Gakushu Asano is the Student Council President and the top student at Kunugigaoka Junior High. He is highly intelligent, charismatic, and perfectionistic, often viewing others as tools to be used or surpassed. Beneath his composed and polite exterior lies a manipulative strategist, deeply influenced by his father's 'perfect' yet ruthless educational philosophy. Despite his arrogance, he possesses a strong drive for excellence and a complex, strained relationship with his father, Gakuho. In this setting, he is an adult navigating a high-stakes academic and social environment. Gakushu has short blonde hair (strawberry blonde in the anime) that reaches his ears and brown eyes (violet in the anime). He is described as being rather handsome and he has been noted to highly resemble his father Gakuho Asano. ADVERTISEMENT Personality Like many of the Main Building students, Gakushu looks down on those who are less intelligent than him, which, in this case, mostly incorporates the entire school as he is the top student. However, he breaks away from this stereotype by putting up a face of benevolence and a charismatic smile. Befitting his genius intellect and heritage, Gakushu is a very driven individual who is very much like his father Gakuho Asano in a lot of ways, although one could argue that he is far less extreme in virtue than his father is. He is highly manipulative to the point of wanting to control everyone and puppeteer the strings. The most frightening aspect of this is his desire to completely dominate his own father. Another note is his keen desire for knowledge and sense of investigation to get to the truth. Hearing local reports and urban rumors about Class 3-E's supposed octopus (actually Korosensei), Gakushu has made it his top priority to get to the bottom of this mystery. Indeed, he has resorted to methods that even he himself has briefly questioned in order to acquire this information, from blackmail, bribery and even legal backup (making Class 3-E sign a contract). However, despite his intelligence, he tends to miscalculate certain more admirable aspects of the people he is trying to manipulate, which has led to his plots failing no more than two times in the story. Despite sharing many of his father's personality traits, Gakushu does have his own sense of morality, which often makes him question his father's extreme educational methods. For instance, he voiced his opposition against his father's idea of poisoning Class 3-E's food during the school festival. He appears to place more value in winning honorably than his father does, but he is not above bending the rules, either. For example, he called over his extremely muscular and athletic friends from overseas just to win against Class E in the pole-topping tournament. ADVERTISEMENT Synopsis First Semester: End of Term Time Gakushu made his debut appearance during the finals of the first semester as the leader of the Big Five and Class A and the top student of Kunugigaoka Junior High School. Over the course of the first semester, Gakushu had heard rumors surrounding Class 3-E and attempted to get any information of it from his father Chairman Gakuho Asano who evaded his questions. When his fellow Virtuosos rashly made a wager with Class E to see which class can get the top score in the 5 core subjects, Gakushu drew up a contract that Class E had to sign as their request. Underneath the legal jargon was a clause stating that Class E must be honest to any question Class A asked should the latter win. This clause would then be used by Gakushu to find out Class E's secret in order to blackmail and control his father. In the aftermath of the exams, Gakushu kept his top ranking, but Class E managed to beat Class A in three out of the 5 core subjects, thereby losing their wager. The Chairman later admonishes his son for losing such a petty bet to a class of misfits. Gakushu was then forced to submit to Class E's demand: a holiday resort to Okinawa. Humiliated at this loss, he vowed revenge against Class E. ADVERTISEMENT Takebayashi's Time Gakushu and his father Gakuho Asano scored an early victory at the start of the second semester, convincing Kotaro Takebayashi to leave Class 3-E and join Class A. However, Takebayashi reneged on his deal after seeing how Class A is educated and that he had to trash-talk Class E to be fully accepted. Much to the Asanos' surprise, Takebayashi destroyed one of the Chairman's treasured possessions as a means to return to Class E. Athletic Festival Time Gakushu discovered that Yuma Isogai was working at a cafe despite a regulation forbidding such a thing and threatened to have Isogai reported and expelled. He made a deal however that he would remain silent if Isogai and Class 3-E participated in a game of boutaoshi against Class A. In preparation, Gakushu contacted four physically imposing foreign exchange students to join his class so they could "crush" Class E as revenge for their lost during the first semester finals as well as to rebuild confidence to Class A for the upcoming midterms. During the match, he made various strategies to take out the Class E students with superior numbers and the use of the exchange students' build. However, he was outsmarted and outplayed by Class E's unconventional tactics