Karma Akabane

Karma Akabane (赤羽) is a student in Korosensei's Class 3-E of Kunugigaoka Junior High School who had been suspended from school due to his violent behavior. He is also one of Nagisa's closest friends. He is a major character in Assassination Classroom.

Appearance
Karma has pale skin, short red hair, and pale sharp eyes that appear as either mercury or goldish in color. Behind his usual innocent-looking, smiling face hides a torturous and rather sadistic personality. He has a slender build and has also been shown to have exceptionally sharp canine teeth.

Among all the Class 3-E students, Karma is the only one to wear a black blazer as opposed to the standard school-issued uniform. In the anime, Karma is considered to be the most physically attractive out of all the boys in Class E by the girls.

Seven years after graduation, Karma has grown considerably taller and has swept-back hair. His eyes also appear moderately less threatening.

Personality
Karma is well-known throughout the school for his violent behavior and troublesome attitude. He is quite cunning, mischievous, and somewhat sadistic, usually playing foul, tricking, and at times manipulating, humiliating and fighting others. He has been described by Karasuma as "at first glance, he comes across as being a lazy sort, but there's a strong sense of mischief in his eyes", and Itona has described him to have "certain vision" to Terasaka.

Karma is quite relaxed most of the time as he occasionally skips out on things he finds boring, such as the school assembly. However, he has become considerably more hard working at studying after the embarrassing exam arc although he hides it by making it look like he was playing video games. Unexpectedly, Karma is a fan of superhero movies, like Sonic Ninja.

Despite his somewhat sadistic nature, Karma actually has good values behind his motives, and can be quite empathetic. The reason he was placed in Class E was that he had rescued a senior from Class E being bullied by students from the main building. He is, unlike his former classmates, unprejudiced against Class E. He believes each and every one of them have their own special talents and will defend them, especially against Class A.

When he was in the main building, due to the betrayal of his most-trusted homeroom teacher, Karma began to hate all people who called themselves 'teachers' and as a result, he had almost zero respect for any adults. However, Karma has become more objective after meeting Korosensei, now respecting more of his opponents' and teachers' strengths and weaknesses.

Karma has shown to be more than capable of respecting and caring for other people, as he greatly cares for Nagisa who seems to be his friend, and has grown attached to his classmates and others: he is best friends with Nagisa, he gets along with Okuda and Nakamura, often teases Terasaka, and respects Asano Gakushu and sees him as his intellectual rival. He also forms a bond with Korosensei, breaking down crying when he died. However, Karma also tends to be quite impulsive, to the point of becoming truly brutal and cruel when fighting with people who threaten him or any of his friends from Class E.

History
Karma comes from a wealthy family, as his parents are successful financial day traders. They are "free people" who spend most of their time traveling around the world, and as a result, they spend little time with Karma.

For a long time, Karma had been a rebellious student with a problematic attitude. However, due to his good grades, his homeroom teacher had supported him and proclaimed that "as long as you are in the right, sensei will be on your side".

In his first two years at Kunigigaoka, Karma had been friends with fellow classmate Nagisa Shiota. He first approached Nagisa when he saw the latter reading an article about Karma's favourite film director adapting a comic book, and invited Nagisa to watch with him. For a short time, the two hung out together, with Karma being able to be less guarded with Nagisa. One day at a fast food outlet though, Nagisa unintentionally was able to sneak up on Karma. This made Karma feel exposed and vulnerable since Nagisa could have struck and killed him in that moment and he wouldn't have been able to react in time - something the strong and capable Karma wasn't used to. Karma sensed a mysterious but sinister feeling from Nagisa, but as he realized that he does not know how to deal with this (having being used to beating his problems with his fists). As a result, Karma distanced himself from Nagisa. By the time of his suspension, their relationship reverted back to being just classmates.

One day Karma had found a senior from Class E being bullied and had jumped to his rescue, severely injuring the main building's 3rd year in the process. Convinced that he was still in the 'right', Karma was shocked when his homeroom teacher told him that he was in the 'wrong'. His teacher then further elaborated that he had no right to protect a "worthless piece of trash" from Class E and instead injured a fellow student with a "bright future", and told him that starting his third year he would be dropped to Class E. This caused the teacher's worth to 'die' in Karma's eyes, as well as causing Karma to stop caring about teachers in general and instead focused on doing what he wanted.

