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This Article Contains Spoilers -
WARNING: This article contains major spoilers. If you do not wish to know vital information on plot / character elements in a story, you may not wish to read beyond this warning: We hold no responsibility for any negative effects these facts may have on your enjoyment of said media should you continue. That is all. |
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| “ | I've never considered you an ally. Not even for a second. Not you. Not Kushida. Not Hirata. People are nothing but tools to me. All of them. I don't care what I have to do to win. I don't care what I have to sacrifice. In this world, winning is everything. In the end... I'm going to win. That's all that matters. | „ |
| ~ Kiyotaka Ayanokoji's monologue to Suzune Horikita. |
| “ | You may come to regret trying to manipulate me. | „ |
| ~ Ayanokoji to Sae Chabashira. |
| “ | In the end... I suppose I'm still there. Will my perception of others as nothing but pawns... Will this relationship of ours... Ever change? | „ |
| ~ Ayanokoji questioning his view of others. |
Kiyotaka Ayanokōji is the main protagonist of the 2015 light novel series Classroom of the Elite and its 2016 manga series and 2017 anime TV series of the same name. He is a second-year student in Koudo Ikusei Senior High School. Having scored exactly out of 50 at a 100 on every subject of the entrance exam. He was place in Class 1-D, later promoted to Class 1-C but went back to Class 1-D due to Tsukishiro sabotaging the Event Selection Exam and became known as Class 2-D onwards during their second year.
Although he either lies about his childhood or prefer not to reveal his background to his classmates, he is actually the sole survivor of a secret company known as the White Room, an organization founded by his father Atsuomi Ayanokōji in order to create a more advanced generation of children to lead Japan in the future. As the most successful student to ever live through the impossibly harsh process of education, Kiyotaka's physical and mental capabilities came out unmatched against anyone in the entire organization. After having spent his entire childhood in his father's organization, he manage to take flee from his father's facility with the assistance of his butler, Matsuo, and eventually arrive to the Advanced Nurturing High School, following Matsuo's advice.
He is voiced by Shōya Chiba in the anime series and Natsuki Hanae PV 2015 in Japanese and by Justin Briner (who has also voiced Izuku Midoriya in My Hero Academia, Ryota Mitarai in Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School, Yukito Tsukishiro in Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card Arc, Qwenthur Barbotage in Heavy Object, Luck Voltia in Black Clover, Uub in Dragon Ball Z, and Yoo Jinho in Solo Leveling) in English.
Appearance[]
Ayanokoji is currently a 17-year-old teenager with a height of 176 cm in the light novel series. He has brown hair that arrives at his ears and brown yellow pupils. During majority of his appearances, he has always been seen with a straight and indifferent expression. Even at a young age, he appeared unconcerned about the situations around him as shown during the time he has spent in the organization known as the White Room. Like other students, his school uniform is red with a blue tie (red in light novel) and sky-blue jeans. Outside of school he wears a white hoodie with green and orange stripes and brown pants. He has stated to be very handsome by many girls at his school, which one of his female classmates, Kikyō Kushida ranked him 5th among the first year's male students. Kei Karuizawa also ranked him as part of the hottest male students of the top 10 in the entire school, as well as being stated by Satō to be even more attractive than Yōsuke Hirata despite having witnessed his rejection.
Kiyotaka's full appearance in the manga.
At the swimming pool, he is shown to have a very well-built body with muscular arms and abs, as a result of the intense training in the White Room.
Manga[]
In the manga, due to the difference of the artstyle, Kiyotaka is among the characters with the most obvious change in appearance. His chin or seemingly the shape of his face appears to much sharper than in his anime and novel appearances.
Background[]
Kiyotaka was born as the son of Atsuomi Ayanokōji and Mika. Before birth, Mika was having an affair with future husband, during his parents surrogate marriage. Not so long after Kiyotaka was born, Atsuomi and Mika arranged a divorce as both did not have any forms of feelings for one another and the same for her son, as Atsuomi had used Mika to have child for his own personal project for the White Room. Atsuomi had gave Mika 50 million yen for her corporation and before she left, she her named their son "Kiyotaka", after her lover. After his birth, Kiyotaka was only held by his father after he had a doctor take a picture of him holding him. He was later sent into the White Room. Kiyotaka would be a part of the Fourth Generation of the White Room. The first memory of Kiyotaka is him staring at a white ceiling and learning that no one is coming to confront his tears.
