Always in Class One

Hmm...sensing a pattern here...^note Pictured above: the first Negima! Magister Negi Magi anime, Mega Man Battle Network 6: Cybeast Gregar and Cybeast Falzar and the Rosario + Vampire Season II manga

"Everyone here's just paying attention to Class A...why is that?"

— Neito Monoma, My Hero Academia

In works about or in a school, whether due to laziness or otherwise, Class X-A or Class X-1 (X being the year) will usually meet one or more of the following criteria:

1. Most/all of the main characters or other important characters will conveniently be in that same class.
2. That class will be the weirdest and liveliest one/will stand out the most within the school.
3. Said class will be a Weirdness Magnet or a Fantasy Kitchen Sink.

This is a direct result of The Law of Conservation of Detail.

In some countries, classes remain constant, with all classes except for PE taking place in one room, and the teachers being the ones cycling around instead of the students. The students in the class also tend to not get split from year to year very often, sometimes even using the same room and just changing the nameplate. As such, this finds its way into school-themed entertainment of all sorts in those countries quite often, since the writers can't find any reason in themselves to care about which class the students are in, since there's no real difference and they'll all move up together in the same class anyway. Rather than actually work on choosing a number for the class, they decided to stick with an A or 1. Very rarely is there any deep meaning behind why it had to be A/1.

From a writing stance, this is convenient for keeping the main cast together without having to Hand Wave anything, since the target audience is used to that system and would readily accept it. What is not readily accepted is that the class number/letter tends to always be A or 1, and therefore this trope comes into being.

When this is invoked, class rivalries tend to be with class B or 2, which is invoking this trope twice in the same work. Too lazy to pick a class number or letter again? Go with the second option, you were already too lazy to pick one the first time, may as well stay consistent.

In fact, a common aversion is to place the main character in the aforementioned second class, simply to try and not look like this trope. Or the third, in order to further avoid it. In fact, it's just plain difficult to tell if an aversion was deliberate or not, with few exceptions. Several of these usually have some sort of actual distinction between the sections (A/1 being the "best" in these cases), which is an Internal Subtrope of Second Year Protagonist (i.e. Mid-Performing Protagonist).