Introduction: Karma Time
Karma was still in suspension when Korosensei first arrived. However, he was briefed by a Ministry of Defence spokeswoman of the situation currently going on in his class. He makes his debut in Chapter 3, reuniting with his friend Nagisa Shiota, though the two communicated like visiting guests (adding the 'kun' suffix). Seeing Korosensei, Karma politely introduces himself and holds out his hand to shake. When Korosensei obliges, his tentacle fingers splatter, shocking him and the students. Karma reveals his hand to contain sliced pieces of the same material as that of the anti-sensei knife, making him the first person to have injured his unkillable teacher.

Throughout his first day, Karma continually agitates Korosensei, one instance stealing the latter's Italian gelato and pranks him but Nagisa worries that this will come back to hit Karma hard. The next day, Karma's next attempts backfire as Korosensei is now constantly on watch and gives Karma constant manicures. Eventually, Karma resorts to suicide by jumping off the mountain as a way to destroy Korosensei's reputation if he decided not to save him (based on his previous experience with his former homeroom teacher). Korosensei does save him, also avoiding Karma's hidden BB gun and gets Karma to see how far his new teacher will go to educate him. Karma concedes defeat for the time being and becomes another ally for Class E.

First Semester
Karma saw the arrival of their new English teacher Irina Jelavić. However, her arrogance and self-pride would cause the class to initially call her "Bitch-neesan", of which Karma first came up with. They later settled for "Bitch-sensei" ("Professor Bitch" in the English dub). When the midterm exams were held, most of Class E failed to get into the top 50 due largely to the principal changing of the exam scope. However, Karma effortlessly ranked 4th despite the changed questions and declared that he would not transfer to the main building as assassinations are much more enjoyable.

During the Kyoto school trip, Karma was invited by Nagisa to join him alongside Kaede Kayano, Manami Okuda, Tomohito Sugino and Yukiko Kanzaki. While scouting for possible sites for assassinating Korosensei, the group was ambushed by high school delinquents. Despite Karma's desire for battle, the boys were overpowered resulting in Kayano and Kanzaki's kidnapping. With help from Korosensei's extensive guidebook, and the octopus himself, Karma got his vengeance as he, Nagisa, Sugino and Okuda (who hid herself during the ambush) defeated the delinquents and save the girls. That night, when the boys ranked their female classmates, Karma was asked which he liked. He answered Okuda, adding the reason being the opportunity to experiment around with questionable mixtures, to the ire of his classmates. Also that night, Rio Nakamura proposed to the girls to talk about the ones they like in the class, Toka Yada later said that Karma Akabane would be on top with good looks alone then replied by the girls that if only he was a little behaved, Manami Okuda layer said that; "He's not really scary, though" then Kaede Kayano immediately replied that: " He's usually pretty quiet"

Karma saw the arrival of two transfer students (Ritsu and Itona Horibe) who both failed in killing Korosensei despite their enhanced abilities, though Itona notes that Karma was the strongest in the class. He participated in the baseball exhibition game against the skilled baseball club, where he provoked the audience and the club members themselves as his contribution to Class E winning the match. Although not present when Akira Takaoka arrived in his short stint as PE teacher (skipping his class), he, later on, praised Nagisa's 'assassination', saying that he would have liked to see it. Karma played a vital role when Itona and his guardian Shiro made a second attempt at Korosensei's life, having created a strategy for Ryōma Terasaka and Class E to thwart their plan.

