Protaku's Blog

Anime Relations: Angel Beats!

Anime Relations: Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai

You know, friends come and friends go all the time in our lives. But if I got close enough to you to call you a friend of mine, then I think we both accomplished something. So I decided to make a rare blog entry just about the lovely and dank people I've had the pleasure of meeting on this website. It might not always look it, but I really appreciate your guys' company and some of you I can even call closer than most of my IRL friends. So chin-up and let ol' Protaku give you a little shoulder rub ~



Harrymanhunter:
Arguably my closest male friend on this website. We've probably exchanged enough text on here to fill up a fat book. Sure he may call my taste in anime shit and my taste in waifus even shittier, but fuck you're still a great guy in the end. You're one of the few people here who actually "gets me" and your sense of humor is dank as heck man; Nice. You're a greasy Indian but we're so alike you might as well be my brother. Keep fighting the good fight, man. I hope I can keep talking to you for a long time coming.

Zadion:
I don't know what got you talking to me when I was a complete nobody on this website, but you're the undisputed oldest friend I have on here. Have I changed a lot? I promise I haven't let the fame get to my head. And what's even more surprising is that we're still talking even all this time later. Good times, huh? Oh and sorry that you think Michiru is best girl, but men can always agree to disagree haha.

Skeleturtle:
Oh wow, you and me and got surprisingly close, Boah. Certain events brought our fates closer than they would have normally been, but I'm thankful for them. It's awesome how we're both striving for a future in story writing and even awesomer how we help each other out with it. Even if forces separate us, I hope both of us at least don't forget about our dreams and always keep working towards them.
PS send me moar dank GIFs fam <3

TheHonestThief:
Awww yessssss someone else who gets me! Our huge replies are always so fun to reply to too, but crap they're so long now I take forever to reply haha. Whatever the case, you're beast at writing, especially your reviews and arguments so always strive to hone your skills more! And I'm still a little surprised over how you drink so much coffee but still end up just as tall as me lol.

hoopla123:
Breh, I'll never forget how we first met in a thread about zoo animals—From which we completely derailed into a waifu war thread xD And then that war led us really seeing eye to eye in the end and got us pretty close. Hey, you respect my waifus and I'll respect yours; It's as simple as that :) You live in Canada so at least you're safe from whatever president we elect over here haha.

McGibletz:
You get me, you get me, you get me! I think that's all that needs saying~
Nahhhh I have more. You're a great bro, bro. Together, we can save MAL one shitpost relevant, smart post at a time. You're one of the dankest individuals here I know so keep up the good work! Be true to yourself, among other things. In all seriousness, we know of each other's struggles.
Lobsterdog is watching and judging you though .-.

Anne:
Hey Anne-chan :3 I hope you're doing well whenever you read this. I know you have a lot of things not going in your direction recently, but I just want to remind you that you're not alone in this world and that there will always be people out there who care about you no matter what. You're one of the most respectful friends I have and I really appreciate that. You have a lot going for you, Anne; You just need to open your eyes and see what a great person you are ---Because you really are.

KelseyAtlantis:
Our similarities are though the roof, girl! I'm happy that I met someone else that's also a huge fanboy/fangirl of Titanic—We really are rare in this world. Don't let the world keep you down and chin-up :) You're also really respectful and you're a really fun person. Remember, it's what's on the inside that counts ~

Danae:
Hi Danae! I had you in mind a lot while making this blog entry because I still have to reply to your big message >< But I'll get too it really soon, promise!
EDIT: Finished it so hope you like it ^_^ Also, congrats again on the name change!
Out of everyone here, you're one of the people I enjoy talking to the most because you're so interesting and always have something to add on to what I say with enthusiasm. You live all the way in Greece so we'll probably never meet, but I can tell you have a bright future ahead of you and I wish you the best of luck in all your endeavors. You have the potential to achieve everything your strive for and Froy will always be rooting for you from the sidelines.

Flauen:
Yahellow ~ Feels like just yesterday you sent me a random invite to chat and I was like "Stranger alert!" Haha, but time does fly. People call me sweet all the time but I think you're more deserving of that title. You helped get me through some tough times whether you knew it or not, so thank you for that. You're working hard to secure your future and you're living the life I always sort of wanted to live. Keep doing what you do best.