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Negima! Magister Negi Magi and its spinoffs has most of the main cast in Class 2-A at the start of the series, with the main character as the teacher. The class quickly moves on to the next year... where they're Class 3-A. The class also happens to have people ranging from princesses to a robot to a vampire to a Chinese Martian entrepreneur mad scientist martial artist mage and future descendant of the main character.
• Rosario + Vampire has the entire main cast placed into Class 2-1 by the beginning of season 2 in both the anime and manga. Lampshaded by Mizore when she wonders if it was the headmaster that made sure that everyone was placed in the same class.
• Played with in The World God Only Knows, which has at least three of the more important capture targets in class A of their respective grades. However, the two main characters are in Class B.
• To Love Ru:
  • This trope is used for most of the main cast that actually goes to school. They're in Class A in the first year that was shown, then it gets messed with somewhat in the second year. Ren then asks why he's the only one who was moved to a different class.
  • The sequel, To Love-Ru Darkness, further reveals that Mikan is in 6-A in grade school.
• Mami of Puella Magi Madoka Magica is shown to be in class 3-A in the manga adaptation, as well as in the Spin-Off manga Puella Magi Oriko Magica. Everyone else—Madoka, Sayaka, Homura, Hitomi, and Kyousuke—is in the same class, though its number isn't shown. Mami is only separated because she's in a different grade, but, conveniently, the magical characters can still talk to her during class with telepathy. Kyouko doesn't go to school, but in The Movie she ends up in everyone-except-Mami's class (probably because Homura put her there).
• With the exception of Buccha, all of the main characters in Air Gear are in Tomita's class, which is class 2-1. Even Akito/Agito and Kururu, who transfer in, are in the same class as (almost) everyone else.
• Beelzebub puts all of the main characters from Ishiyama, as well as everyone else from Ishiyama into class 3F when they transfer into St. Ishiyama, regardless of grade. This is, of course, lampshaded.
• Princess Lucia puts two of the main characters in 1-A.
• Both of the main protagonists of Bakuman。 were in class 1-1 in high school.
• My Bride is a Mermaid:
  • All of the main cast who are students are in Class 2-1.
  • Oddly enough, in third year, all but the main character are put in 3-1. Nagasumi goes to the class of delinquents known as "Middle School Alcatraz", for no immediately apparent reason.
• Class A in Prunus Girl seems to be composed of a bunch of nuts for whom Maki gets to play Straight Man, not that the rest of the school is much better.
• Ichika and Lemon in Waiting in the Summer are in class 3-A.
• Yoshitaka and Izumi of He Is My Master are placed in class 2-A. Their sharing a class is convenient for Yoshitaka, since it allows for him to give Izumi orders from just the next desk over. Anna is also in that class.
• The main cast members of Mysterious Girlfriend X are all in 2-A.
• Zenkichi of Medaka Box, being the POV Boy, is in class 1. Shiranui is also in that class until she switches to class -13 later on. The Poster Girl Medaka, however is in class 13, the class set aside for abnormals.
• The main character in the first story of Lovers Alpha is in class 3-A. The second story features two characters in 1-1.
• Kodomo no Jikan:
  • The class Aoki teaches at the start (the number goes up as he teaches them for multiple grades) is Class 3-1. Seeing as Rin, Kuro and Mimi are (of course) in this class, it automatically falls under containing most of the main characters and is most certainly the most abnormal.
  • A later chapter shows how when the girls are going up a grade, Aoki keeps intentionally arranging himself to be their homeroom teacher. He even tried putting Kuro in a separate class, but decided otherwise in the end.
• Zig-Zagged in My Little Monster. It starts as an aversion with just one side character in class A, but Haru gets moved there for second year. The author even placed an author note in volume 8 saying that some may feel the series' Japanese title (which translates into "The Monster Seated Next to Me") has lost its meaning.
• The named eleventh graders in Daily Lives of High School Boys are in Class 2-A.
• In Hidamari Sketch, tenants of the eponymous apartments who are students of the high school's art class are all in different grades of Arts A. There's a reason why Natsume was assigned to Arts B.
• Invoked and Justified in GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class, as "GA," or "Art Department A," is the only visual art specialty class in their school. There's a "GB," (Art Department B) but that's for music.
• Komi Can't Communicate Zig Zags this: While Komi, Tadano (and Najimi) are in Class 1 for all three years, every other character— even important supporting characters like Yamai, Katai, Ase, and Rumiko— gets shuffled into a different class, meaning Komi and Tadano have to build new friendships with all their classmates all over again every time they move up a year. It turns out to be an Invoked Trope in their third year, as the teachers put all the students who had trouble getting along with other people in class 3-1.
• Ouran High School Host Club has everyone in the following classes... Haruhi, Hikaru and Kaoru: 1-A. Tamaki and Kyouya: 2-A. Honey and Mori: 3-A. Classes are, however, set up so that those who are not only the wealthiest, but also have the highest status are placed in class A. Students whose families are affiliated with the Yakuza are placed in class D (assumed to be the lowest 'rank'). Haruhi is a special exception in that she's a Scholarship Student, and therefore her consistently high grades allow her to be placed in 1-A.
• In The Severing Crime Edge, Kiri starts off in class 2-A. Despite not going to school for years, Iwai quickly ends up in that class as well.
• Played with in Ojamajo Doremi. In the first half of the series, the main characters are in class 2. However, there's a student shuffle in the third season that splits up the girls — Doremi (later joined by Momoko and Hana) is in class 1 with her regular teacher Miss Seki; while Hazuki, Aiko, and Onpu stay in class 2 but get a new teacher in Miss Nishizawa.
• The only major character in Sakura Trick that isn't in class 1-A is the one that isn't even in the same year.
• Non Non Biyori has its main cast all share one class despite being in different grades due to the lack of students - our protagonists are the only students in the entire school.
• Tamako Market plays this trope straight as of episode 3.
• Jewelpet plays the trope straight in some entries in the franchise, but others avert it.
• Boku wa Ookami places its cast in 1-1.
• Horimiya places its main characters into class 1 when they become seniors.
• Yugami-kun ni wa Tomodachi ga Inai: Protagonist Yugami and Character Narrator Chihiro are both Second Year Protagonists placed in class 2-A.
• In Urayasu Tekkin Kazoku, all the kids (except Jin) are in class 2-2. In the Ganso sequel manga, they're in class 3-1 and Jin joins them.
• My Hero Academia:
  • With only two hero classes, it was a 50-50 shot for whether Midoriya goes to 1-A or 1-B. But as he got assigned to 1A, said class ends up being majority of the main cast. In-Universe, 1-A is considerably more renowned than 1-B due to being at the center of several incidents. Monoma of 1-B resents them for it and consistently tries to stoke up a rivalry between the classes, but usually no one takes him up on it. There are nine other first-year classes at U.A., but since those are the non-hero classes, there's a grand total of two characters in them who have any meaningful screentime and only a scant handful even have a name. And one of those characters has the primary goal of transferring into either of the two hero classes. On the flip side, the fact that Class 1-A plays a central role in the main story means the class is more prone to villain attacks.
  • On the other hand, in UA's Big Three, the trio of the strongest students out of the whole school, Mirio Togata has the most involvement in the plot and he is in 3-B.
• Vividred Operation has six of the characters in 2-A as of episode three, one of them being the teacher.
• Plastic Memories has a non-classroom example, as the main cast all work in SAI's Terminal Service No. 1 office.
• In My Monster Secret, all the main student characters are in class 2-1 except Mikan. When they moved up to third year, Mikan also joins them in class 3-1. Parodied when the main character also finds Rin (who is one year their junior… in class 2-1) and Akane (the principal) there. He's also surprised to find Karen there, only for her to remark that she actually is in the same class. The third year case is justified, since Akane deliberately put the characters in the same class as part of her larger plan to show that humans and "monsters" can co-exist.
• Yumoto, protagonist of Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE!, is in class 1-A.
• Inverted in Azumanga Daioh, in which Class 1 is the only one never seen.
• Subverted in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War. Kaguya herself is in class 2-A, but Hayasaka is the only other character in her class (and even then, it's only because she is specifically attending the school for Kaguya's benefit). Everyone else (with the exception of Tsubame, Gigako, and the former Student Council President in class 3-A) are in their respective grade's class B or C. It's even a plot point on several occasions that Kaguya and Shirogane are in separate classes. However, this gets played straight when the main cast advances to third year, with nearly all named characters placed in Class 3-A. This is deliberate on the principal's part, as he foresaw Kaguya facing troubles in the near future, and thus puts all her friends with her.
• Nonsensically inverted in Nichijou, where the protagonist are somehow in class 1-Q, implying their school has at least seventeen homerooms for a single grade.
• Zig-Zagged in Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun: Sakura and Seo are in 2-A and Sakura's Love Interest and titular character Nozaki is in 2-B, but the rest of the high-school cast are elsewhere: Hori is in 3-C, Wakamatsu is in 1-D, and Mikoshiba and Kashima are all the way in the rarely-seen 2-G.
• This ends up being a huge plot point in Neon Genesis Evangelion: all of the students are in class 2-A because they are all potential EVA pilots. This isn't found out until late in the series.
• In Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, the trope is averted at the start of the story when the titular Yamada is in class 2-B, but played straight in his third year when he's moved to class 3-A. More inconsistently, his first-year class (which we only see in flashbacks) is sometimes stated as being class 1-A and other times as class 1-E.
• In "Assassination Classroom" the trope is inverted with the main cast all being in the end class 3-E which is as far opposite as it can get.

