White Room

WARNING! This article contains information from the light novel.
Do not read beyond this point if you want to avoid being spoiled.

A glimpse at Kiyotaka's past in the White Room.

The White Room (ホワイトルーム, Howaito Rūmu) is an educational institution where the early upbringing of Kiyotaka Ayanokōji took place. It was headed by Kiyotaka's father and was the main cause of the talents that he had developed which would help him in his later years.

It is a secret facility that had not been disclosed to the public.

History

The White Room was established 20 years ago. It was founded and headed by Kiyotaka's father, Professor Ayanokōji. It is an educational institution which aims to raise a human by removing unnecessary things from their education. However, the institution was temporarily shut down for one year. This gave Kiyotaka the opportunity to escape and take refuge at the Advanced Nurturing High School. The White Room began right from the first year of the first generation's life, with subsequent new generations being formed annually. Each generation is educated under different leaders, and receives the corresponding education. After which, it would then be evaluated and verified for which group had the most effective education. Hundreds of children have been trained under the White Room's education system. Children of different generations wouldn't have been able to see each other. Although they were in the same facility, they did not know the appearance and names of anyone else but themselves.

All children in the White Room can grow to a certain level. However, trying to exceed that level has never been possible to begin with. According to Tsukishiro, the evidence can be found in that facility, which has been operating for nearly 20 years, and how not a single child has been able to reach the target except for Kiyotaka Ayanokōji, which only happened 2 years prior during the first-year story. It's impossible for any White Roomer including Kiyotaka to know where they go after leaving the facility. So far, most of the children raised in the White Room have their own problems, and so they cannot be put to good use like contributing to society outside that facility. While raised in the White Room, they are unable to live a normal life or grow up properly compared to every other students who are not from that facility normally would. Tsukishiro remarks that they will not able to last in the real world environment, as their hearts have already long since been damaged by the White Room.

It was the goal of the White Room to have children be nurtured and raised with a complete education straight from birth. He stated that if this can be achieved successfully, Japan itself would experience growth the likes of which the world has never seen before. Under the influence of various mysterious factors taken into consideration and used under the White Room, people's growth varies greatly. It is impossible to cultivate success by using the same method over and over again on everyone, hence why there are different generations of White Roomers. The White Room was able to produce tangible results for people outside Kiyotaka's generation. In this case, it was said that the 5th and 6th generation of White Roomers are among those who happened to survived until the very end of their education, and there are some of them with the potential of producing great results. All that is left is to perfect the education system, and after doing so, the White Room may be considered an indispensable asset in the near future.

Kiyotaka Ayanokōji and other White Room students.

The White Room has appeared in some of the anime's flashback scenes. For instance, Kiyotaka as a young child, and other children were lined up before one of them mysteriously collapsed. The other children were worried but he simply looks on unfazed and devoid of emotions, as if it was a natural occurrence. At some point in the past, a man who was later revealed to be his father appeared before him. He told his son that those who waste their talents are fools, which is probably the reason as to why he prefers to keep his talents hidden from others as to discard and rebel against that man's ideals. Sometime after that, due to suffering from the arduous and plentiful trainings, a majority of the children dropped out leaving Kiyotaka as the only known remaining survivor. That led him to regard all humans as mere tools. Ichika Amasawa from the generation after Kiyotaka notes how the classrooms, corridors, assigned living chambers, and pretty much everything around them was a world full of pure whiteness.

According to Kiyotaka, during a meeting between him and his father, he had said that the White Room was perhaps the most efficient place in the whole world to raise a human. However, not everything could be taught there as it was an institution that threw away anything unnecessary to the extremes. In Volume 11.5 of the light novel, in a discussion between Kiyotaka and Tsukishiro, it has been stated that the White Room has had 19 generations of students in total, with each generation forming annually. Kiyotaka is from the "Demonic 4th Generation", which had the hardest and most cruel course of all generations. Kiyotaka has also confidently stated that when it comes to the White Room, he is the best student to have ever come out of it. As a result of his success, the faculty has been using Kiyotaka as the benchmark for future generations' students, including telling them to "exceed him" as their end goal.

Furthermore, the White Room is a special kind of facility whose ultimate goal is to raise all people unto equivalent superiority. It is a place where they seek to prove that the limits of humanity are decided not by one's own genetics, but by their environment in which one is raised in. In other words, they want their products to harbour and develop outstanding talent, not just those blessed with excellent genes like Ichika. Children who are at the age of 10 years old were taught Systems’ Theory based on Project 5. And by the age of 11, it was said that they also end up learning about the Theory of Relativity based on Project 7. Kiyotaka's father firmly believes that his son is an existence that can become a perfect model, and lead the masses. Kiyotaka was the result of his father's absolute pursue of an ideal he sought to realize and build.

No one who had studied in the White Room didn't know the name that was Kiyotaka Ayanokōji. It was due to the undeniable fact that he was better than any student, at any grade or age that his name was often brought up as a topic of comparison and reverence. None of the previous gens and after could surpass the last survivor of 4th generation. He alone had a huge impact on the entire White Room. It was said that no matter how extreme the training program is, he was able to leave behind a legacy of excellence, surpassing all expectations. This is remarkable as irrespective of how hard a genius White Room student tried to show off one's worth, no matter how excellent their grades and abilities were, they were still not easily recognized by their instructors other than receiving a few words of encouragement to try and become someone who can surpass Kiyotaka. All they got were simple commands, telling them to catch up to him. It was an idea that had been painstakingly instilled within the minds of those who were raise in the White Room. As Kiyotaka is no exception, other White Room students like himself had played against a great number of so-called professional instructors and fighters to hone their knowledge, skills, and abilities in all sorts of areas over time. White Room teaches many different fields like the liberal arts, sciences, martial arts, self-defence techniques, and a myriad of worldly wisdom, all of which are at or above the tiers of professional level. The instructors would strongly emphasize their words intentionally, looking to get the White Room students to surpass their potential by fanning the sense of rivalry with their best, invoking and instilling the feeling of wanting to surpass Kiyotaka.