In preparation for the end of semester exams, Korosensei promised to let any student destroy a tentacle provided that they place first in any subject. Karma adopted a lazy approach, believing he will ace the exams no problem. As such he ignored Korosensei's concerns and did not join his classmates in study sessions or in helping out win a bet with Class A. This approach causes Karma to bomb out in the maths exam against Gakushu Asano, dropping from 4th to 13th overall. Korosensei whimsically mocks him for his attitude, further angering Karma and causing him to storm off. Fortunately, Class E won their bet against Class A and won a holiday vacation to Okinawa. Yūma Isogai, Rio Nakamura and Okuda each scored first in their respective subject, however, Terasaka and his group demand their share, each tied for first place in Home Economics. At Chiba's egging, Karma snaps out of his depression and calls out Korosensei's feeble bluff, horrifying their teacher that seven tentacles will be destroyed instead of three.

Assassination Island Arc
Arriving at Okinawa, Karma helped the class prepare for the upcoming assassination by scouting underwater to determine the location's suitability. When the attempt does happen later in the night, Karma was one of the four that pulled the hut apart via speedboat to trap Korosensei. Despite the perfect synchronisation of the class's plan, Korosensei pulled out his trump card when he detected the shots from Chiba and Hayami mere milliseconds before they landed, and protected himself with an unbreakable crystallised barrier that will hold for 24 hours until he returns back to normal form. However, it costs him his mobility, which Karma uses to psychologically torment the teacher by showing him embarrassing pictures of himself or putting sea slugs on the barrier.

Later when half of the class collapse from exhaustion and fever, Karma and the rest of the healthy students infiltrate the mountain hill hotel where the mastermind behind the illness is staying at to retrieve the antidote to the virus. Early on, Irina stays behind to distract the numerous guards in the lobby while Karasuma is affected by a paralysis gas despite defeating the creator Smog, leaving the students to essentially fend for themselves. The group come across another assassin named Grip barring their way further. Initially wanting to fight bare-handed, his desire fell after seeing Karasuma incapable of fighting and elects to call for reinforcements. Karma however destroys his phone with a nearby pot plant, mocking the hit man for running away from a group of high school kids and goads him into fighting him. Grip obliges and the two begin combat. Karma uses the movements he learned from Karasuma to dodge Grip's attacks, knowing that a single grab means defeat. Eventually Karma goes on the offensive and kicks Grip in the groin. The hit man turns away seemingly stunned until he sneakily fires a gas spray when Karma prepared the finishing blow. Karma collapses and is caught in Grip's grasp. But when his opponent faces in the direction of the students, Karma retaliates with a second gas spray, revealing that he thought the exact same thing, having nicked a canister off Smog earlier. Grip gets angry and charges Karma with his knife, though the latter easily disarms him and had Terasaka and other boys pin Grip down and tie him up. Korosensei and the class sees how far Karma has come since tasting defeat at the finals exams, though they take it back when Karma celebrates his victory by pouring spicy mixtures through Grip's nostrils.

The class continues upwards until finally reaching the top floor. There they discover the mastermind to be Akira Takaoka, who wanted to claim the ten million yen bounty as well as revenge on the class (in particular Nagisa) for the humiliation he had to endure since returning to the the Ministry of Defense. Takaoka leads the group to the helipad, with Karma and the class forced to watch Takaoka humiliate Nagisa. He then blows up the antidote, making Nagisa rage in despair to fight and kill Takaoka. However, Terasaka and Korosensei manages to calm Nagisa down. When Takaoka and Nagisa are fighting, Takaoka easily lands hits on Nagisa, making Karma wanting to join the fray, though Terasaka stops him. Karma watched Nagisa defeat Takaoka using his newly-acquired nekodamashi technique. During the reformed Korosensei's Test of Courage, Karma admitted to Okuda that he is afraid of not being afraid, and notes that Nagisa's calm attitude right after he defeated Takaoka was as if nothing happened at all. He then thinks that not being capable of being on guard nor afraid can be the scariest thing of all, but affirms that he will be the one who takes Korosensei's life.