Literature

• Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero has the two main protagonists in class B-1.
• Baka and Test: Summon the Beasts:
  • Inverted with all the main characters being in Class F and Class A being the antagonists (they are arranged by their test scores). The other four classes in between are almost entirely inconsequential and only their Class Representatives get any screentime.
  • The flashbacks to the characters' first year show that Akihisa was in class D and Mizuki in class C, averting this trope.
• Sen Yarizui of Ben-To is in class 2-1. Of course, this was revealed at complete random with no meaning in the slightest.
• Eita and Masuzu of Oreshura are shown to be in class 1-1. Chiwa isn't in the class, however.
• NAKAIMO - My Little Sister is Among Them! places the majority of the cast in 2-A.
• Oni Ai uses 2-A for the main character.
• Prior to his death, the protagonist of Dog & Scissors was in 2-A.
• The protagonist of Gonna Be the Twin-Tail!! is in class 1-A.
• Except for Rin, Kanzashi and Tatenashi, the main cast of Infinite Stratos are all students or teachers in Class 1-1.
• The protagonist of INVADERS of the ROKUJYOUMA!? starts off in class 1-A, and then all of the invaders transfer into his class.
• Averted in Hyouka. All four of the main characters are in different classes: Eru in 1-A, Houtarou in 1-B, and Satoshi in 1-D (Mayaka's first year class is never stated, but since she doesn't have Omichi-sensei for math, who teaches classes A-D, she can't be in the same class with any of the other three). It even becomes a plot point later on.

Live-Action TV

• The study group from Community passes all three criteria.
  • For the first year, they all took the same Spanish class, and never added anybody else they met at Greendale to the study group afterward, at least as for as long as they could still technically be called a study group. Somewhat subverted after getting to know each other, however, as they all purposefully scheduled at least one class together each following year (instead of happening to randomly get matched with each other).
  • Criteria number 2 was lampshaded in Applied Anthropology and Culinary Arts by Vicki (a minor character):
    "We came so close to having one class that wasn't all about them."
  • They're nothing if not Weirdness Magnets.
• Our Miss Brooks: As Miss Brooks is the protagonist, and her actual teaching is rarely in focus, it should be largely irrelevant who's in what class. Nevertheless, student characters Walter Denton, Harriet Conklin and Stretch Snodgrass are almost always stated to be in the same class of Miss Brooks'. This, in a school with multiple English teachers. Notably subverted in the episode "Faculty Cheerleader", when Mr. Conklin assigns the three to different classes to punish Walter.

