#korosensei infodumps all the time

[korosenseikinnie]

normalize projecting even the smallest of inconviences you have to your hyperfixation

[greengargouille]

So. Ever since Koroquest’s chapter 6, I’ve been thinking a lot about group compositions (well mostly about group 2 because I’m biased). Because, in the main show, the way the students were divided into 4 teams during the Kyoto trip told us a lot about who they get along with ; but in the spin-off, if we think about each student’s role/job, it ends up with the teams not being that well thought out? Tbh I wanted to write a fic about it, but I’m stuck on it since I’m realising it would be lot of infodumps. So, here’s a normal post instead.

Team 4 is what your normal aventurer group should look like. Nagisa and Sugino are swordmen, Kayano and Okuda can use their magic while Kanzaki is the group’s healer, and Karma is ‘magic swordman’ who can handle the monsters with too much high defence for normal swords but too much attack power for a mage to be safe. Plus Okuda can prepare items, Nagisa might end up having the assassin’s job and Kayano is totally a Thief in disguise I’m not going to abandon that theory that easily. They’re well prepared for various treats.

What about the other teams, however?

Team 1 have a lot more of physical fighters than mages, but it works out. Okano and Kimura are more the ‘martial artist’ kind of fighter than the ‘knight’ kind (high speed low defence), and if Yada and Kurahashi are not enough as mages I’m pretty sure the duo of class representatives are talented enough to switch from physical attacks to magic ones. What ikemen they are. And Kurahashi’s magic might attract bugs, but she was still asked by Terasaka for healing spells in first chapter, and back in Volume 16 extras of the main series, she was ranked 4th by Karasuma in medecine and pharmacy, so she probably is a decent healer.

Now, if you want a team with way too much swordmen/tank/knights, you have Team 3. Terasaka, Muramatsu and Yoshida would fit well as heavy hitters/meat shield (especially Terasaka, since his bug means he won’t die), and we all saw in chapter 13 how amazing Hara-zon is with her bug so she have a similar role. Which leaves Takebayashi as the healer (who needs to focus on Hara due to her bug making her lose HP) and Hazama as a mage. Who I guess is specialised in debuffs and basically curse her opponents to slowly lose their HP and skills over time, making them slowly lose hope as the fight continue. It’s an endurance race, but that might be tricky against monsters who can only be attacked with magic. With Itona in the team it might get better, as he is shown to have various skills (notably monster-only ones), but it’s still very unbalanced.

And then we have Team 2, who’s the exact opposite.

Like, look. We have 3 swordmen/fighters (Chiba, Okajima and Mimura) for 4 mages (Nakamura, Hayami, Fuwa and Sugaya). And I love my son Mimura but his skills are as a recon unit, not as a fighter where I think he would be really average. And that’s before Chiba and Hayami become archers (which is bound to happen given the various nods to it within the spin-off, and it makes sense for their bugs). I mean, yeah, archers counts as physical fighters, I guess, but they’re far in the back of the group, not in first line stopping monsters in their tracks and taking the blunt of damage to leave time for mages to activate their spells. They’re in dire need of brute strength. Not only that, but in chapter 6, Okajima explicitly say to Ritsu that no one in the group is good at healing magic. Like. They have 3 mages, 4 with Hayami, and yet somehow they’re the group without a healer. How do you mess up a group composition that badly. It makes sense in a meta way because they’re just applying the same groups from the main show and then looked at the individuals to determine their role. But in-universe it’s like the students didn’t think at all about it.

Nakamura: “Okay, we might need an healer, but look. Setting fire on monsters is fun and I’m not going to stop. Plus I’m the best of the group at offensive magic, so I can’t use my MP on healing.” Fuwa: “Well, I’m the one who try to determine the elemental strengths and weaknesses of the monsters we fight, I kinda need offensive magic for that. (Plus support magic is the work of the detective’s sidekick.)” Hayami: “I’m already training my archery skills besides my magic, if I try healing I won’t have time to get good at any of them.” Sugaya: “...Look, I took magic because I’m even worse with a sword, and I don’t really like fighting up-close. I’m the worst person of the lot to be an healer.” Nakamura: “...Guess we will just have to rely on items then. At worst if we don’t have enough we just let Okajima die. Anybody have a complaint about this? None? Let’s do it that way then.”

Who looked at those children and decided “Ah, yes, this is an acceptable group.” Why did Korosensei and Karasuma did nothing. Did Irina at least taught one of them an alternate skill set like charm spells. Please tell me she did because any of those four with charm spells would be hilarious.

On the other hand, Team 2′s talents are a good mix in a non-fighting situation, but I’m gonna keep that for fic material.