Class Is In Session: A Conversation with Yusei Matsui, Creator of Assassination Classroom

Yusei Matsui’s Assassination Classroom is one of the strangest, funniest, most touching manga in years. An expertly executed shonen series that’s also a sendup of shonen manga, it features a class of misfits who have been assigned to kill their teacher.
Said teacher, nicknamed Koro-sensei (a portmanteau of korosenai, or “unkillable,” and sensei, or “teacher”) is an alien who has destroyed part of the moon and plans to destroy the earth as well—but only after he spends a year teaching high school. The authorities assign Koro-sensei to Class 3E, where the administrators of the elitist high school park their failures, and give the class the task of killing him. (Why don’t they accidentally kill each other? Only certain weapons can harm Koro-sensei, and those weapons are harmless to humans.) Of course, the adults can’t help meddling, and soon the class is joined by several seasoned assassins.

But Koro-sensei has a few skills of his own, including the ability to move at Mach 20—and he’s actually an unusually perceptive teacher.
Matsui was a special guest at New York Comic-Con in early October, signing autographs and discussing his work in a panel that packed one of the Javits Center’s larger rooms. Moderator Urian Brown, who hosts the Shonen Jump podcast, introduced Matsui, noting that he was an assistant on Bobobo-bo Bob-bobo (where he got “rigorous training learning to draw different kinds of nose hair”) and went on to create Neuro: Supernatural Detective (which has yet to be licensed for English-language readers); Assassination Classroom is his second series as sole creator.

Matsui bounded onto the stage and greeted the crowd in English: “Hello New York! I’m Yusei Matsui! Nice to meet you!” the crowd roared a welcome in return. Here are some highlights of the onstage interview that followed.
Brown: What were some of your favorite manga growing up?
Matsui: My favorite manga growing up [were] JoJo, Parasyte, Dragon Ball, and also Captain Tsubasa.
What made you decide to become a manga-ka?
I grew up in a very strict household and they wouldn’t let me buy manga, so if I couldn’t get my manga I thought maybe I should just draw my own.
Did you ever want to be a teacher?
I’m about 38 now. I have had a lot of life experiences, and at this point I have gotten to the point where I would like to teach people based on my own experiences. Maybe some of you in the crowd have had a similar experience of wanting to teach a younger person. Being a teacher I believe is a very, very challenging job, but maybe one of these days I could perhaps be able to be one too.
Is Koro-sensei inspired by one or more of your teachers growing up?
Unfortunately, Koro-sensei is not modeled after any teachers I have had in my life. I just started thinking for myself: what is it like to be a teacher? And I started from the ground up.

Since I was young I have never really been confident about my drawing, but there was one teacher who looked at what I was drawing and said “Hey, you’re pretty good,” and that is something I kept in my heart. [This elicited a collective “awwww” from the audience.]
This idea is hilarious. How did it come to you?
First, you guys have hopefully all read the first volume. [Whoops and cheers from the audience.] In the first two or three pages, where all the students are saying “Good morning” to sensei, those first two or three pages are actually students shooting their teacher. That image is what popped into my head one day.
So I had this idea of all these students trying to kill a teacher. I started working logically: OK, in the first three pages if they kill the teacher there is not going to be a manga. How am I going to solve that? Well, the teacher is telepathic or has super speed—I chose super speed—and then after that, well, if the classroom is going to be doing that, they are going to be bothering all the other classrooms around them. So OK, let’s create this classroom that is kind of away from the rest of the campus. Hence [Class] 3E. I just built it logically until I came up with Assassination Classroom.

You make it sound so easy!
It’s really simple, and I thought maybe someone has already done this before, so I did my research and Googled to make sure no one had caught on to this idea, and no one had, so I decided to do it.
Was it difficult getting a green light for a manga with such an unusual premise, and what was the pitch meeting like?
There have been different scenarios where someone didn’t want to be a teacher but they end up being a teacher—like a cop who ends up being a teacher of a kindergarten class. It just so happens that in Assassination Classroom that the teacher is this pseudo alien-looking figure.
Even working with my editor everything was very straightforward and simple, so I realized that the simpler the concept, the smoother everything goes.

How did you come up with the design for Koro-sensei, and were other animals considered besides an octopus?
Actually the design for Koro-sensei was used in a different manga that did not make it so I just used him.
I knew going into a new manga that it had to be simple. Simple, simple, simple. The simpler it is, the more universally things are communicated. Outside an octopus, the other form I considered was a slimy blob. The reason is because both are very easy to draw. He has no joints, and he has no hands to draw. As you can see, he has tentacles, so he is very easy to draw.
After making this series did it change the way you feel about eating octopus?
I love octopus. Even before Assassination Classroom, after Assassination Classroom, I still love to eat octopus. Sashimi, boiled, it doesn’t matter. I love octopus!

You have made two hit manga in a row that have spawned hit anime series. So tell us, please: What is the secret to making a hit manga?
I’m not going to tell you. [Matsui then added, in English] It’s a joke!
Instead of thinking about what I want to write, I actually think about what my audience would want to read. Because it’s coming from the audience, the details are easier and it ends up being a very well balanced story in manga.
Koro-sensei has a wide range of facial expressions. Were there any inspirations for these faces? Do you find yourself making these expressions in the mirror to perfect the final version?
When I am drawing human expressions, if it’s really angry, I make an angry face; if the character is happy, I smile. But when it comes to Koro-sensei, I don’t look like Koro-sensei. He’s round. So I don’t really use myself as a reference for Koro-sensei.

Call this just being plagued by work all the time, but when I am out on the streets I will see things in a circle—street signs, restaurant signs, shop signs, they are all circular. Those inspire me for Koro-sensei’s expressions.
Out of all the variations of Koro-sensei, like pink or striped, what’s is your favorite?
I personally like pink. I like pink, it’s bright, it’s a happy color. I didn’t want to be too repetitive, so by the third volume I made sure it was a very impactful pink.
[For] the third volume, I actually went back and forth a lot with that cover designer to get the right shade of pink. I’m very, very proud of that [one].
The first twelve volumes of Assassination Classroom are available now.