There are plenty of anime set in a school setting that serve two purposes: anime that motivate you to study or makes you hate school. Most people who go for school-style anime are usually there for the sports like Haikyuu! or The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.
School-based anime is practically a genre unto itself. Anime that motivate you to study include series like Assassination Classroom, other times, a few anime make make you hate school, as one may feel after watching Prison School. This list will thus go over the myriad possibilities by showcasing 5 anime that motivate you to study and 5 more anime that make you detest school.
Disclaimer: Spoilers are included for all the anime on the list. The opinions therein are exclusive to the author.
5 examples of anime that motivate you to study
1) Assassination Classroom
One of the first anime on the list that motivates you to study has a fun charm to it since the end goal is to kill an immortal teacher! To explain that bit, the titular classroom is taught by former assassin Koro-Sensei. Class 3-E is literally named "E-as-in-End Class" and consists of students who either failed to keep their grades high or broke school regulations.
So, why is it an anime that motivate you to study? Koro Sensei actually cares about his students for one thing. He makes an effort to get to know them personally and help them through whatever it is, whether emotional abuse or parental neglect. It shows a teacher wanting to help students, and they do progress from getting help.
2) Great Teacher Onizuka (GTO)
GTO is rather infamous for an anime that motivate you to study. Long story short, 22-year-old ex-gang member Eikichi Onizuka decides to become a teacher to score with women. The problem is when he does, he gets a conscience and sense of morality.
This anime that motivate you to study leads to him being pushed into a Kichijoji-based middle school where a failing class drives several teachers away and has to help them. He does so by motivating them to study and helping to resolve most of their problems, many of them rather violently. However, this does serve an important purpose: Onizuka hates how patronizing teachers and others are toward people, so he's tries to educate with life lessons over traditional education.
3) How a Realist Hero Rebuilt a Kingdom
The first isekai anime that motivates you to study, Realist Hero is about a humanities student named Kazuya Souma who gets teleported into the Elfrieden Kingdom. He's basically told that he's engaged to princess Liscia Elfrieden and that the king is abdicating the throne.
The reason why this isekai anime that motivates you to study on is on this list is that it focuses on some of the real challenges involved in running a kingdom and improving the standard of living. A combination of realism and Machiavellian psychology is on display in this anime, trying to deal with civil wars, the annexation of territories, and making sure people are fed.
4) The Royal Tutor
The Royal Tutor is basically a major anime that motivate you to study. Why? Because that's the premise behind the entire anime: a youthful teacher is ordered by a king to tutor his rather rambunctious four princes to turn them into suitable inheritors of the throne.
The series is focused on trying to wrangle the four boys into trying to get serious about their studies while also having their own hangups. Kai gets into fights and is booted from military school, while Buno is considered average and easily envious, Leonhard acts vain, and Licht appears incredibly irresponsible. The part where the anime motivates you to study is that none of them ever give up on the idea, despite all of their hangups and need to be approached on different levels.
5) Spice and Wolf
A famous anime that motivate you to study economics is disguised with a pretty wolf girl. The story is about the wolf spirit Holo and her human assistant, traveling merchant Kraft Lawrence, as they start on a journey to travel the world and deal with debt and monetary dealings.
So, this anime that motivates you to study is literally "economics, the anime." Commodities trading in medieval times is the name of the game, as trading, haggling, and reasoning take center stage. Knowing how much food costs, gambitting several people, crashing corrupt economies, and even battling marauders are all topics discussed.
5 anime that make you hate school
1) Classroom of the Elite
Classroom of the Elite is a combination anime that motivate you to study and an anime that makes you hate school. To explain why it's on the latter instead of the former, this anime is about a ritzy private school where the students are always in competition with each other.
The audience is subjected to characters being forced to do humiliating things to get by, especially if their grades aren't high or their class standing is low for points as currency. This heavily favors the already talented who, instead of helping their struggling people, leave them out to dry and take heavy advantage of them.
2) Prison School
The title alone makes it clear why this isn't one of the anime that motivate you to study but rather one that would make any reasonable person run for the hills. The long and short of Prison School is that a few guys get sent to an elite all-girls boarding school and get sent to "rehabilitation" after breaking several rules, including peeping on the girl's baths.
It's here for several reasons, despite being a twisted comedy. The first point is the rather abusive student council and how the boys are abused. This is basically Human Rights Violations and doesn't exactly hold back on that front. This includes back-breaking labor in the sun, being denied food and water, and other disgusting punishments.
3) Kakegurui
Classroom of the Elite at least has the students getting a chance to get out of their situations and could technically be an example of an anime that motivates you to study. Kakegurui is more of the type of school that nobody would willingly want to step in, especially if they suck at gambling. Granted, the school is for the richest of the rich and powerful, but it is still rather unfair.
The student council sits above everyone else like gods among men, overseeing a Social Darwinistic system that sees students bet large amounts of money and even their bodies to get ahead. So, it's funny when compulsive gambler Yumeko Jabami comes in and begins to wreck the system.
4) Kill la Kill
Speaking of Social Darwinism, Honnouji Academy is connected to Honno Town in Kill la Kill. The series is far from one of the anime that motivate you to study because Honnouji Academy isn't a place where smarts alone can carry you. The basic premise is that the higher your grades, combat ability, ruthlessness, and resourcefulness, the better your standard of living is within the system.
A specific episode sees protagonists Ryuko Matoi and Mako Makanshoku start to progress in the system via Ryuko defeating more opponents every day. The problem is, the higher they go, the more they drift apart. The episode ends when Mako gives up the cushy lifestyle and calls her family out on it because she would've killed Ryuko otherwise.
5) Daganronpa & King's Game
Why two in one? They aren't entirely anime that motivate you to study, but they do have eerily similar premises: a school that wants to kill its students. King's Game: The Animation features a King's Game in which 32 students need to obey the King or die. Daganronpa likewise features 16 elite students that are trapped in a sadistic school where murder is a way of life.
Both of them involve mass amounts of murder being forced upon teenagers for little reason other than sadism. They don't paint the best picture either, with both having people have to figure out who the killer is if they don't want to die and turn on each other to do it. At least Daganronpa has a more triumphant and hopeful ending compared to King's Game.
This concludes the list of five anime that motivate you to study and five more that will make you hate school forever. The anime that motivate you to study is usually within the range of having a reward at the end or helping to get over problems learning. On the other hand, the anime that make you hate school usually emphasizes either the dullness of the class or the structural unfairness of the educational system.
Either way, that means there are many anime that are based around a school. Sometimes it's for decoration, other times an anime is there to motivate you to study. If any examples were not given or missed, readers are encouraged to list them in the comments.