Second Semester
Karma takes a backseat role for much of the second semester. He takes part of Korosensei's Cops and Robbers game to test out their newly-learned free-running skills, where he participates in a plan, along with Nagisa and Sugino, to hide in the pool for the last minute, allowing the students to win as Korosensei unable to dive underwater without harming himself. Karma participates in the boutaoshi against Class A, where Class E's unconventional tactics and Isogai's leadership gave them the victory over Class A despite their numerical superiority. The free-running skills would later get the class into trouble as the mid term exams approached, and Korosensei had forbidden everyone from studying as a way to teach them humility. Only Karma studied in secret, enabling him to come second overall and save his classmates from total humiliation. During the God of Death incident, Karma's combat prowess earned him a spot in Team A, though the God of Death still took out everyone, including him, with little effort.

Karma returns to the spotlight during the finals arc. With the exams approaching, Gakushu Asano asks Class E to kill his father's teaching philosophy by monopolizing the top 50 rankings. Karma confidently states that he will grab the top spot from Asano. Although he helped tutor the class in Maths (dealing out corporal punishment in the process), he virtually went up against Asano alone on the final Math problem with only a few minutes to spare. Initially perplexed by the question's complexity, he reflects on his surroundings and classmates and realizes that the answer is quite simple. As a result Karma scores a perfect 500, grabbing the top spot from Asano, and the rest of Class E being placed within the top 50. During the examination, he reflects that despite him being called talented, he believed his classmates to be talented instead (e.g. Nagisa as an assassin prodigy, Sugino for his endearment, Okuda's concentration, Terasaka's ability to function despite being stupid).

The end of the semester takes a dangerous turn as Kayano made a second, more serious attempt to kill Korosensei, ambushing the target with hidden tentacles. Karma attempts to dissuade Kayano with no success and is forced to watch the two battle. Nagisa ended the fight by kissing Kayano, shocking her into passing out. Karma, along with Nakamura, each took a photo of the kiss and teased their friend about it. After the fight, Korosensei reveals his past and how he came to be his present form. Everyone including Karma spent the winter break deep in thought and unable to make plans to kill their teacher.

Division Time: A Battle Against a Friend
Two months before the March deadline, the class is still less motivated. However when Nagisa proposes to find a way to save Korosensei instead of killing him, Karma is the most vocal opponent to it. He accuses his friend of essentially rejecting everything that Korosensei did for them and would dishonor their target of not wanting to kill him. Their argument quickly turns violent when Karma insulted Nagisa's appearance and, seeing Nagisa's face as he usually looks when he feels insulted, goads his friend into fighting him. Nagisa grabs Karma in a flying triangular choke hold in self-defense but Karma's combat ability kicks in and is about to retaliate until Isogai, Maehara and Sugino pull them apart (with Isogai and Maehara barely able to hold back Karma's strength). Korosensei himself intervenes to mediate the situation, and offers the class to sort the schism out by playing a team death match, capture the flag style paintball match.

Karma sides with the red team (who wish to continue killing their teacher) against Nagisa's blue (those wanting to save him). He unexpectedly takes command of the team, ordering Chiba and Hayami take out Kataoka and Takebayashi respectively to deny the blue team tactical options from the start, ends Kanzaki's early kill streak and has the other members employ hit-and-run tactics against the blue team's defensive strategy. As both sides have their strength cut in half, Karma ponders about Nagisa - not even their reconnaissance expert, Mimura, was unable to detect him. Noting that Nagisa will always attack at the most unexpected time, Karma also tries to remember why he was so irritated at Nagisa.

At the same time when the blue team takes control of the area with only Maehara of the blue team surviving, Karma witnesses Nagisa emerge from his hiding spot and take out Nakamura, Terasaka, Muramatsu and Yoshida in an instant, obliterating their whole attack strategy. After taking out Maehara, Karma challenges Nagisa to a one-on-one duel, and after reminiscing about their past friendship, their earlier fight continues.

