Gakushu Asano

Gakushū Asano is a student in Class 3-A in Kunugigaoka Junior High School and one of the Five Virtuosos. He is the Student Council President, the top student of the school, and the only son of the Board Chairman Gakuhō Asano. He serves as one of the academic antagonists to Class 3-E.

Appearance
Gakushū is fairly tall for a middle school student. He has short, dirty blonde hair (strawberry blonde in the anime) that reaches to his ears and brown eyes (violet in the anime). He is described as being rather handsome and has been noted to highly resemble his father.

Personality
Like most of the stereotypical Main Building students Gakushū looks down on those that are less intelligent than him, which is this case mostly incorporates the entire school as he is the top student. However he breaks away from this stereotype by putting up a face of benevolence and a charismatic smile.

Befitting his genius intellect and heritage Gakushū is a very driven individual who is very much like his father in a lot of ways, although one could argue that he is far less extreme in virtue than his father is. He is highly manipulative to the point of wanting to control everyone and puppeteer the strings. The most frightening aspect of this is his desire to completely dominate his own father. However he is a little conflicted himself in this manipulative nature to the point that he has to actively justify it in his mind as "this is how you raised me father". Another note is his keen desire for knowledge an sense of investigation to get to the truth. Hearing local legends and urban rumors about Class 3-E's supposed octopus (actually Korosensei) Gakushū has made it his top priority to get to the bottom of this mystery. Indeed he has gone to methods that he himself have briefly questioned in order to acquire this information, from blackmail, bribery and even legal backup (making Class 3-E sign a contract) to get to the bottom of this. However for all of his intelligence he tends to miscalculate certain more admirable aspects of the people he is trying to manipulate which has now led to his plots failing no more than two times in the story.

Despite sharing many of his father's personality traits, Gakushū does have a sense of morals, which often makes him question his father's extreme educational methods. One instance was how he voiced his opinions of being against his father's idea of poisoning Class 3-E's food during the school festival.

First Semester: End of Term Time
Gakushū made his debut appearance in Chapter 50 (episode 15) during the finals of the first semester. He leads the elitist Five Virtuosos and Class A in general. Hearing rumours surrounding Class E, Gakushū attempted to get any information from his father Chairman Asano who evaded his questions. When his fellow Virtuosos rashly made a wager with Class E to see which class can top the 5 core subjects, Gakushū drew up a contract which both classes sign to. Underneath the legal jargon was a clause stating that Class E must be honest to any question Class A asked should the latter win. This clause would then be used by Gakushu to find out Class E's secret, then blackmail and control his father.

In the aftermath of the exams, Gakushū kept his top ranking but Class E managed to beat Class A in three of the core subjects, thereby losing their wager. Gakuhu later admonishes his son for losing such a petty bet to a class of misfits. Gakushū was then forced to submit to Class E's demand - a holiday resort to Okinawa. Humiliated at this loss, he vowed revenge against Class E.

Takebayashi's Time
Gakushū and his father scored an early victory at the start of the second semester, convincing Kotaro Takebayashi to leave Class E and join Class A. However Takebayashi reneged on his deal after seeing how Class A is educated and that he had to trash-talk Class E to be fully accepted. To the Asanos' surprise Takebayashi destroyed one of Chairman Asano's prized possessions.

Athletic Festival arc
Gakushū made his next major appearance at the Athletic Festival arc. Discovering that Yuma Isogai was working at a cafe despite a regulation forbidding such a thing, he threatened to have Isogai reported and expelled. He made a deal however that he would remain silent if Isogai and Class 3-E participated in a game of boutaoshi against Class A. In preparation, Gakushū contacted four physically imposing Western students to join his class to 'crush' Class 3-E as revenge for losing the previous wager as well as to rebuild confidence to Class A for the upcoming mid-terms. During the match he made various strategies to take out the Class E students just with superior numbers. However he was outsmarted and outplayed by Class E's unconventional tactics and Isogai's leadership. His own pole was endangered and eventually fell despite using his martial arts in a desperate attempt to defend it. This second loss and the main campus's changing attitude to Class 3-E earned his father's ire and admonished his son's command skills. Gakushū's Western friends defended him but this only made Gakuhu beat them down with his karate, with a horrified Gakushū watching on.