Newborn Kiyotaka quietly lying on the bed.
At the age of 2, Kiyotaka took part in a test within the White Room, of a guessing game where he guessed which hand the instructor had hidden a gummy bear, and got the first four rounds correct, but when the instructor hid the hands behind his back, Kiyotaka had randomly guessed the wrong hand and during the next round, he observes the other instructors and later correctly guess the correct hand. During the next round, the instructor doesn't reveal which hand has the gummy bear until after he has guessed, after getting the guess wrong, believing the guess to be a trick he guesses behind the instructor's back but gets the guess wrong. This had impressed the other instructors with how a 2-year-old could possess such abstract thinking. Although he couldn't understand what they were saying he didn't commit their conversation to memory to think back on their conversation later. At the age of 4, while taking a written exam, he was one of the 64 out of 74 students to have passed although he was in the 24th place he had taken the 1st place in the last four exams. During a Judo training section, he came up with the thought of improving until you can't lose anymore after seeing a Judo instructor take one of the students who failed out of the room. During the matches Kiyotaka has a 127-17 with a 67-win streak but only surpassed by a boy named "Shiro" but the two are 1-1 against each other. At the age of 5, the Fourth Generation was reduced to 50 out of 74 students. Kiyotaka started to interact with a student a girl named Yuki who disliked the carrots that they were eating during dinner. Although she asks him what his opinion was but only thinks of food in terms of nutrition. After dinner during free time Yukino trips but when she is about to fall, he catches her. And witness his first time seeing someone laugh or smile. He found her weird for falling when there was nothing to trip on and asked if she was tired.
With the same routine passing every day within the White Room, during group discussion, Kiyotaka does not talk to anyone but chooses to observe the others. As time passed the circular became more difficult causing more students to drop out. At some point during an exam, he figures out that the exam's difficulty is based on the highest scores of the previous tests, which causes him to purposely lower his test scores. Causing his father to pull him out of the exam room, and excusing him for holding back to make it easier for the others but he denies this when asked why he doesn't get a perfect score Kiyotaka states that it's more efficient to leave his answers blank since they know that he can do it perfectly. Although they accuse him of caring for them, he denies this and explains his motivation for learning from their mistakes and states that the scores don't matter because it was up to the instructors when or where they decide who drops out. Impressing the researchers of his reasoning, Atsuomi tells him that those anyone who do chose to not reveal their talent are fools.
At the age of 6, he was introduced to Virtual Reality, which is the first thing in the White Room that Kiyotaka doesn't care for due to motion sickness. With the VR goggles, he was taught history, how the world works, and observation techniques. But one day there was a malfunction with the VR sets and was escorted out of the room. He would take part in a memory game where he guesses the cards and does this 10 times. During the test, Kiyotaka thinks of the purpose of the test and guesses the first round correctly which confirms Kiyotaka's theory of a guessing game, and guesses all 10 rounds correctly by remembering the exams from the instructions. After doing swimming lessons, Yuki congratulates Kiyotaka for becoming the best swimmer although he states that the instructors are still faster, and he gives Yuki advice to improve. Kiyotaka thinks that Yuki and Shiro are more talented than him but they lack of his ability to adapt. While having an awkward conversation with Yuki, he asks her how she's so good in conversion and asks how she's able to smile. At some point the instructors figure out why Kiyotaka is better than the others as he's able to remember every detail of his early life, this genetic giving him more experience making him a natural-born genius. At some point, Kiyotaka's abilities within the White Room brought the attention of several instructors and the other generations of the White Room being seen as a Godlike figure to them this also brought to the attention of the spectators who watched the students within the White Room, one of those spectators being Narumori Sakayanagi and his daughter Arisu Sakayangi, which she questions if Kiyotaka has strong genes.
Kiyotaka training in martial art in the White Room.