Leafeon-chan:
Funny thing, I actually started just recently running a Leafon on my Pokemon Showdown team haha. But anyway, you're probably the dankest and most trill girl I've met here :D You're super fun to talk to and I feel like I can really be me around you. I know you're going through some tough times too but if you ever need a shoulder to lie on or an ear to listen to you, good ol' Protaku will be lurking around the MAL for you.

Angelise:
You know who you are. We've been through and thick and thin together, more so than everyone else here. We've already talked for so long and gotten to know each other enough that I can hardly call you a friend I met online—I'd rather just call you a friend in general, and one of the best ones I've met here.
But you've changed, and now we don't talk anymore, but I'm not spiteful enough to remove you from here because of it. Maybe one day you'll read this and realize how much you messed up. Whatever, good luck in life.

Anime Relations: Kyoukai no Kanata

There's a pulchritude in organizing and categorizing some of your favorite possessions, whether digital or physical. Admittingly, this blog entry is more for my own benefit, rather than to simply disclose more material about myself. I don't really expect anyone to look at all this since I doubt anyone really cares enough to do so, but these things mean something to me and that's all that really matters in the end.

My Proudest Threads Collection:
- An assortment of threads I take some amount of pride or joy in, in the form of nostalgia.



In-Real-Life Collections
- Because everyone collects things ≧◡≦



My MAL Cards Collection (Updated!!!)
-These are cards that you can get made for you throughout certain clubs and events, and I've been hoarding collecting them for some time now. Since my collection is constantly growing, I'll probably be updating this collection the most compared to the others in this blog. Begin the fangirling xD!



Images, Art, Memes, That Just Mean Something To Me Collection
-Not to be confused with dank images (a lot), the following are just a small assortment of emo random, cool images that caught my eye.

Anime Relations: Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui!

Oh, so you actually clicked on this link? Quaint. You get what the title promised:

*I'm a 21-year old male who refuses to grow up (if my real About Me didn't say that enough) attending college in good ol' Murica'; Already got an AA in Fine Arts and I plan to someday get a higher degree in English. If possible, I'd like to be an English teacher in the future, with my dream job being a successful author or writer of some sort. I'm currently working on my second (attempt) at a novel, though I get distracted easily by anime, friends, and MAL :3



*I'd say I've been a pretty devout fan of anime since late 2012, where back then I mostly watched anime through Netflix (such pleb). It's hard to pinpoint exactly what my first anime was though: The first anime I acknowledged as an anime was Naruto back in 2006, but the first anime I saw would be either Dragon Ball Z or Pokemon in the late 90's. As for my actual gateway anime that's even trickier: Attack on Titan was probably the first airing anime I watched and absolutely loved that motivated me to watch more airing anime, while Bleach and Sword Art Online that came before AoT got me interested in watching anime outside of lame Netflix. Fast forward a few years and now I have most major anime titles under my completed list ^_^



*I joined MAL in April of 2014 after a friend referred me here for the advanced anime-list capabilities compared to my Word Document anime list (which I still update today). However, I didn't become active on the forums until mid-September of the same year after seeing how dank the forums were how nice the community looked and graduated from being a forum stalker :P Since then, I've met lots of neat-o people and gotten to know a handful of trill imoutos, rapeheads, sassy tsunderes, Garrus fangirls, kouhais, senapais, and lolis (you know who you are). Because I can, and to give some of you some good nostalgia, I'll now list the history of (what I can recall) of my profile avatars and some history of them~




So yeah, that's my take on my MAL history. Memory lane for some of you. In the forums you'll see me be a weird mix of dank and serious, but usually with a hint of sarcasm or humor. You should never take me that seriously on the forums though, and if you ever do, shame on you. I also like using me some emotes, though you probably can't tell from this blog entry. I'm pretty easy to talk to and can fill just about any persona you can imagine to talk to someone in their preferred way; I talk to different people differently, as do most people. Usually, I get on MAL every day to lurk in the forums or reply to my lovely comments and PMs. In the case I don't reply to you in a timely manner, well I'm only human so don't hate me. I may love MAL, but yeah, life.