The two resume their melee duel but Karma's knack for combat gives him the upper hand over Nagisa. However Nagisa was able to disarm Karma of his knife until the latter returned the favour. His beatdown of his friend, and allowing himself to get hit, makes Korosensei hypothesize that for Karma to unify the class to kill him, he has to ensure complete victory over Nagisa, and make him concede defeat. Karma eventually knocks Nagisa off balance with an uppercut and seemingly finishing him with an axe kick. Karma retrieves his knife and approaches his foe to end the duel, until Nagisa suddenly performs the stun clap technique. Expecting this, Karma bit his tongue to weaken the shock as Nagisa stands back up to retaliate. However the latter catches Karma off guard by throwing the knife filled with his bloodlust at him, causing Karma to focus on it and get caught into an arm choke hold, intending to make Karma lose unconsciousness. In a vain attempt to throw Nagisa off, Karma finds his discarded knife but chooses not to strike him, much like how Nagisa chose not to gun him down when Karma challenged him. Instead he surrenders and Nagisa wins the war for the blue team. The two friends reconcile their friendship, dropping the honorifics they used for the entirety of the series in the process, though Karma still continues to tease him. Karasuma decides the honor the agreement but on the condition that come February the class resume their original goal to kill Korosensei should they fail to find a way to save him.

Renewed Resolve
Later in the month, the class came across information that could lead them to save their teacher. However they need to obtain the data by hijacking the International Space Station. The students infiltrate a launch site and delegate Karma and Nagisa to replace the crash test dummies and hijack the space station. Launching into space, the pair successfully took control of the station but the inhabitants agree to copy their findings over on amicable terms. Karma also helped unload the supplies and was impressed enough to state that he will support an increase in the space budget when he grows up.

With Ritsu and Korosensei's help the two boys landed back at their mountain classroom. The class then learn that Korosensei would not explode in March as initially thought, that the chances of it occurring is less than one percent. Although knowing of a solution to save him, they agree to at the very least continue their original mission assigned by the government until graduation. As the entrance exams approach, Karma decides to stay at Kunigigaoka, knowing that with his academic skills he can get any job he wants and that he likes having to compete with equally academic students like Gakushu Asano.

On Valentines Day, Karma and Nakamura spot Kayano hiding a bar of chocolate underneath her desk. The pair slyly confront her about it, and asked if she intended to give the chocolate to a certain someone. While Kayano tried to brush it off, Karma's photo of Nagisa kissing her immediately embarrasses her into silence. He and Nakamura decide to help Kayano pluck the courage to confess to Nagisa, though their motive was so as to psychologically torture them as their pets. He takes Kayano to spy on other student couples for ideas. When seeing Hazama hand over her bar to Terasaka and his group, Karma lamented that he had not done so sooner as a trick, (which involved the chocolate he received from Okuda). To ensure that Korosensei did not get any love gossip from Nagisa and Kayano, Karma secretly baited their teacher with a photo of Aguri Yukimura in a swimsuit. This worked well enough to be considered to use for an assassination attempt.

After the completion of the entrance exams, Karma soon got into another fight with a couple of men. However Korosensei intervened and apologised for his student's behaviour. Korosensei lectured Karma about not letting pride take hold in a conflict, that it was sometimes better to walk away, saying that it is a relevant skill in both assassination and in his future as a bureaucrat. When Karma, Nagisa and a few of Class E students saw Toka Yada surrounded by a group of men, Karma was quick to provoke a violent response. However he realised that the men would easily overpower them, and instead bowed down his head as an apology for his hasty judgment. Both sides walked away with no harm on either side, and Nagisa acknowledged that Karma had indeed changed.

Assassination Time, 2nd Period
Five days before the deadline, Korosensei is trapped by the government's Earth Shield and would be killed by its satellite weapon on the day of the deadline. Class 3-E including Karma were quickly captured by the same men that accosted Yada and held in isolation by the government for their "safety". However, following subtle hints from Karasuma, the class begun planning and training for their entry into the mountains. Karma requests command of the class from Isogai should they enter the mountains, which Isogai agrees. On the night of the deadline, the class escape their confinement with the aid of Irina-sensei and quickly headed to the mountain to see Korosensei one last time. At the forest Karma took command of the class, directing the students in taking out the mercenaries one by one. After recognising one of the men who insulted him, Karma personally tortured him with wasabi, sour spices and cockroaches, so as to lure more prey. The mercenaries' leader Houjou proved to be more troublesome as Karma rushed in to take him out but was knocked back. However the class's hit and run tactics began to wear Houjou down until Nagisa surprised him with the stun clap technique. Karma and Nagisa both attacked the stunned Houjou together, knocking him out. The two celebrated, but Kaede notes that Houjou is still moving and Terasaka berates the two for celebrating too early. After tying the leader up, the class reunited with Korosensei inside the barrier.