School Festival arc
Gakushu appeared again at the end of the mid-term exams where he and the rest of Class A monopolised the top 50 rankings due to Class E helping out at a nursery. While the Five Virtuosos were smug at this (especially after the loss at the Athletic Festival) Gakushu remained silent. His next major appearance was during the school festival where he organised the top-tier restaurants to sponsor his cafe complete with live shows. During that time he stated the nature of his friendship with the Five Virtuosos and asked them to keep supporting him.

His cafe would later win the festival though many speculate that had Class E not closed up shop halfway through the final day (due to unexpected high demand of their acorn noodles) the result could have been very different. His father told him and the Five Virtuosos this as such and suggested that he should have poisoned Class E's natural products so as to irreparably damage their reputation. Gakushu was soon sent out of the chairman's office for five minutes while his father 'talked' to his friends. When they next came out, he was shocked to see them virtually hypnotised to 'kill Class E'.

Finals arc
When the chairman began teaching Class A for the upcoming finals, he allowed his son to study at home. Gakushu figured that his father would hypnotise Class A the same way he did his friends to beat Class E. Reflecting on their father-son relationship and how it was one of competitiveness, he confronted some of the Class E students at the end of the day. He asked them to kill his father's education philosophy by having Class E monopolise the top 50 spots, and even acknowledged their victories by bowing to them. However Karma reminded him of the promise at the mid-terms that he would claim the top spot from Gakushu and demanded that he did not hold back.

During the final exam (Maths), Gakushu and Karma went virtually head to head on the final question with very little time to spare. Gakushu attempted to solve the question with a complex formula that he was not able to finish in time. Karma however figured out the answer to be a simple one. The result was that Gakushu came second to Karma and all of Class 3-E taking the top 50 spots. Class A performed well initially but the chairman's hypnosis backfired when the students burned out halfway through the finals. For the first time Gakushu stood up to his father when Class A asked if they could transfer to Class E, and was punched in the face as a result. Later he saw his father walking back from the Class E classroom and accompanied him back to the campus in good faith.

End of the Semester: School Play Time
Towards the end of the semester he and the Student Council organised for the school play. Although Class E was still forced to perform their play while everyone was having lunch, Gakushu subtly commented to Isogai and Kataoka that they could work around it. Indeed, Class E student Kirara Hazama caught the audience's attention by writing a dark play that made everyone lose their appetite, much to Gakushu's chagrin.

Abilities
Intelligence: As one of the school's Five Virtuosos he is one of the top ranked students in Class A, and even more impressive is that his grade score is the highest in the school. Indeed Gakushū is one of the smartest characters in the series and this coupled together with his manipulative mindset makes him a dangerous enemy to Class E. The System in Class A is that an incompetent teacher teaches the class straight out of the text book at high speeds and the fact that this system is how he is learning only further proves the evidence of his actual intellect given such an inept method to teach. A Class A student once mentioned that he has the ability to make others "flock" around him.

Other Skills: Intelligence aside, Gakushū is shown to be multi-talented. He has demonstrated super-human speed and is even trained in martial arts. He's also musically talented and has been shown to be multilingual as he has been shown freely manipulating four different languages for one of his plans. This may be something he inherited from his father, who's also been noted to be multi-talented.

Trivia

 * His favorite subject is all of the major subjects while least favorite subject is Ethics.
 * His specialty is being number one.
 * His future goal is to have an executive job.
 * The position his father would have when he gets an executive job: Holding Gakushū's sandals to his chest to keep them warm before he goes out (and his father can’t put them on).
 * He is the first enemy to admit the superiority of Class 3-E after being defeated many times by them.
 * As of Chapter 123, Gakushū is now the second ranked student of Kunugigaoka with a composite score of 497; having been beaten by Karma Akabane who scored a perfect 500.
 * According to Roll Book Time, Asano has been scouted numerous times