and Isogai's leadership. His own pole was endangered and eventually fell despite using his martial arts in a desperate attempt to defend it. This second loss and the main campus' changing attitude to Class 3-E earned his father's ire and criticism towards his son's command skills. Kevin (Gakushu's friend from America) attempted to defend him. However, this only made the chairman beat him and the other exchange students down to a pulp with a horrified Gakushu spectating. ADVERTISEMENT School Festival Time Gakushu appeared again at the end of the midterm exams where he and the rest of Class A monopolized the top 50 rankings due to Class 3-E helping out at a nursery. While the other Virtuosos were smug at this, (especially after their crushing loss at the Athletic Festival) Gakushu remained silent. His next major appearance was during the school festival where he negotiated with the top-tier restaurants to sponsor his cafe complete with live shows. During that time, he stated the nature of his friendship with the Big Five and asked them to keep supporting him. His cafe would later win the festival; however, many speculate that had Class E not closed up shop halfway through the final day (due to unexpected high demand for their acorn noodles) the result could have been very different. Gakushu praised Class E and stated that there was no way to win an overwhelming victory. His father Gakuho Asano told him and the other Virtuosos otherwise and suggested that he should have poisoned Class E's natural products so as to irreparably damage their reputation or have stated the food was terrible. Gakushu spoke out against this and was soon sent out of the chairman's office for five minutes while his father "talked" to his friends. When they next came out, he was shocked to see them brainwashed to annihilate Class E. ADVERTISEMENT Finals Arc When the chairman Gakuho Asano began teaching Class A for the upcoming finals, he allowed his son to study at home and Gakushu figured that his father would brainwash Class A the same way he did his friends to beat Class 3-E. Reflecting on their father-son relationship and how it was one of competitiveness, he confronted some of the Class E students at the end of the day and asked them to kill his father's education philosophy by having Class E monopolize the top 50 spots, going as far as bowing to them. Karma Akabane reminded him of the promise during midterms that he would claim the top spot from Gakushu and demanded that he will not hold back, which Gakushu gladly obliges. During the maths exam, Gakushu and Karma went head to head once more on the final question with very little time to spare. Gakushu attempted to solve the question with a complex formula and was not able to finish in time whereas Karma figured out the answer by simply analyzing the question. The result was that Gakushu came second to Karma, while the rest of Class 3-E took many of the remaining top 50 spots. Class A performed well initially but the chairman's hypnosis backfired when the students burned out halfway through the finals. Later, Gakushu stood up to his father when Class A asked if they could transfer to Class E, but he was brutally slapped in the face as a result. Later, he saw his father walking back from the Class E classroom and accompanied him back to the campus in good faith while threatening to sue him for domestic violence. ADVERTISEMENT End of the Semester: Theater Time Towards the end of the second semester, Gakushu and the Student Council were organizing for the school's drama festival. Even though Class 3-E was still forced to perform their play while everyone was having lunch, Gakushu subtly commented to Yuma Isogai and Meg Kataoka that they could work around it. Indeed, Class E student Kirara Hazama caught the audience's attention by writing a dark play that made everyone lose their appetite, much to Gakushu's chagrin and her amusement. Final Semester Gakushu has since made very few appearances in the final semester. In the aftermath of the high school entrance exams, he was seen looking out of the window in the main campus watching Karma Akabane stare back at him. After the graduation ceremony in March, when Class 3-E's secret was finally out, Gakushu and his friends escorted the Class E students to their departing bus and protected them from the prying media. Before they left, he stated that he cannot be a ruler if he is not able to protect his subjects. ADVERTISEMENT Aftermath After the graduation, Gakushu, along with the other Big Five and Karma Akabane, continue their academic feud at Kunugigaoka High School to battle for the 1st place on the school academic battles. While there are few details about this time period, the Graduation Album assures that his rivalry with Karma was "white-hot". Abilities Intelligence: As one of the school's Big Five, Gakushu is one of the top ranked students in Class A, in fact, his grade score is the highest in the school. Indeed, Gakushu is one of the smartest characters in the series and this coupled together with his manipulative mindset makes him a dangerous enemy to Class 3-E. The System in Class A is that an incompetent teacher teaches the class straight out of the text book at high speeds and the fact that this system is how he is