As time passed more and more students within the White Room dropped out due to them not handling the White Room's training with the fourth generation having only 3 students left, during a written exam Yuki failed in one of the exams and was begging him for help while the instructors were going to remove her. Kiyotaka notes that he passed the written exam but failed the physical exam implying that she was failing the exams within the White Room (implying that she was another collapsed student). Kiyotaka couldn't do anything to help save her as the instructors decided if she was saved or not. Although he does tell the instructions that Yuki hasn't been feeling well. This caused one of the instructors to yell at him stating that he was out of line, but he thought that they needed to watch him closer. With only Kiyotaka and Shiro left they would spend their days in silence, during a Judo match with Shiro, during the match Shiro reveals to Kiyotaka that he plans to drop out to obtain his freedom but since Kiyotaka didn't want to leave as he wanted to stay to continue to see how far he can grow. Both would say their final goodbyes to each other with Kiyotaka winning the match. After Shiro dropped out of the White Room, Kiyotaka became the only student there. At the age of 9, he had surpassed the instructions causing them to bring a group of outsiders for him to fight against. Instructed to not hold back and was also allowed to kill them, given a choice to choose a weapon, Kiyotaka chose a baton and beat the men, causing the instructor to panic and tell Kiyotaka to stop questioning him what he was thinking, although he states to the instructor that he said to kill them. Atsuomi would escort him out of the room and reveal to him that he was his father, but he revealed that he already knew. Although Atsuomi states that Kiyotaka is special, he does not react. Discovering of his being emotionless, Atsuomi would find him to be unstoppable but also unusable, but Atsuomi was still pleased with his success believing him to be the greatest in the world. Although the other instructions want to fix him to change his limitless potential, they want to change his environment but are stopped by Atsuomi as he wants to recreate his son's result.
At some point, this led to him believing that all humans were nothing but tools to him and that victory is all that matters in the world. This point in view, he became determined to win no matter the cost of sacrificing anyone or anything to achieve his goals to achieve victory. At some point, the White was suspended due to Jinnosuke Naoe dropping out of the election for prime minister. At some point at the age of 14, Kiyotaka was led outside of the White Room due to Yuki's request to meet him again, he would reunite with Yuki, but with the mention of him being the only survivor of the White Room, causing Yuki to have a panic attack. Realizing that his present doesn't benefit anyone, Kiyotaka tries to walk away from her while she tries to chase after her begging him not to leave. Kiyotaka would note that she hasn't improved after being kicked out of the White Room. Yuki would fail to try to talk to Kiyotaka as she wanted to talk to him about the things they couldn't have talked about within the White Room, as he told her to forget about him, her father would stop him and ask him to wait. But he coldly states that he doesn't care for those who have dropped out and leaves the clinic. After leaving, Atsuomi wanted Kiyotaka to resume his studies in the White Room once it's back in operation. However, Atsuomi was unaware that Kiyotaka had plans to leave as he wanted to have freedom and the chance to have a normal life, as it gave him the chance to escape. Although Atsoumi had planned for Kiyotaka to take over the White Room and become a Politician. During his escape, he was aided by his butler Matsuo who told him to enroll in the Advanced Nurturing High School, where his father couldn't reach him and would be able to live a normal school life. During the entrance exam, Kiyotaka purposely scored 50 out of 100 points on every subject hinting that he didn't want any unwanted attention from the school. Although he possibly would not be accepted into the school he was given a personal recommendation by Narumori Sakayanagi who was the school's Chairman. And he would enroll in the Advanced Nurturing High School.
Personality[]
Ayanokōji has shown to be a very cold-hearted individual who shows no emotion in anything he does. He is an extremely intelligent and somewhat awkward teenager with bad communication skills and dislikes being the center of attention. He has a very calm personality, even when someone is on the verge of death. He won’t hesitate to use anyone as “tools”, manipulating anyone, even his friends, if necessary, into helping him with various tasks. He shows no regard in sacrificing someone as long it helps him achieve his goal. He preferes to conceal his exceptional talents that he possesses, trying to make himself as a normal teenager as much as possible, making him also a very humble person.
It is unknown whether he genuinely views his friends as actual friends, or just as tools to use whenever he needs them. This is shown when he sets up Kei Karuizawa to be tormented by Manabe and her group in the Basement of the Cruise Ship only to make the latter get to her breaking point to make her into his pawn to use, even showing her a cruel side of him. This is primarily due to his upbringing in the White Room.
He's been shown to be a cautious person as he doesn't fully trust Suzune been making plans for her possible betrayal despite him still associating with her. He has assisted her in plans that either he or she comes up with, this later extends to him helping her when she tears off her cold nature, allowing her to open to others. However, it's unknown whether he really cares for those he befriends or gains their trust to use them.
"Let me show you what fear is."
