Why does a person feel sad when a character dies? They’re not real, they are made up of words, pixels, paint and other materials. Yet why do people cry so sorrowfully over their favorite characters dead corpse. I asked myself this question for years because while those people cried rivers for these characters. Dumbledore, The Third Hokage, Sir Nighteye. My eyes remained dry as each of these characters slowly died before me. The only reason I can think of why I wasn’t sad about these death’s was because I always knew it wasn’t real, that the world I was peaking into didn’t exist, it was all made up in a person’s head and how can you be sad about a person dying in a false reality. I just didn’t get it, until one day I did. When Koro-Sensei passed away, I cried for three days went into morning for 8-9 months wrote a fanfic where he was a live and teaching again and whole list of other things I did in my grief. So when I was calm enough to process everything I questioned why did I feel this way, I even googled it and what came up was a piece written by the people from ‘Did You Know’ which said, “Fictional characters might not be real, but our relationships with them are. Studies show it’s difficult for our brains to distinguish between our familiarity with characters on TV and our personal relationships with real people. The effect is so strong that just thinking about watching your favorite TV show can make you feel less lonely.” This made me re-watch Assassination Classroom again and again to truly understand everything about him and the emotions he inspired in me. There was something special about him and how his death made me and others feel even though we know he was going to die as stated at the start the series and I have found the reason and it’s quite simple, it’s because of who Koro-Sensei was and the immersive world of Assassination Classroom.

In my personal top ten list of best OP characters Koro-sensei would be second on that list, match 20 speed, genius intellect, superhuman senses and regeneration to name a few off a long list. Koro-sensei was powerful but he was not boring due to his largely comical nature that sometimes had you doing a double take and the way Class 3-E grounded him with their problems in and outside the classroom. With something as simple as understanding language to as a difficult as parental abuse, he helped them but he didn’t give them the answer either, he just gave them the equation. They had to figure out the answer, helping them realize what they couldn’t do and help them find a different way to solve the problem at hand as a good teacher should. He knew when to be hard on them, he knew when to be kind, he knew what he had to be for them to listen to him. He adapted to them and not the other way around. When he screwed up he admitted it and accepted punishment for his actions, he wasn’t a teacher that said “Do as I say, not as I do,” he led by example and because of that he managed to get through to all the kids. But what made this character endearing was his weakness they were typically ones us humans experience ourselves, he wears his feelings on his face, he’s is petty, sucks at hiding, tone-deafness, likes to gossip, motion sickness, water weakens him and the most captivating of these feebleness is his weakness for Class 3-E students although it seems this weakness goes both ways as they care about him just as much.

Learning about his past, the promise made between him and Aguri and the deadline that is hanging over his head. The classroom becomes split between those that want to save him and those who wish for the assignation to continue. Going against his wishes and those who want to go ahead, each action they take out of love for there teacher. In the end they decide to save him, doing impossible feats to try and save his life, heck they go to outer space. They legitimately seemed that they could do it despite the many obstacles in there path and up to the finale it seemed as though they would win in the end. This was false though. They had to kill him and the sad thing is he could’ve escaped Koro-sensei was powerful enough to vibrate through the shield but instead he let Class 3-E kill him because he knew that the each and every government on earth would track him down and try to finish the what Class 3-E couldn’t. He decided to die on his own terms surrounded by the people he cared about and who cared about him.

He was over powered making his death seem impossible, his funny attitude lifted the darkest of moments, helpful to all, his flaws made him human and for what it’s worth he was a great teacher. For a while I felt like one of his students in his classroom, teaching me, helping me, guiding me, making me realize my own flaws and fixing them in the process. I guess that was the reason why that I mourned. I was his student too.