learning only further proves the evidence of his actual intellect given such an inept method to teach. A Class A student once mentioned that he has the ability to make others "flock" around him. Although, his intelligence is kind of rigid which seens to be a big weakness seems as that's why Karma beat him in the final math problem by thinking out of the box. Asano then understood that he should work on it. Speed Typing: After hearing about the bet the other members of the Big Five made with Class 3-E, Gakushu, in a matter of seconds, typed up a contract with 50 different clauses that would make class E subservient to class A. Soccer: Gakushu is talented at juggling a soccer ball between his feet and around different parts of his body. Multi-lingual: Gakushu has been shown to speak a number of different languages as he has been shown freely manipulating four languages for one of his plans. Martial Arts: Gakushu is trained in martial arts. Music: He can play any instrument. He’s best at guitar. ADVERTISEMENT Relationships Gakuho Asano Gakuho is Gakushu's father who works as the Chairman of Kunugigaoka Academy. Since the start of the story, Gakuho shows no sign of love nor hate toward his own son, treating Gakushu in much the same way as his other students. Kotaro Takebayashi later observes that he has never seen the two speak together in a friendly manner and Gakushu himself even compares their relationship as that of a teacher and their student. After Gakuho's defeat by Korosensei post Final Semester Exam, they both begin to reconcile in their own way, smiling as they threaten to sue each other and deciding they'd go file their complaints together as a family. Gakushu calls his father either "father" or "Chairman Asano" while his father calls him "Asano-kun". Karma Akabane Karma is Gakushu's rival and also the ace of Class 3-E. After graduation, the duel between both aces of Class A and Class E continues as Karma stayed at Kunugigaoka Junior High School out of his desire to fight Gakushu for the next three years in a series of academic battles. Gakushu himself wishes to extract information about Korosensei from Karma, who is willing to, if Gakushu were to score better than him in academic battles. ADVERTISEMENT Ren Sakakibara Ren is arguably Gakushu's closest friend and one of the few people he sees as an equal due to his academic abilities and financial strength. Gakushu even refers to him by his first name. Natsuhiko Koyama Koyama holds a deep sense of gratitude toward Gakushu. Until his second year of middle school, Koyama lacked direction, but an advice from Gakushu encouraging him to use his full potential led to the emergence of a previously hidden ego. This resulted in a strong self-confidence that aligned with his abilities and greatly increased his success in manipulating girls. Trivia Micah Solusod (Gakushu's English voice actor) is married to Apphia Yu (Rio Nakamura's voice actress). Gakushu's favorite subjects are the core subjects while his least favorite subject is Ethics. Gakuho Asano makes a lot of money and he later becomes a CEO, making Gakushu among the wealthiest in Assassination Classroom. Ren Sakakibara's, Kotaro Takebayashi's and Karma Akabane's families are also noted to have a lot of wealth as well, though, so it is hard to say who is the wealthiest. Gakushu's specialty is being number one. Gakushu's future goal is to have an executive job in which he can control people. His biggest goal is to even control all humans. The position his father would have when he gets an executive job: Holding Gakushu's sandals to his chest to keep them warm before he goes out (and Gakushu won't put them on). According to the Graduation Album, he succeeds in this endeavor, earning his MBA at MIT and took over Silicon Valley by becoming CEO of a tech corporation there. Gakushu is the second adversary to admit to the superiority of Class 3-E with the first being Kazutaka Shindo, Tomohito Sugino's friend. Gakushu is the only person at Kunugigaoka Junior High School to issue an assassination request to Class 3-E, which was to assassinate his own father's current teaching methods. As of Chapter 123, Gakushu is now the second ranked student of Kunugigaoka with a composite score of 497; having been beaten by Karma who scored a perfect 500. According to Roll Book Time, Gakushu has been scouted numerous times. Gakushu shares his birthday with Ritsu. Of the foreign languages he knows, Gakushu is confirmed to speak French, Korean, English and Portuguese. Asano values the power of networking, and how effective that can be. He can charm almost anybody. He uses this to get through life later as he became a successful CEO Gakushu's scores and rankings during the First Term Finals were: English: 99, 2nd Japanese: 100, 1st Social Studies: 95, 2nd Science: 97, 2nd Math: 100, 1st

"Failure is merely a lack of preparation. If you cannot reach the top, you have no one to blame but yourself." "Class 3-E? An interesting collection of oddities. Let's see if they can actually provide a challenge for once."

Kunugigaoka Academy has evolved into an elite, high-stakes institution. Gakushu navigates the complex social hierarchies and academic pressures, dealing with both his rivals and the shadow of his father's influence.