On occasion, he seems to truly care for some of his classmates. As seen when he sacrificed 50,000 of his points aided by Suzune to overturn Ken Sudō's expulsion for failing a test. He has also kept his promise to Airi Sakura that he would come to her aide when she needed it. This was well kept when he rescued her from a pedophilic stalker. He gains new popularity after the race during the sports festival as he makes more acquaintances and bonds with more of his classmates even getting to use their first names as seen in the Ayanokōji group. Kiyotaka intentionally tries to maintain amicable terms with his classmates and is capable of reading social cues. Despite this, his true motive is only to maintain his current lifestyle and not be sent back to the facility where he was raised. Deep down, he only views most of his classmates as tools, and the few people he is close to can be best classified as either 'people whom he does not want to make tools out of' or 'people who are too useful to let go'.
Light Novel[]
Although in the anime Ayanokōji appears to keep a straight face almost all the time. The light novel series portrays Ayanokōji with a less solid facial expression, such as when he reacted with a flustered face as Kushida grabbed his hand to let him to touch her chest. Kiyotaka describes his feelings and has a slighter more emotions then how he was shown in the anime.
Manga[]
Ayanokoji's expressions in the manga.
Ayanokoji's usual facial expression
Unlike other adaptations, in the manga he makes various expression and gets easily suprised, shocked, blushes and even smile almost all the time. His communication methods are completely changed and have vast differences compared to the light novel and anime included his thoughts which he easily gets attracted to girl arounds him to which he mentioned many times about their attractiveness. When he shaked Kushida's hand, he shows a flustered expression and tends to look away. He appears to make sudden moves when he gets suprised, like moving his fist whenever he gets proud or excited. He is also seen to be loud and easily gets offended when interacting with classmates that he already befriended with like Horikita. Unlike other adaptations, Kiyotaka talks in a calm and shows a sleepy expression. Furthermore alongside the changes of his facial expressions and communication skills, his habits are modified in a way that makes him much more extroverted and no longer struggles at talking and interacting with other. For example he would chew bubbles gums or put his hand on the back of his head when relaxed as well as easily getting along with his classmates, whereas in the anime Ayanokōji would usually just stick his hand together or watch over the window to wait for the class to start. In closing the changes of Ayanokōji's personality and habits are vastly changed. Giving a more friendly nature in the replacement of his cold manipulative traits in a way that makes him a normal teenager and has also similar traits compared to the other characters of the series.
Abilities and Skills[]
Due to Kiyotaka having been trained by the White Room from an early age, he is adept in academics and athleticism. Being very skilled for his age, something that Sae Chabashira notes that he has skills that are above a regular high school student. As the sole survivor of the White Room's 4th generation, Kiyotaka is the pride of the White Room. At the age of 2, he already had displayed the ability to critically think and retain memories. He was able to solve arithmetic in 1.6 seconds, and he was able to defeat a super computer in a game of chess. At the age of 4, he mastered 5 different writing systems and various martial arts. At the age of 9, he single-handedly defeated a group of trained mercenaries and was at the college level academic prowess. And at the age of 10 -12 he had outperformed the facility that was educating him. Kiyotaka has an unremarkable to ability to adapt and absorb and build upon his talents. And unlike any other indidivuals, Kiyotaka had no limit to his potential. Although he doesn't want any unwanted attention, he tends to hold back during events like school test, exams, and special exams as he wants to appear average to everyone, even showing him to be weak to others. However, in some events where he doesn't hold back, it will come to ascritically a shock or surprise to his classmates who have not seen him using his true potential. He has also been shown to speak other languages able to speak English.
- Genius-Level Intelligence: Even in his early ages in the White Room, he already possessed a scarce level of intelligence that amazed staffs of the facility. At roughly the age of 6 or 7, as a White Room stundent, he was also already adept enough to solve Taylor Series problem, which are stated to be college levels difficulty. His extensive training from his whole childhood inside the White Room allowed him to easily manipulate each of the high school entrance' exams' score at exactly 50 at 100 in every subject to avoid unnecessary attention from other classmates. He could find out about the plan of both Class 1-A and C throughout the same test. In other tests, he could also score a full mark on a math test, that was stated that not none of his peers could understand because of a university-level question that was in it. Kiyotaka eventually came to admit to Kei that his intelligence allowed him to solve any question that he come across since the school year has started. Even the brightest minds, exemplified by students like Honami Ichinose, openly admitted their struggle, expressing an inability to comprehend the complexity of certain questions as well as for Arisu Sakayanagi. This underscores the difficulty level deliberately set by the school, posing a significant challenge even to the most academically adept students. The remarkable aspect lies in the intentional inclusion of questions from university level and beyond in the school's assessment.
