Kiyotaka Ayanokōji

Kiyotaka Ayanokōji (綾小路 清隆) is the main protagonist of the Yōkoso Jitsuryoku Shijō Shugi no Kyōshitsu e series. He is a first-year student of Advanced Nurturing High School.

Following the selection test which he scored precisely 50 points in every subject, he was placed in D-Class. He is situated at the rear left corner of the class seated next to Suzune Horikita.

Appearance
Kiyotaka is a young man of average height with brown hair, brown eyes, and a fair complexion. He is usually seen wearing the standard school uniform. When outside school, he wears a white hoodie covering a green shirt with an orange stripe along with brown pants.

He also has a well-built body which was pointed out by Suzune at the swimming pool. She noticed the muscular structure of his arms, particularly his lower arms and questioned if he did sports but he denies this.

Most of the time, he is shown to express a carefree and idle look, which suggests an unconcerned attitude. This can be interpreted as indifference or a relatively passive demeanor.

In contrast to the anime, the light novel depicts Kiyotaka with more dynamic facial expressions, however to an extent.

Personality
Kiyotaka is an inconspicuous student, as while his grades are average, he possesses great insight for someone of his class as he is able to study the emotions of those around him.

He ingenious plans as seen when he used the school rules to make his plans acceptable so that he could obtain old test questions from a D-Class upperclassman by giving him 15,000 points. He also used knowledge of the rules and the purpose of points to bribe his teacher into stopping the expulsion of a student. In fact, it is hinted by Manabu Horikita, Honami Ichinose, Sae Chabashira and Suzune Horikita that Kiyotaka could have effortlessly gotten into the upper classes but conceals his amazing intelligence from others.

He is somewhat socially awkward as he is very poor at communicating with other people and fails at properly associating with them. As a result, he speaks in a monotonous way and tends to isolate himself from his peers not getting involved with social activities. These traits tend to leave the impression on others that he is uncaring and carefree, while all the more contrarily connotating aloofness, latency, or generally an absence of enthusiasm for anything besides issues that specifically concern him. However, this appears to not truly be the case; he is shown to be capable of holding conversations, though in a somewhat dull and toneless way, as shown in his interactions with Kikyō Kushida and his other classmates.

Kiyotaka has voiced intentions of making friends but his emotionless attitude tends to leave him exempted from such matters. However, he has been capable of forming associations with others and seems to leave an impact on them. This was seen when he had no problem referring to himself as a friend to Honami Ichinose of B-Class (even though they had just met) when she reached out to him for help. Though whether this was a ploy on his part to ease her or a genuine display of consideration for her is unknown. He appears to show this caring side again after sacrificing 50,000 points so Ken Sudō wouldn't be expelled after the latter was on the verge of being expelled from school due to his failure on the recent exams. He was also quick to intervene when Suzune was about to be attacked by her brother, though he had no reason for getting involved. Whether he is simply going with the flow or genuinely looking out for Suzune is unknown, as both patterns are definitely plausible. He quickly came to the aid of Airi Sakura when she was nearly assaulted by a crazed stalker and comforted her after the attack.

He does not like drawing attention to himself as after purchasing answers from old tests, he had Kushida take full credit even though he invested a lot of money to get them. This was seen again when he gave full credit to Suzune in stopping Sudō's expulsion after failing a test despite it being his plan and Kushida hinting it was him. He also allowed Sudō to believe Suzune planned the events that stopped his case after he was accused of hurting three students. In that time he denied his involvement in stopping it several times in the events of Sudō's case, in spite of Ichinose, Manabu, and Chabashira all hinting that he was the orchestrator for saving Sudō.

He does not seem to want to extend his energy unnecessarily in other matters. This was shown when he refused to become a secretary of the student council despite directly being offered from the Student Council President.

It appears part of his unmoving personality stems from his mysterious past that he doesn't speak to people about. He gives vague answers about the matter and shows a dislike for when people press him on his past which causes him to reflect on it and leave him in anger. In his anger, he is more serious in his tone of speech as shown when he sternly told Suzune not to pry into his personal history.

History
Kiyotaka's past is mysterious, but he is shown to be quite smart other than his claims of participating in after-school activities such as piano, calligraphy, and the tea ceremony, no known information regarding his history as an individual prior to the Entrance Exam for Kodo Ikusei currently exists. In Episode 6, he may have been apart some unknown organization in his younger years but how he left it is unknown.

It is presumed that there is more to Kiyotaka than he lets on as his encounter with Manabu, Suzune Horikita's older brother and the President of the Student Council of Kodo Ikusei, indicates; he displays the ability to evenly maneuver during a skirmish and evade strikes directed at him with an air of relative indifference. He displays some form of proficiency in some form or other of martial arts, a trait that the Student Council President detects; some level of dexterity on par with Manabu and a display of a grappling-based martial art hints at Kiyotaka's level of proficiency.

Trivia

 * In episode 2, he is shown to have excellent fighting skills but claims to have studied piano and calligraphy.
 * In Episode 6 where a glimpse of his past has been shown it is suggested he was part of an organization which may coincide with his skill at fighting.
 * Episode 4 marks the first time Kiyotaka referred to someone as his friend.
 * In Episode 6, he refers to Suzune as a friend.
 * In both cases, it is unknown if he genuinely sees them as friends.