanny ability to adapt to any and all situations. Because when the test started, Hainoji did not do well. Because in the first exam, he sucked. He came in like 24th. But then he came in 15th, and then seventh, and then first place. And once he reached the top, he never fell. And with every single exam, the gap between him and second place just widened. Once he figured out the logic and found the most efficient way to do something, it's game over. You are never beating him again.
And this doesn't only apply to academics. The students soon learned martial arts, specifically judo, which focused on grappling and throwing techniques to subdue your opponent. Anyoji's record was 144 fights with 127 wins and 17 losses. There were those within the White Room naturally gifted at martial arts. Like Shirou, his record was an overwhelming 135 wins and nine losses. The first two times Inkoji went against Shirou, he lost the first time, but won the second time. But after Inkoji won, Shirou would never beat him again. Once Inoji learned the basics, he could use them to overcome any challenge. Inoji knew that upon mastering the basics, you could overcome any gap in ability by applying the fundamentals better than your opponent. And over time, you learn how to do things effectively, widening the gap until it's hopeless. And it didn't matter the domain because Yuki was the fastest swimmer in the White Room. But once Inoji figured out the trick, he easily overtook her, and the gap between them just kept widening.
Inoji then had the luxury to sit back and carefully observe the other students, analyzing and learning from their mistakes, doubling his access to information. He learned what they did right, but more importantly, what they did wrong. As Inoji coldly puts it, "I couldn't lose to an opponent who had learned from the same mistakes I had made."
Which begs the question, is Anakoji OP because of the White Room, or is it the other way around? Sure, the White Room provides amenities that you can't easily access, but it's not impossible to get this stuff somewhere else. And given his innate talents, you could argue that Inoji would crush it anywhere he went. But there is one thing that the White Room provides that you're not finding anywhere else. And it's very evident in Inoji's daily routine. He woke up at 7:00 a.m. every single day with scientists taking all his measurements. And from that moment on, every single second of the day was planned, even when he had to go to the washroom. After a rigorous checkup, he'd engage in physical activities followed by more tests measuring his athletics. At 8:00 a.m., you have breakfast covering all essential nutrients, including supplements to fill in any gaps. And then you study from morning all the way to 5:00 p.m., covering a wide range of topics: Japanese, math, and, of course, political science. And after 5:00 p.m., it was time for physical training that would last all the way till 7:00 p.m. Followed by dinner, bathing, more tests, and then you're in bed. And you better go to sleep quick because the next day we're doing it all over again.
The routine is a bit extreme, but everything seems somewhat normal except for the fact that you don't have a choice at any point in the day. You do what you are told, and this forces a level of consistency that most people will never have in their lives. In fact, you don't have a choice to be inconsistent. So while Inoji's innate talents are good, the White Room's forced consistency refined them to otherworldly levels because he was forced to work 7 days a week, 365 days a year without a single break in sight, as he would describe it, "a day in the White Room. A world that never changes, each year."
And as great as forced consistency is, human beings get cranky if we don't have a goal, a reason to work hard. And what motivated Inoji came from within—his unending curiosity. And that's why he spent a lot of his free time observing the other kids. He was learning, but he was also genuinely curious. And soon enough, his curriculum wasn't enough for him. So he started challenging the system instead. Because Inakoji had already figured out how the beta curriculum works. Each time someone scored perfect, the difficulty would go up. But if no one scored perfect, the difficulty would go down. And unsurprisingly, Inoji had the top score. So he deliberately starts cutting corners because there was no rule in the White Room saying that he couldn't. And he was so far ahead of number two that him cutting corners wouldn't even matter. And he liked the other kids. So lowering his score would make sure more of them stick around, as he deemed them an unnecessary part of his education. As he puts it, he did not want to give up learning from the weak. Unfortunately, he was caught by the system and compelled by his father to no longer cut corners, leading to a famous line that plays a massive role throughout the entire series: "A person who has power yet neglects to use it is a fool."
But foolish or not, Anakoji's ability to think and adapt made the White Room a cakewalk. So much so that he started to wonder, "Why don't the other kids just score higher to stay in the White Room?" He literally couldn't see things from their point of view.