- Mastery of Every Martial Art Degrees: Being trained in the White room at a young age, he achieved a high mastery degree of various martial arts.
Ayanokoji blocking Ryuen's attacks and attack him back
At a young age in White Room, he defeats several professional fighters all by himself.
In a fight against experience fighters. He is shown to probably have used Boxing, Kickboxing, Karate, Aikido, Muay Taekwondo, Krav Maga, Kiyotaka also knows different variants of Kung Fu like (Shaolin, Wing Chun, and Jeet Kune Do), Jodu, and Ji-Jitsu/Jujutsu. Ayanokōji is also able of combing different fighting styles and variants of fighting styles in his movements. Having defeated Albert who was to be much taller and muscular than Ayanokōji, he countered blows from him and took him down with a roundhouse kick on his head. This left Mio and Kakeru in awe at his capabilities. When Mio attack him with her Capoeira kicks, Ayanokōji dodged her kicks with no effort, then knocked her down with a neck chop.
- Fear Piercing Aura: When interacting with others, Kiyotaka can emit a presence that can pierce terror simply into one another by making eye contact, which have been described as "deep abyss of darkness" that allows him to devour others with the senses of fear.
- High-Observation Skills: Kiyotaka is very a very meticulous, knowledgeable, and possessed advanced psychology knowledge and on other field of science. By observing people with his observation skills, he uses the information from what he observed, then deconstruct the person inside his mind so he can understand and read people thoroughly. He has been seen to be able to very accurately read people's emotions most of the time. Like being able to figure out about Airi Sakura's terror on strangers. As well as later on determined about her being assaulted by a stalker or even deduced about that Chihiro Shiranami had admiration on Honami Ichinose in short amount of time. Another great example to his amazing abilities would be when he perceived that Ryūen's presence was still on the island, simply by seeing through a communicator that he chose Mio to be a spy for C-Class and outthink her by damaging the camera that she was using, as well as making sure of her intentions of stealing the leader's card before Ryuen obtains the role of the class leader. He also able to quickly figure out Miyabi Nagumo's plan to expel Akane Tachibana, who has already expelled several other students who opposed Nagumo.
- High-Physical Strength: Kiyotaka claimed to have been capable of destroying a steel elevator with a kick that used about 30% of his overall strength, hinting amazing strength that is nearly at superhuman levels. Although, nothing much is known in Kiyotaka's childhood, except that he received intense training in the White Room, which the only goal of the organization was to create “the perfect education”. The White Room is owned and founded by his father, Atsuomi Ayanokōji. There were 19 generation in the organization, in which Ayanokōji was in the 4th generation, being the generation that received the harshest education in the history of the White Room. He was also able to casually show a gripping strength of roughly 60 kilogram, which is was already higher than Sudo and Koenji, who is capable of transporting a boar on his shoulder with ease.
- Exceptional Reflexes: Kiyotaka effortlessly evades attacks fists and kicks of his opponents, such as Ryuen, Albert, Ibuki, and even the Chairman Tsukishiro, who are all powerful fighters.
- Bilingualism: Kiyotaka can speak Japanese, but he has also shown that he can speak English perfectly as seen when he spoke some to Albert Yamada (without including the Japanese accents provided in the anime).
- Perfect Memory: Kiyotaka has an exceptional autobiographical memory, as he's able to remember tests from when he was two years old, remember conversations, from when he was an infant with extraordinary detail. Making him mentally older than his peers. He knew that Atsuomi was his father, as he remembered a conversation between the teacher when he was a few years old. As well as remembering his monologues from his past. This ability presumably also allows him to learn many foreign languages easily. During the Mixed Training Camp, Kiyotaka also easily recalled the owner of the phone charm he spotted on the floor that he saw a few hours ago among a crowd.
| “ | I'm no music expert, but it's impressive. Even with practice, I'll never be able to play at that level. I'm sure that song is... | „ |
| ~ Sae Chabashira complimenting of Kiyotaka's piano skills. |
Kiyotaka performing on a piano in the light novel.
- Piano Proficiency: Possibly one of the only courses or skills not taught to Kiyotaka in the White Room, he has showcased a certain level of talent in playing the instrument that has left his teacher, Sae, impressed in 2nd Year Volume 4.5. Kiyotaka possibly learned to play the instrument all by himself instead of his time during the White Room, possibly also showcasing he is adept at learning certain things that is as challenging as this solely.