*For hobbies and stuff besides anime, I'm a pretty big gamer (or at least I was) and I've been technically gaming since the 90's. Some of my favorites game series' of all time are Fallout, Mass Effect, Gears of War, Bioshock, and Call of Duty (eh). Only games I'm actively playing right now though are Super Smash Brothers on 3DS (so hit me up if you wanna get banged sideways by my Zelda or Pikachu) and the brand spanking new Overwatch which I've grown obsessed over lately. I've also been a huge Pokemon fan all my life, and still eat up every new generation of Pokemon and pwn noobz on Showdown. I'll rek u all btw, PU tier too good.
For stuff besides gaming . . . I like reading novels from time to time, though I don't read nearly as much as I did in high school, probably because I ran out of books haha. I also like jotting down any nifty ideas that come into my head for a writing project into my personal journal in case I ever want to do anything with them. I also like browsing the YouTube often for the dank videos. Oh, and I want to start working out more often because, well, why the heck not?



*Hmmmmmm well I guess that's about it. If you want to get to know me more, leave me a comment on my wall and I shall try to make your acquaintance. For those who already know me, must suck since you already knew most of everything in here rofl. Well if you read everything, thanks anyway and I shall probably be around, just day dreaming and whatnot, with my head just spinning and spinning aimlessly as the years roll by ~

Anime Relations: School Days

I come to you today with a simple goal I'd like to elaborate on. If you know me personally, I'm going to show a side of me today I don't show often because it's not who I am; But I'm going to need it if I want to drive this final nail in the coffin. If I directed you here because you had the gall to sarcastically ask me why I believe School Days deserves this honor, then prepare for a ride tantamount to that of a college level research paper or dissertation. If you, yes you, come out of this with at least a better appreciation for something as contemporary and revolutionary as School Days, then I have accomplished what I set out to do.

If there is one thing School Days is without a doubt not, is perfection. This I know better than anyone and I especially know the art and OST are not up to par. No anime can be considered the epitome of perfection since by the very definition of perfection, (the anime) must be considered perfect by everyone whose seen it. Unlike a perfect circle in geometry, anime is absolutely and positively subjective to the eye of the beholder and is influenced by their own personal experiences and values; If you think about it, there is even little to no objectivity involved in the actual rating of an anime. What you consider to be an enthralling plot or profound characters, I could just as easily call abysmal and half-baked. Again, the goal of this entry is not to convince you that School Days embodies perfection incarnate, rather, that it at least does not deserve the horrendous reputation that presides it and give you some insight as to why the reputation is how it is. I'm not planning on converting anyone to give School Days 10/10 like me, but I will also describe why I believe it deserves that score.

I'd like to begin the true body of this thesis by advising you, the reader, that I went into School Days 100% blind --- I'd hadn't even heard a whisper about School Days before I watched it. I believe in here lies one of the bigger problems that indirectly affect the anime's score; People already know what they're in for and they start developing a biased or unjustifiable opinion before even the first episode. With something like Clannad where people already expect a grandeur spectacle among anime (which it was), School Days sets itself up for failure right off the bat with a usually ill-conceived plot and character synopsis when told about it from someone else besides the actual verbatim synopsis. A sort of placebo affect then plants itself deep into the viewer, where they expect to be sorely disappointed no matter what. Similar logic can be applied to "over hyping" an anime where a placebo of good things to come plants itself, but never blooms and therefore disappoints the viewer. Some anime that I can personally attribute to this are No Game No Life and Durarara!

Another factor to consider in one's like or dislike of School Days is at the point in time in which you watched it. This is only a theory of mine, but I can safely assume that if I had seen School Days only a few days ago, I highly doubt I'd like it as much as I do now. One becomes more critical and harder to impress as their anime list grows. This is simply due to the fact you've experienced a wider variety of anime at this point and have developed a more concrete taste. When I first saw School Days, I probably had no more than 70 anime on my list. At that point, however, I was already more than keenly aware of the common tropes and cliches presented by the myriad genres of anime; In particular, those of the Romance and the Harem genres.

