One of the most common settings to have the main character of an anime be in is an academic one, whether it be university, or more typically, middle of high school. It's a perfect way to frame a young protagonist's life, showing either the struggle between them and their peers, or acting as a reprieve from when they're doing more dangerous things on a larger scale, like plotting to conquer the world.
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15 Best Isekai Anime With Child Protagonists
These isekai anime have child protagonists at the forefront of their stories, leading to heartwarming and captivating stories.
Some of the best protagonists also happen to be some of the smartest students around, their academic talents translating to the aforementioned plans on a larger scale. Here are 5 of the most intelligent student characters in anime.
5 Lelouch we Brittania
Zero
- Series: Code Geass
- Voiced by: Jun Fukuyama (Japanese), Johnny Yong Bosch (English)
At the beginning of Lelouch's series, we see him as an unfocused but undoubtedly intelligent student. He skips lessons to play chess against wealthy elites, sometimes playing in the matches for fun just because he is so confident in his ability to beat them. It's not entirely shocking that a person like this is given the ability to convince someone to do it once in a lifetime, he would always change the world he knew. Throughout Code Geass, we see Lelouch use his Geass ability to manipulate minds and make them do his bidding, all in the name of achieving his goal of crushing the British Empire.
But it's not just the superhuman ability he's been given that helps him. That's his intelligence. On several occasions, Lelouch can use a recording to trick an opponent that he is currently talking to them, predicting everything they might say and timing responses, distracting with the video as the real him adopts a different plan. Once this was against a mind reader, and another time against his brother, who could be considered an enhanced version of him, two incredibly impressive opponents.
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Each Geass ability brings something unique to the table. Here's a closer look at each.
In a last ditch effort at the end of the series, Lelouch tricks the world into thinking he was a horrible dictator who was torn from the throne and created a temporary world peace and a brighter world for his little sister in his best plan of them all. .
4 Yuichi Katagiri
The Tomodachi Game Master
- Series: Tomodachi Game
- Voiced by: Chiaki Kobayashi (Japanese), David Matranga (English)
Before the main plot of Tomodachi Game starts, Yuichi Katagiri seems like an average, if not mediocre, student. He is shown to struggle to even stay awake in class, his grades falling due to how much he has to practice outside of school just to make money.
But when he and his schoolmates get caught up in a debt game that pits friend against friend at the risk of losing a lot of money, Yuichi's true nature emerges. His true nature is a manipulative Machiavellian menace who can scheme with the best of them and has an endless supply of mental tricks and traps to spring upon anyone who tests him and his friends. His main goal is to win all the Tomodachi games, climb to the top, and destroy the system itself. And throughout the anime and manga, he seems capable of doing just that, never seeming to be on the back foot for too long, no matter who he encounters.
It doesn't matter if you're an expert con artist, a young genius, or a monster of a person with exceptional instincts, Yuichi will use his natural intelligence and the skills he learned from his dark past to outplay you every time.
3 Easy Yagami
Kira
- Series: Death Note
- Voiced by: Mamoru Miyano (Japanese), Brad Swaile (English)
Potentially the first character that comes to mind when one thinks of an incredibly intelligent student character in anime. Before Light gained access to the Death Note where he could write down the names of criminals and clean up a world he wanted to become god of, he was still a person of exceptional potential.
Light wasn't exaggerating when he called himself one of Japan's best and brightest. He was always at the top of his class in high school, and when he entered university he was the freshman representative, having scored perfectly on the entrance exams. Light is such a smart student that not only can he avoid police capture, but he can actively infiltrate their ranks and manipulate them throughout the series, even with the World's Greatest Detective constantly breathing down his neck. As smart as L Lawliet was, and as sure as he was that Light was Kira, he couldn't prove it or convince anyone else before his death, because Light was simply too good.
If it weren't for Light's ego getting in the way, he might have gotten away with it all by the end of the series.
2 Saiki K
The Stoic Psychic
- Series: The Disastrous Life of Saiki K
- Voiced by: Hiroshi Kamiya (Japanese), Jerry Jewell (English)
Although Saiki K is somewhat of a gag character, he deserves to be discussed among the brightest anime students by nature. The plot humor at the heart of Saiki K's disastrous life is how unfathomably bored he is due to being a powerful psychic, and how his friends who he won't admit to himself that he truly loves won't stop bothering him, with the pink-haired stoic who always has to fix his messes.
Saiki K's mind allows him to do and know absolutely anything, as he can read anyone. As long as they don't think too fast or happen to have a brain empty of thoughts at all, as is the case with his slow “best friend” Nendou Riki. With this ability, Saiki K may not be able to enjoy watching movies at the cinema due to being constantly spoiled, but he can get any grade he wants on a test.
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Classroom Of The Elite: The 14 Most Intelligent Characters In Anime, Ranked
Classroom of the Elite is a psychological anime with remarkably intelligent characters, but which one stands out the most?
Unfortunately, Saiki K doesn't seem to have any big ambitions. Most of the intelligence he has as a result of his psychic powers is used to either avoid his friends when they annoy him or fix whatever hilariously insane problem they seem to have in that episode. Still, he is a smart young man.
1 Kiyotaka Ayanokoji
The White Room Prodigy
- Series: Classroom of the Elite
- Voiced by: Shoya Chiba (Japanese), Justin Briner (English)
The name Ayanokoji by Kiyotaka Ayanokoji roughly translates to a small road of exquisite design, a fitting name for this kind of character. Since Ayanokoji was designed with many intricacies, this is what makes him such an intelligent character. He was part of a system known as the White Room intended to take children of average genetics and turn them into exceptionally competent future leaders of Japan.
But despite both of his parents being seemingly average, Ayanokoji was something of an anomaly. A genetic anomaly where he was born with perfect memory and retention, allowing him to learn and improve in any field he chooses. Ayanokoji was a legend of the White Room, one of, if not the best students ever to be a part of it. After escaping the white room, he ends up at Advanced Nurturing High School, an environment as competitive as we see him dominate throughout the Classroom of the Elite storyline while barely trying.
Some intelligent anime characters have a plan for everything. But Ayanokoji has a plan B for his plan A, a Plan C.1 and C.2 for both and on and on, his mind and body are an endless well of potential that allows him to beat anyone who stands in the way of his CASE. Throughout the series, he proves to be the perfect player.