- Master Chess Player: Kiyotaka was taught in the White Room how to play chess. In a seemingly short amount of time as he learns, he quickly became adept at strategizing to defeat everyone else in the White Room. This caught the attention of a young Sakayagani at the time, who is also an extremely proficient chess player, leading the small girl to confront Kiyotaka in order to prove that a natural intelligence always beats intelligence that is trained by education.
Relationships[]
Class 1-D[]
Suzune Horikita[]
Main Article: Suzune Horikita
As the first student attempting to connect with and successfully befriend Horikita, Kiyotaka found himself in a unique position. The initial gratitude she showed after her older brother confronted Kiyotaka for intervening when he tried to threaten her was unexpected to him. Horikita, despite initially resisting his help, eventually expressed her thanks. At the series' outset, during a bus ride, she, like the other passengers, did not offer her seat to an elderly woman nearby, which caught his attention, especially when Kikyō Kushida insisted that someone on the bus should give up their seat. Upon arriving at the high school, Kiyotaka is confronted by her for glancing at her earlier on the bus, displaying her arrogance. Occasionally at the start of the series, Suzune encountered him a few times, often commented on the unpleasantness of these coincidences.
Despite her typically solitary nature, she agreed to spend some time with Kiyotaka until Kushida arrived. Understanding that it was at Kushida's request, Horikita still prefered to avoid friendship with Kushida. A rare glimpse of Suzune's relaxed side emerged when she smiled upon reading a message from him. Following an encounter with Mio Ibuki and before being discovered by Kiyotaka, Horikita acknowledged the importance of teamwork and expressed genuine gratitude for his decision to build faith within Class D. This newfound appreciation surfaced in a rare display of affection, where Suzune appeared flustered and shy while thanking Kiyotaka.
Kei Karuizawa[]
Main Article: Kei Karuizawa
In both the anime and novel series, Kiyotaka did not bring much attention over Kei. Kiyotaka's calm demeanor naturally led her to view him as average and even appeared to despise him, for instance, when Kiyotaka ended up in the same with her for the "Rabbit" squad in the summer special test. This opinion also goes along with her other male teammates, Hideo and Teruhiko, indicating that her feelings weren't only towards him.
Following his rescue from Manabe and her group during the cruise ship test, Kei's feelings towards Kiyotaka soured, unable to meet his gaze without simmering with anger. Her discontent peaked when Hirata arranged a meeting involving Kiyotaka, exacerbating her frustration. Subsequently, enduring harassment from Manabe and her cohort in the ship's depths, Kiyotaka leveraged coercion, threatening exposure of Kei's past unless she complied with his scheme and pledged safeguarding from further persecution.
| “ | It was number one on the site's list of "best presents for school girls". | „ |
| ~ Kiyotaka as he gives Kei her birthday present. |
Eventually, the 4th volume of the light novel witnessed a transformation in their relationship, evolving from mere classmates to cultivating a non-romantic connection, befoe rising to reciprocal affection. Kei assumed the role of mentor, guiding Kiyotaka on how to navigate social dynamics and garner popularity amongst their peers. Despite her acerbic demeanor towards others, Kiyotaka alone discerned her aversion to being well-liked, sensing underlying turmoil prompting her erratic behavior. He also commended her restraint in not confronting Ibuki over previous incidents, recognizing her maturity amidst adversity. Kiyotaka also offered a heart necklace to Kei as her birthday present, having spent roughly 20,000 points on it and even bothered to look up online to find the present for her, making clear that Kiyotaka does in fact have compassion over others like Kei. Additionally Kei in also pointed out that she find it strange that although he is a brillant person, he had to search to chose and present and advised him to chose a present himself for a girl.
Relatives[]
Atsuomi Ayanokōji[]
Main Article: Atsuomi Ayanokōji
Atsuomi is Kiyotaka's father. Despite them being father and son any familiar affection between them is non-existent. As Atsuomi only had a child as a personal project to have his child be the success of the White Room, he is also using his son to become the Minister of Japan to lead Japan into the future, and Kiyotaka doesn't see eye to eye with his father. During Kiyotaka's childhood, Atsuomi had Kiyotaka placed into the White Room, giving the "Ultimate Education" to make him the perfect being. While Kiyotaka was growing up, Atsuomi rarely interacted with him and was observing him from a distance, and had spoke with him when he wasn't shown his full abilities during a test. Despite the fact that Atsuomi hadn't told him that he was his father, Kiyotaka had already figured out that Atsuomi was his father before he told him when he was 9 years old. When the secrets of Kiyotaka's potential was discovered instead of changing Kiyotaka's environment so that his potential will grow even further, Atsuomi wanted the researchers to replicate Kiyotaka's results.