For the Fifth gen and beyond, some of those who studied there started to “worship” Kiyotaka who had been made a God by them, viewing him to be someone unreachable and question whether such a person ever existed. Such White Room children that idolize him had originally accepted education to become number 1 earlier than anyone else. However, they gave up on becoming number 1 themselves and were removed from the competition after realizing how impossible for them it was to overcome and beat Kiyotaka's results and accomplishments. Unlike the worshipers, there were others who instead began harboring immense feelings of jealousy and hatred when it comes to Kiyotaka as rivals and competitors. Those particular White Room students don't welcome the fact that Kiyotaka was called a masterpiece and wishes to disprove it with their own hands. The goal of the White Room wasn't to create people who could become number 1. Rather, it was to establish the research that could allow for mass production of exceptional people equal to Kiyotaka himself. That was the real reason for the White Room's existence. As long as it is an example of a success story, it didn't really matter who it will be in the end, whether that person was Kiyotaka or another White Room student.

In the White Room, there wasn't any rule expressly forbidding romance like there is for idols but things that would allow a romance to successfully be established absolutely didn't exist there. Playtime, holidays, and things resembling those didn't exist there. Other than limited toilet breaks and bath times, they were constantly monitored. A romantic development was then thought to be something inconceivable due to the very nature of the facility being an antithesis of it. People raised from the white Room never fails to make preparations to defend themselves at all times in there. Students who failed the White Room were of no value to the higher-ups. If they were deem worthless or unsuccessful, those White Room students would end up in the same place as their peers who were 'eliminated' down the road. Kiyotaka had seen countless children excluding himself suffering from the problem in the White Room where they are unable to pour out their true feelings, believing it's a painful place for them to be in when there isn't anyone they can properly hold a talk with. There are a group of people in that facility who eventually broke down and disappeared. They were described by Kiyotaka to be beyond the hopes of recovery. Currently, the White Room has recently resumed operations to carry on their experiments.

4th Generation

The fourth generation focuses on pure individualism. With all of the students dropping out due to its excessively harsh education, all but one child managed to survive and pass the final course easily. Due to being trained under excessive individualism, children were often crushed one after another until the last one remained standing strong. However, regardless of successes and failures, those with poor scores notwithstanding and those with excellent scores were still allowed to come in contact with each other. Nevertheless, students rarely interacted due to such conditions, and rarely ever talked amongst themselves.

5th Generation

The fifth generation has more focus placed on communication and collaborations. All children were required to maintain a minimum level of interpersonal communication before being allowed to talk to one another. Only those raised in the White Room with the same skills as this group of children could properly have a conversation with them without problem but in the real world, it was said to be impossible by Tsukishiro. The difficulty level of generation five is significantly less than four, slightly more difficult than three, and less difficult than six. Otherwise, training remains the same as other generations.

Known members

Faculty (In Order of Recruitment)

• Professor Ayanokōji
• Toshizou Kamogawa
• Ishida
• Souya
• Tabuchi
• Tanji Suzukake

Associates

• Tsukishiro
• Katsunori Shiba

Students

• 4th generation
  • Kiyotaka Ayanokōji
  • Shirō
  • Yuki
• 5th generation
  • Takuya Yagami
  • Ichika Amasawa

Trivia

• Although the place makes minor appearances in the anime, its name was only first mentioned by Arisu Sakayanagi after directly greeting Kiyotaka for the first time in high school.
• Arisu is the only known student at Advanced Nurturing High School that was not from the White Room to have visited the facility.
• While the White Room is the most “efficient” place to raise a human, it does not teach the necessary social skills for everyday life as shown is Volume 8 during the Mixed Training Camp.
• Tsukishiro noted how Kiyotaka is the one and only White Room student with the depth in his two eyes that was filled with deep darkness, it was something those other excellent White Room students can't imitate.
• Kiyotaka regards the White Room as a place where there was no gender bias in the children raised in that facility since their pedagogy treated boys and girls equally.
• The meals provided within the White Room were controlled down to the most minute detail. It was basically impossible for the children growing up in that environment to be obese.
• There were periodical physical examinations in the White Room. They collected vastly more data than what a normal school's physical examinations would measure.
• The subject of love can't be learned in the White Room.
• In the White Room, Kiyotaka learned how to play chess.
• For a student from the White Room, getting a perfect score on the entrance exam for enrolling in Advanced Nurturing High School wouldn't be difficult in the slightest. They'd be able to get an A or A+ rating in Academic Ability with ease if they desired to. In other words, that meant that they'd be able to control their rating however they wanted within the OAA app even to the lowest rating: E.
• Kiyotaka stated that if Takuya Yagami was from the White Room, he was an opponent the former wouldn't want to face.
• Arisu Sakayanagi's dearest wish was destroying Kiyotaka, the White Room's greatest masterpiece in order to prove that a false genius can be defeated by a natural-born talent like herself.
• Kiyotaka's butler Matsuo notes that the one and only known place a White Room student could make their escape successfully outside its facility was in Advanced Nurturing High School.
• Kiyotaka considered the White Room quite problematic from a human-rights perspective.
• From Arisu's point of view, she sees Kiyotaka as the first success in the White Room, and this sentiment is echoed by his father as well as the other researchers.

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Organizations
Advanced Nurturing High School • White Room