I won't elucidate much about them, but most Romances that I watch even today rarely mold into anything more than characters failing spectacularly at conveying their feelings to their crushes, or if we're lucky, we got an awkward kiss in the very end and the anime ends abruptly after. How does one even classify that a Romance?
As for Harems, the situation and tropes are even worse. 90% of the time we get an airhead for the harem ringleader that wants nothing to do with anything. It's one of those rare times where I just feel like screaming at my computer screen. Feminists, and more often than not women in general, ostracize Harems for objectifying woman and turning them into mere play things that no one wants to play with; But I am not here to question the already flawed feminist logic. I wanted to use their strife as a foil for the usually oblivious and redundant stars of a Harem anime. If the women are the idiots who blindly fawn over the ringleader, then what does that make the ringleader himself if he's even more blind to their efforts than they're blindly devoted to him? Why must he almost always be indecisive and fidgety and generally unsocial, yet still be a bonafide chick magnet? Luckily, these tropes are more common in anime not tagged as Harem, since at least real Harem protagonists (I'm looking at you Issei) are not completely oblivious to their harem's general existence.

I may seem like I'm getting off topic, but for those of who have indeed seen School Days, which I assume is most of you, know there's a meaning to all this. I will now delve deep into the lore and axioms of School Days, so if you have for some reason not seen the anime and read thus far, I STRONGLY advise you to stop reading now. You have been warned my friend and it was a gentle warning.

When I originally wrote this essay, School Days was tagged as a Seinen anime/demographic here on MAL, but it seems this tag has since been removed. However, the demographic tag still remains on its Wiki, and its AnimeNewsNetwork page even boasts School Days as a Psychological anime. For something that looks as whimsical and innocent as the cover of School Days, these kinds of genres alone may spoil the inner contents of the anime, so their removal from MAL was probably for the better. After all, being tagged with something also associated with Berserk, Ghost in the Shell, and Texhnolyze often prompts you to start developing a biased and uninformed opinion, much like how the placebo affect I mentioned earlier does.
I will also reference the anime Shiki now, in which it's tagged as a Vampire genre. Had I known that fact before watching it, it would have ruined the small mystery in the first few episodes and I would have developed an incommensurate opinion early on, along with being spoiled.
If you haven't seen Shiki yet, first of all shame on you, and second, most people don't consider this a spoiler unfortunately so you're safe. Maybe I'm just picky about such things, but a part of me is still glad MAL removed those tags from School Days' entry here, even though it basically forced me to come back and rewrite some more of this essay.

With the above being said, consider the fact that someone is interested in watching School Days for the first time. They inquire around asking for advice on if they should or shouldn't watch School Days. Without being told of Makoto and what not, they leave (luckily) unspoiled and only with the notion that School Days is an atrocious anime that should be avoided. Lets say they weren't completely dissuaded, and instead the hate peaks their curiosity and they decide to research the School Days page on MyAnimeList. They read the synopsis, check out the genres, and confirm that this is an anime they might just take an interest in. By the way, I'm actually the author of School Day's synopsis here on MAL and I worded it in such a way that the anime seems no more spectacular than the last Harem or Romance anime the reader last saw -- while at the same time, those who've already seen the anime will see through my words and pick up on the foreshadowing I littered throughout the piece. I believe this is an important aspect of the School Days viewing experience; maintaining that solidarity you've already come to expect from similar anime, but sprinkling in just enough details that barely hint at the possibility of this anime being something more than just ordinary.

Now, the viewer has their popcorn ready, their bar is set pretty low to compensate for the anime's negative reputation, and they're (hopefully) going into it blind as can be. With the bar being as low as it is, a viewer will likely be more easily impressed but also more prone to outside mass opinion. This is why going in blind is best since your whole opinion on School Days will be nothing but your own.

Enter the first episode: Makoto looks generic as heck, and his close friend Sekai we can already tell within the first few minutes that she has a thing for Makoto. They diddle about, nothing new or noteworthy, we find out Makoto has a crush on a girl he saw on the train named Kotonoha, and Sekai resolves to help him hook up with her. I and probably most other viewers are unimpressed so far, but it's nothing to drop the anime over. Cue the last minute of the episode, and Sekai sneaks Makoto a kiss as the train passes by them, under the impression it was some sort of reward for her.