At some point during Kiyotaka's childhood, when he was looking at the window, Atsuomi had asked him on what he thought about the outside world, but Kiyotaka didn't respond, which Atsuomi wasn't surprised, but Kiyotaka had a secret monologue where he thought of how it was great that his father thinks that he's under control and doesn't have any emotions as it's what he wants him to think. And that the more Atsuomi thinks he's under control the more his fangs will grow. Atsuomi doesn't seem to care about Kiyotaka's independence as he wants to keep Kiyotaka close to him, as when he was 14 years-old he wanted Kiyotaka to resume his studies in the White Room and become the successor of the White Room or a Politician. But Atsuomi didn't know that Kiyotaka had secretly planned to escape the White Room. Atsuomi hadn't also planned to have Kiyotaka enroll at the Advanced Nurturing High School, to find Kijima's weakness. After Kiyotaka made his escape from the White Room with the aid of his butler Matsuo, soon after his enrollment in the Tokyo Advanced Nurturing High School, Atsuomi had target the Matsuo family and later Kiyotaka. Atsuomi had ruined the lives of the butler and the butler's son, Eiichirō Matsuo to the point that they took their own lives. And later Atsuomi had made his way to the Advanced Nurturing High School to try to make Kiyotaka drop out of school, going as far to try to pin the blame of both the bulter's death on to him to try to make him feel gulity so that he would drop out. After failing to make him drop out of school, Atsuomi had sent Tokinari Tsukishiro to target Kiyotaka to have him expelled. During Kiyotaka's second year, Atsuomi had sent Ichika Amasawa and Takuya Yagami, spies of the White Room to try to have him expelled. Later during hiyear, Kiyotaka began to theorized what his father's plans are but hasn't figured it out yet.
Mika[]
Main article: Mika (Classroom of the Elite)
Mika is Kiyotaka's mother, however Kiyotaka doesn't have any familial bonds towards her as when Kiyotaka was born she had abandoned him leaving him in the care of his father, but she did wondered about his future, but before she left, she did say goodbye to him and she named him "Kiyotaka" after her a host that she liked who she was having an affair with before he was born during his parents Surrogate Marriage.
Dialogues[]
| “ | Manabu Horikita: You move well. Do you practice something? Kiyotaka: Piano and calligraphy. |
„ |
Heroic Acts[]
- Saving Class D (Multiple times, even as Class B)
- Stopping the Argos Team from peeping: During his summer break during his first year at ANHS, Kiyotaka was pulled in the idea of setting up a camera to film, some of the girls, like Suzune Horikita, Kikyō Kushida, Airi Sakura, Honami Ichinose changing into their swimsuits. By the 3 Idiots of D-Class and Hideo Sotomura, Kiyotaka having worked behined the scene with the help of Kei Karuizawa (Suzune Horikita in the anime) to stop this from happening, so that they won't have the flim. And after switching the SD card, instead of having them expelled he destroyed the SD Card.
- Saving Airi Sakura: While trying to prevent Ken from being expelled, Kiyotaka saved Airi when she was being being stalked and nearly being sexually assaulted.
- Protecting Kei Karuizawa: When Kakeru Ryūen was trying to figure who Class D's mastermind was, Kiyotaka came to Kei's aid.
Criminal Record[]
Despite not being villainous, but rather chaotic neutral, Kiyotaka, as the mastermind of his class has committed many crimes in his a mastermind over the course of the story:
- Manipulation: On multiple accounts, Kiyotaka has manipulated events to ensure his class's victory, ensuring the saftey of his classmates and peers, manipulated people to become his pawn, and to create events to happen later on. Even arrange events to have Takuya Yagami another student from the white room to be expelled.
- Blackmail:
- Indirect Bullying: Kiyotaka had indrectly caused the bullying of Kei Karuizawa to have her be bullyed by Shiho Manabe, Nanami Yabu, Saki Yamashita, and Rika Morofuji to get their revenge for her altercation with Rika.
- Assault:
- Sexual Harassment: In testing how strong will Kei, Kiyotaka had Kei be pinned up to a wall and touching her by the chin and sliding his hand down her thigh. Even telling her to spread her legs.