Video Games

• Mega Man Star Force has the main character in Class 5-A. Naturally, three other main characters are in there too. The only human main character who isn't in that class conveniently doesn't go to that school in the first place.
  • Likewise, Mega Man Battle Network has Lan, Mayl, Dex and Yai in Class 5-1 until Battle Network 6 has Lan move away. His class in his new school? 6-1. Both of the new main characters in that game happen to be in that class too.
• Inverted in Valkyria Chronicles II: the protagonists are members of Squad G, which is the class where slackers, misfits and undesirables get dumped. Overcoming the problems, lack of teamwork, and defeatism that landed them in said class is a major part of the first two thirds of the game.
• This trope is used in Fortune Arterial.
• Subverted in Custom Robo: Arena: the protagonists are all placed in class 2 rather than class 1.
• Subverted in Persona 3 and Persona 4, at least the main character, best male friend and best female friend are in the same classes for both games. However there usually are plot-relevant upper and under class friends among the fighters as well. Most other cast members don't actually go to school, being social links for family and friends outside the battle scenarios.
  • Averted in Persona 5. Joker's class is Class 2-D, and the only people of note he interacts with in the class are his homeroom teacher Kawakami, his fellow Phantom Thief Ann, and Honorary True Companion Mishima. The rest of the class are otherwise ordinary students who act as Gossipy Hens.
• Subverted in Battlefield: Bad Company. The player character is part of the 222nd Battalion's B Company, which is where the Army sends its biggest troublemakers to get rid of them as quickly as possible, either by constantly sending them on suicide missions, or by them surviving long enough to take advantage of B Company being the fastest track to retirement. Double subverted in Bad Company 2, where the company is still just your regular old Army unit but is now given the same respect and sent on the same sorts of missions as special forces, mostly due to their reputation for surviving anything.
• God Eater Burst always places you in the first unit. The In-Universe reasoning for this is Lindow got promoted to captain of Unit 1 by virtue of the excellent survival rate for God Eaters under his command, and the extremely valuable New Type Player Character was placed under Lindow's command for the same reason.
  • The sequel has the protagonist designated as "Blood 1" as opposed to "Leader" or "Rookie".
• Subverted in Final Fantasy Type-0, in which all of your player characters are a part of the elite Class Zero, a special unit created within the academy that is the focus of much of your time in the game. Class One does exist and apparently had a fair amount of clout before Class Zero came on the scene, though there are those who claim also that Class Eleven was the cream of the crop before Class Zero.
• Subverted also in the The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel games. Most of your player characters are part of the Thors Academy Class VII. Previously, Class I was well-regarded, being made up entirely of nobles. However, Class VII is a special new experiment containing a mixed group of both commoners and nobles, with your main character, Rean Schwarzer, being a commoner who was adopted as a baby into a noble family.
• Though Ensemble Stars! does include two different classes for each year level, three out of four of the main characters (of the Main Story, anyway) are in class 2A.
• The Sims 4: When you play with the Highschool Years DLC, your teenage sims will always attend Class 1 when in Copperdale Highschool.
• Yandere Simulator: Yandere-chan and her first rival, Osana, are both in Class 2-1, while the other rivals, except for the adults (who are adults) and Hanako (who's in the grade below) are in 2-2.

Visual Novels

• Subverted in Danganronpa, where one of the most important classes in the series is Class 77-B. While Class 77-A does exist, they are relatively minor in comparison to Class 77-B, with only a few students from the former class being known and those same students mostly being independent from one another when it comes to their actions in the overarching story.
• Subverted in Fate/stay night. While several named characters are in Class 2-A, more than in any other class in Homurahara Academy, only one of them — Rin Tohsaka, the Deuteragonist — is a main character. Ayako Mitsuzuri is a secondary character that disappear early in every route, and Kane Himuro, Kaede Makidera and Yukika Saegusa are barely more than minor characters. Shirou Emiya — the protagonist and First Person narrator of almost the entirely of the visual novel — attends Class 2-C and Sakura Matou — main character of the Heaven's Feel route — is in Class 1-B.
• Averted in Majikoi! Love Me Seriously!. The two classes in question are 1-F and 1-S (ostensibly a pun on a failing F-grade and the superlative Grade S above Grade A, respectively.) Our heroes aren't even in class S, either!

Webcomics

• My Impossible Soulmate plays this straight, with most of the cast turning up in Room P-1.

Western Animation

• Extremely evident in Hero: 108, where in spite of the title implying a very large cast, nearly all the action is centered around the five members of the "First Squad".

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