And the gap in ability became crystal clear when Inakoji was faced with another challenge, similar to the gummy bear test he took as a baby, but this time with cards. He was locked in a one-on-one with an instructor who introduced five different cards with five different symbols: a circle, a square, a cross, a star, and a wave. The card backs are literally the same, so when you put them face down, you can't tell them apart. The instructor then shuffled the cards and then laid them face down on the table. And then he rolled into a demonstration, attempting to guess which card has which symbol. The instructor carefully repeats the process 10 times with a 30% accuracy rate. And now it's Inoji's turn to guess which is which.
At first, Inoji questioned the validity of the entire exam because, like the gummy bear test, it seems to be about probability. However, Inakoji's time in the White Room does not allow for him to make any mistakes. And he's been watching the instructor since the second he sat down—from his shuffling to his hand movements to even the order in which he laid down the cards. And Inoji questioned, "If this was a simple guessing game, then why all the demonstrations? If it's just a gamble, showing him once is enough. He didn't have to roll through all 10 demonstrations." And on top of that, Inoji noticed a camera in the room, which is completely unnecessary for a one-on-one interaction. And with all this information, Inoji had his answer. And he effortlessly zoomed through all 10 rounds with a 100% accuracy rate. A far departure from the gummy bear test he took as a child. Because this time around, Ayanoji figured out the logic—that it was a memory test disguised as a probability test. From the very beginning, the instructor had shuffled and laid out the cards in a very specific order. And combined with the camera and the earpiece the instructor had, he was able to put on this entire show. And the wrong guesses were just him pretending—a way for him to cast doubt, another way to fool. However, combined with his memory and ability to think outside the box, this was his easiest exam yet, and he finished well before any of the other students did.
And as Anakoji effortlessly raised the bar for the beta curriculum, more and more students started to drop out. As the ceiling got higher, others were mercilessly removed until only he was left, all alone, silently perfecting the curriculum. The peers he once practiced against are now replaced by adults. And whether it was judo or any other martial arts, he soon surpassed all his teachers. So the White Room presented him with a final trial. A situation that would test everything he has learned so far: his physical capabilities, his ability to think, and most importantly, his willingness to do what needs to be done.
Ushered into the White Room was a band of Japanese gangsters, and Anakoji's task was to subdue these men. The instructors told Inkoji that he could fight with the resolve to kill. But to their surprise, Inaoji asked if he could actually kill. He didn't get any pushback, so Anakoji got to work. The gangsters, noticing his small stature, took pity on him, presenting him with a bag of weapons: a stun gun, a knife, and a baton. And the White Room allowed for their use. And given Anakoji's education within the White Room, he knew how to use them all. If Anakoji wanted efficiency, a knife would be the way to go. But a small size, perceived to be a hindrance, would work in his favor. He reasoned that the gangsters had never faced anyone his size. He can take advantage of that, allowing him to scope out the weaknesses of the human body and go in for the kill. And for that, he needs range. So, Anakoji opts for the baton, and things go exactly as planned. Because we fast forward to him absolutely manhandling the gangsters, striking the last one on his head. One blow would render him unconscious, but if he persists, another careful blow would send him to the shadow realm. Fearing that he's actually going to do it, the scientists quickly broke up the fight, questioning Anakoji's madness. However, Anakoji just replied in a cold manner, saying he was ordered to kill. So that's what he did. "What is the problem with that?"
And this event marked the completion of Anakoji's transformation within the White Room. And the ethos of nothing else mattering as long as he's the winner, and orders within the White Room are absolute. The ultimate weapon designed to carry out his father's will. The skills he acquires in the White Room, combined with his innate ability to adapt to any and all situations, makes up the Anakoji we see in Classroom of the Elite. All his outplays, his manipulations, all the cool things he does, they can all be traced back to these fundamental building blocks.
But within the White Room, there is another side to Inoji, and one I've literally never seen anyone else talk about—a piece of the puzzle that explores why Inkoji uses his abilities and the entire reason as to why he shows up at the Advanced Nurturing High School. And once that video is done, I will link it over here. But in the meantime, subscribe. So once it is done, it'll probably show up in your recommended. And yes, yes, it has been like almost forever. I can't even remember the last time I posted a Classroom of the Elite video. I have my reasons. I just didn't want to bore people with like a giant life story in the middle of like a video. It's just not fun for anybody, I'm thinking. So, I'll just leave all my reasons down in the comments somewhere below.