Their reunion however was brutally interrupted by Shiro and the faux God of Death, who is now a tentacled monster. The two begin battling Korosensei and their superhuman powers made Karma and the class realise how helpless they are despite an entire year's worth spent on training to become assassins. To exploit Korosensei's true weakness, Shiro orders the God of Death to attack the students. With Korosensei unable to counterattack whilst saving the students, Kayano intervenes but is quickly impaled through the chest. As Korosensei retaliates, Karma calls on everyone to run away from the fight.

Graduation Time
Eventually Shiro and the God of Death are defeated and disintegrated and Kayano is healed by an exhausted Korosensei, who collapses afterwards. At their teacher's urging the entire class reluctantly pin him down by grabbing all his tentacles (rendering him immobile). Nagisa volunteers to perform the assassination itself. Before dying, Korosensei conducts a final roll call, with Karma first to respond. After Nagisa finally kills him and Korosensei disappears in particles of light, everyone starts crying including Karma.

Unlike the rest of his classmates, Karma chose to remain in Kunugigaoka Institution after the graduation ceremony which he want to duel against Gakushu again for the next three years.

Seven years later Karma had just passed his government official entrance exams and arrived to commence work at the Ministry of Economics, Trade and Investment. Privately he slyly remarks to himself that this is where he'll start accumulating his wealth and continuing his ambition to become bureaucrat.

Abilities
Leadership: Karma is capable of utilizing and leading his classmates, making use of their abilities in the most suitable way to the corresponding situation. He demonstrates this ability in bits and pieces throughout the series, such as when he planned to subdue Itona at the natural pool, but only fully begin to demonstrate this in Chapter 145, where he guided each of his teammates to positions best befitting them.

Intelligence: Karma is one of the smartest characters in the series, being capable of maintaining top grades with little effort. He assets his cunning, mischief yet considerable objective nature to assassination attempts, as well as other scenarios that may require it, such as saving his classmates or others. He also is often the first person to notice any oddities that may occur around and within Class E.

Combat Skills: Besides his intelligence, Karma possesses a knack for battle and enjoys it. He has good fighting skills such as having high mobility and reflexes, and also has a mind suited for pranks, and foul play. He is also the physically strongest student in Class E as he has no trouble subduing Terasaka who has the most muscular build in the class, and it took both Maehara and Isogai struggling to physically restrain him before he could have injured Nagisa. Karma is also stated by Kimura that no one could compare to Karma at direct hand to hand combat, to the point of fighting toe-to-toe with a full-fledged assassin like Grip, and his reflexes allow him to pinch down an enemy's attacks, though he isn't so stealthy as Nagisa.

Marksmanship: Karma is ranked third for marksmanship among the boys, and the fourth among the whole class.

Nagisa Shiota
Nagisa is Karma's first and closest friend. The two of them have been classmates since their first year at Kunugigaoka and as a result, they know each other well. The two often hang out together and seem to enjoy the same things like movies. Karma also enjoys teasing Nagisa and often has many creative methods to do so; many of which poke fun at his androgynous appearance. Despite that, Nagisa really doesn't mind it and isn't very offended by Karma's teasing. In the official character book, it was stated that Nagisa is the only person to have visited his house. Nagisa has once stated that he envies Karma's easy-going, brilliant personality, and Karma is sometimes seen asking for Nagisa's advice or intel. It has also been noted that Karma considers Nagisa a prodigy and has high respect for his skill, admitting to Okuda that he was a bit jealous of his friend's assassination skills. However, despite their friendship, the two never got to removing the '-kun' suffix when addressing each other until the end of Chapter 148.