- Psychological abuse: Caused to Kei during the Cruise Ship Special Test, Kiyotaka caused some psychological abuse of his classmate Kei to see what secrets she was hiding.
- Stalking:
- Attempted murder: When he was a child, Kiyotaka had nearly beaten a group of mercenaries to death.
Quotes[]
| “ | Are all human beings truly equals? These days everywhere you go there's talk about a fight for equality. As a wise man once said Heaven does not create once person above or below another. People like to throw his words around. That's not the whole quote. He goes on to say that while we are equal at birth. Pretty soon things begin to change. Academic effort is what sets other peoples apart to rise above the others. At any rate humans change over time based on their actions. Truth be told at the end of the day, equality is just a fantasy and most of us go through life denying the fact that we live in meritocracy. | „ |
| ~ Ayanokōji's speech about equality |
| “ | At first, I cried. I cried because I missed people, and then I learnt that no one was coming to help me. | „ |
| ~ Kiyotaka as a child. |
| “ | I‘m thinking of reflecting over and facing myself for this year. I intend to do whatever possible to make that happen. | „ |
| ~ Kiyotaka's aspiration for second year in school. |
| “ | Every man has in himself the most dangerous traitor of all. | „ |
| ~ Kiyotaka Ayanokōji |
| “ | What people commonly call fate is their own stupidity | „ |
| ~ Kiyotaka Ayanokōji |
| “ | Genius lives only one story above madness. | „ |
| ~ Kiyotaka Ayanokōji |
| “ | Human is the only animal that bargains, No dog exchanges bone with another. | „ |
| ~ Kiyotaka Ayanokōji |
| “ | Man is condemned to be free. | „ |
| ~ Kiyotaka Ayanokōji |
| “ | The worst enemy you can meet will always be yourself. | „ |
| ~ Kiyotaka Ayanokōji |
| “ | People, often deceived by an illusive good desire their own ruin. | „ |
| ~ Kiyotaka Ayanokōji |
| “ | Adversity is the first path to truth. | „ |
| ~ Kiyotaka Ayanokōji |
| “ | Inside every person you know, there's a person you don't know. | „ |
| ~ Kiyotaka Ayanokōji |
| “ | Sometime you don't need to hear their excuses because their actions have already spoken the truth. | „ |
| ~ Kiyotaka Ayanokōji |
| “ | There are negatives: you won't have the blessing of your parents, or your family. Howerver, the rest is up to you individually. You alone decide what you can do and can't do. You don't need to be pessimistic... And you don't need to act like you're starring in a comedy either. | „ |
| ~ Kiyotaka's fortune. |
Trivia[]
- His first name consist of kanjis that means "pure, clear and clean" for "Kiyo" and for "taka" mean "prosperous and noble".
- Kiyotaka most likely has the Hyperthymesia condition, regarding of his exceptional memory.
- It is stated that the manga represents how Ayanokōji sees himself from the inside or his internal self. As for the anime shows his external self or how everyone sees him and for the light novel is a mix of both adaptions.
- At the near end of the opening of the second season, Ayanokōji was seen wearing a jester-like white smiling mask that is divided into two side; one side with a regular dark eye, the other one with a cross-shaped scar around the eye of the left side. The right side signifies Ayanokōji's desire to live a normal life as a high school student and the left of his mask signifies his sinister, darker and manipulative side and him as a student of the White Room since the eye has a darker design.
- Both Kiyotaka and Ryūen shares the same birthday - the 20th of October.
- As a result, they also share the same Zodiac sign - Libra.
- In the Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! guidebook ranking for Takarajimasha, Ayanokōji holds the
- 10th place in 2018
- 4th place in 2019
- 1st place in both 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023
- Many of his quotes are from his vast knowledge of historical figures who are very well known for their intelligence.
- Nobody who has studied in the White Rooms has never heard of the name "Kiyotaka Ayanokōji"
- Very few people know that Kiyotaka has a very difficult life.
External Links[]
- Kiyotaka Ayanokōji on the Classroom of the Elite Wiki
- Kiyotaka Ayanokōji on the Villains Wiki Wiki
- Kiyotaka Ayanokouji on the VS Battles Wiki
- Kiyotaka Ayanokouji on the All Worlds Alliance Wiki
- Kiyotaka Ayanokouji on the Character Stats and Profiles Wiki
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 Heroes
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Class 1-D Class 1-B Class 1-A | ||