Chapter 147 reveals the history of their friendship as the two friends had a sour disagreement. While Nagisa admires Karma for his intelligence and positive personality, Karma saw Nagisa as "a nice and honest yet harmless little animal" who he could afford to be less cautious with, thus trusting Nagisa to spend time with. This changed after Karma did not know how to respond to the mysterious feeling hiding within his friend after a surprise poke from behind that felt as though he had been violently stabbed in the back. He described this as a 'mysterious something that he wanted to drag out of him and destroy, just to be safe'. Unable to find a way to respond to this, Karma avoided Nagisa, which caused Nagisa to believe that Karma simply became tired of 'sharing the stage' with him, particularly as Karma easily wins fights and triumphs in studies, and invitations to hang out gradually became rare. By the time of Karma's suspension their relationship went back to being just classmates. But even so, it seems that Karma still can't avoid to constantly tease Nagisa by having him cross-dressed and express his intention to remove Nagisa's "that".

In Assassination Classroom the Movie: 365 Days, Karma said that they might not be friends anymore if they didn't fight whole-heartedly in that civil war moment. Karma also said himself that despite fighting many people, the best fight he had is with Nagisa. Their close relationship continue even after they grew older. In Assassination Classroom Illustration Book: Graduation Time, there's a scene of just the two of them drinking beer together as adults, but Nagisa is the only one getting wasted. In the very same picture, Karma stated that he often got Nagisa drunk so that Karma can grumble all he likes without leftover memory.

Koro Sensei

 * Main article: Koro Sensei

Initially, Karma hated Korosensei like he did with all teachers due to the incident where the teacher reprimanded Karma for defending another student simply because that student was an E student. He was ecstatic upon learning he would have the chance to kill a real teacher but failed each time and even threw himself off a cliff: either Korosensei would die trying to save him or Karma would be killed and Korosensei's teaching career would die. However, Korosensei found a way around it and saved Karma, causing Karma to slowly respect him. While he still enjoys teasing Korosensei and tries to kill him, Karma grows to care for him and he is one of the few people Karma listens to as he gives him good advices and understands him.

Karma was even the first person to defend Korosensei when they believed he was behind a string of underwear thieves, understanding Korosensei wouldn't be that sloppy and that by doing this he would lose his worth as a teacher. When given the chance to save Koro-sensei, Karma still chose to kill him since he felt the purpose of the assassination classroom would be eliminated if there was no bloodlust, but when Nagisa finally managed to kill him, Karma shed genuine tears which he tried hard to fight back, showing how much he had grown to care for his teacher.

Gakushu Asano
The Ace of Kunugigaoka Junior High School on Academic aspects, and Karma's academic rival. On the final semester exam, Gakushu wished to extract any information about Korosensei from Karma and he was gladly willing to only if Gakushu managed defeat him in Academic battles. However, Karma managed to defeat Gakushu by getting a perfect score (500 of 500).

On Chapter 155, Karma stated that he will remain on Kunugigaoka by taking transfer student exam because he can display full abilities of academic as he looks at Gakushu on main building. For Karma himself, he considers Gakushu as his worthy rival for academic because he will able to make fun competition against Gakushu, being the main reason why Karma decide to remain on Kunugigaoka for another three years.

Rio Nakamura
Rio Nakamura is often referred to as Karma's "partner-in-crime", as the two of them often tease Nagisa Shiota's androgynous appearance; mainly by forcing him to cross-dress at several points in the series. They are both known as the most intelligent and mischievous students in Class 3-E. On the 2nd semester's final exams, the two of them got into the top three, along with Gakushu.

Their first well-known interaction was during the civil war when the two shared a common ground in opposing Nagisa's suggestion to save Korosensei. Later on, the two teased Kayano during Valentine's Day.

Manami Okuda
Karma and Okuda get along well. When prompted by his male classmates, Karma says he is interested in Okuda for her scientific abilities, seeing them as a way to increase the scope of his pranks. While initially afraid of Karma, Okuda eventually warms up to him and Karma, in turn, comes to trust her. He recognizes Okuda's extreme focus on her hobbies and considers her the girl he can talk about anything with, being able to confide in her during the Test of Courage. Both consider the other to be the easiest person to talk to from the opposite gender.

Ryōma Terasaka
Karma enjoys messing with Terasaka since he considers him to be a "muscle idiot" and is easy to manipulate, though respects his ability to influence others.

The two enjoy teasing and harassing each other, such when Terasaka pulled Karma into the river after the latter said he was his boss, and when Karma knees him in the stomach after Terasaka reminded him that he failed to contribute in the mid-term exams.

Tomohito Sugino
Sugino is someone who is cautious of behaviors that lead to match prohibitions and punishment for violence. It’s why at the start he was uncomfortable with Karma and his tendency to pick fights, but after interacting some more via Nagisa (ie as a middleman of sorts), before he knew it they became friends.

Kaede Kayano
Kayano was late when joined class E, which is why she asked Nagisa about Karma's reputation and violent fame. As time went, she eventually became friends with Karma too because they were both close to Nagisa. Karma addresses Kayano with the honorific "-chan" instead of "-san" like how he refers other females in class with, "-chan" is primarily used on children or female close friends, but the fact that Karma already calls Kayano using "-chan" even since their first introduction means that he calls her like that not because he's closer with her than other females, but simply because Kayano is the shortest female in class. During Valentines' Day, Karma and Nakamura helped Kayano pluck the courage to give Nagisa chocolate.

Quotes

 * (To Nagisa, Assassination Classroom The Movie: 365 Days) "The job that I really want to do is up ahead. No spare time to be wasted on this kind of failure."
 * (To Korosensei, Chapter 14) "Even if the questions change, it makes no difference to me."
 * (To Okuda, Chapter 74) "I'm not capable of being alert, not being afraid...It was the first time that I began to think that that is actually the scariest thing."
 * (To himself, Chapter 122) "After all, people seem to like calling invisible parts of others "talent".
 * (To Nagisa, Chapter 143) "People with recognized talent often fall into the trap of thinking everything is going to work out how they want it to."

Trivia

 * His first name only appears in kanji (業) during his formal introduction. The other students, and eventually Korosensei too, refer to him with the katakana (カルマ) version of his name.
 * Karma is one of the few people in the entire manga who is referred to by his first name. Another example would be Nagisa.
 * Karma depicts himself as a devil.
 * In the popularity poll of Volume 12, Karma was the highest ranked character, achieving 1st place.
 * According to Irina, Karma is the third best kisser of the 'Class 3E'.
 * His favorite subject is Math while his least favorite is Japanese.
 * He didn't belong to any club before joining Class E.
 * Karma wants to become a bureaucrat in the future, appreciating their actions behind national crisis.
 * His hobbies/specialty are mischief, provocation, and harassment.
 * His most treasured item is a collection of spices from around the world.
 * His favorite food are drinks from the "Simmered au lait series" (～煮オ・レシリーズ).
 * Karma is the first student that managed to inflict damage on Korosensei.
 * Despite having one of the highest grades in the school, Karma doesn't want to return to the main building, stating that he finds assassination much more interesting.
 * Despite he is quite lazy, Itona has stated that Karma was probably the strongest within the class despite him not excelling in any particular are such as knifework or shooting. Most likely this means that Karma prefers to stick to tricks and pranks for assassinations rather than going into full-out combat.
 * He is able to speak English in an unknown 'standard American' dialect, as noted by an American foreigner during the Sports Festival. In the dub, this was rewritten so Karma spoke with a southern accent instead.
 * In the summary of the autumn-winter events at the end of Chapter 154, Karma admitted that Kayano's tentacles and Korosensei's past scared him. However, his highlight was the kiss.
 * His voice actor in the VOMIC release of Assassination Classroom, Nobunaga Shimazaki, would later voice the God of Death in the second season of the anime release.
 * In the tankobon extras, his statistics were listed as:
 * Physical strength: 4
 * Mobility: 4
 * Close-range assassination: 4.5
 * Long-range assassination: 4.5
 * Academic ability: 5
 * Characteristic skill: 5 (Fighting)
 * Karma's bug in Koro Q is that whenever he looks down on others (to be condescending), his luck rate drops to the point of getting hit by various traps, mostly a metal water bowl.