When I first saw this episode I was perplexed; A Romance anime starting off so suddenly into the realms of a real romance? What is this, what is life? Story progression so early on too is something you don't see happening very often in all anime genres in general. A similar case as this would be the last 2 minutes of the first episode of Attack on Titan where (spoiler) Eren's mom get's eaten alive right in front of him. When an anime brilliantly sets up it's tone and itinerary like this, it also establishes a precedent that we as the viewer feel a desire to see it through to the end, however small it may be. Even the infamous YouTube anime reviewer Digibro, who is known to drop almost every anime he starts watching at episode 1, gave School Days a try until the second episode, where things admittedly slowed down a bit. For reference, Digibro has dropped over 700 anime as of this writing, most of whom were dropped on episode 1, and you can look him up right here on MAL. He also placed very high on Watchmojo's Top Ten Anime Reviewers list. Also, I don't believe I've ever met someone who has dropped School Days on the first episode, though you the reader might be one of the exceptions.

Continuing on with the series, Makoto eventually hooks up with Kotonoha but has no clue what he's doing, sticking true to the Harem ringleader tropes. We get some slice of life moments which in all honestly are perfectly ok and moderately needed at this point in the story. Recall that this is also a School anime (Cough, School Days, cough), so the Slice of Life genre should always be at least somewhat associated with the anime though not tagged as such.
Over time, we see Makoto growing more and more conflicted. Kotonoha is, to his utter dismay, not putting out for him and is arduously shy and unsocial compared to him. His friend Sekai resolves that Makoto is simply being too pushy and assertive and that he's actually frightening Kotonoha. In the mean time, Sekai offers to give Makoto "practice" for when the real deal arises.

I think at this point is when most people start abhorring School Days. People start hating Sekai for essentially betraying her friend Kotonoha's trust and people also start disliking Makoto for blatantly cheating on Kotonoha under the guise of "it's just practice". Simple kissing and touching (why I am still giving you spoiler warnings) eventually goes to full blown sex. In a way, this also insults a lot of our principles of what we define as a healthy and stable relationship, and why anyone would dare to infringe on said relationship. I'll go into more detail of this later, but you absolutely have to keep in mind: Makoto, Sekai, and Kotonoha are all fully capable of making their own decisions and if they don't question their decisions then why should we? For those of you who have seen White Album 2, why don't you also question and protest the protagonist's and his lover's decision in the end as much as you do School Days'? The bias I spoke of earlier come into play here, and there's not much we can do about it besides try to ignore it.

Speaking of bias, I'll toss in a little interlude here and talk about said bias: Bias leads to hypocrisy, and hypocrisy leads to ignorance. There is not just two sides to every coin, but there is also the rim of the coin on which a coin may still fall on, representing what you may call double-standards. To better illustrate this, I created a meme image that gauges viewer's basic opinions on two characters which at first seem to share few similarities, but upon closer inspection could actually be mirror selves of each other:


Although I am being somewhat satirical and overgeneralizing, the idea and irony present in the above picture is evident. Why is that for one character, their negatives become the positive of another character, and vice-versa? Re:Zero is an anime that prides itself on the realism of its characters, a noteworthy feat by all means, but through my eyes I see Subaru is nothing more but an edgy teen with bipolar disorder instead of being a "realistic" character. Humans are naturally selfish, greedy, lustful creatures that both Re:Zero and School Days attempt to showcase, but only one of them manages to capture these qualities in a fashion that actually made sense for the character. Both Makoto and Subaru are flawed in their own ways; you can't argue that because Makoto is "more" flawed he is objectively a worse character than Subaru, because then you're inadvertently setting the bar even higher for Subaru without even giving Makoto half the harsh criteria you're setting up for him. The only real difference between Subaru and Makoto is that you end up actually rooting for Subaru and his goals but wishing failure upon Makoto and his selfish agenda. This isn't to say Makoto is a character whose actions I approve of either, but rather that he objectively set out and accomplished the goal his character was drafted to do, of which I'll elucidate more of returning to your normal programming.

Episode 4: Makoto is now falling for Sekai more than Kotonoha since she is actually willing to satisfy him and his needs, and then it's Kotonoha who essentially becomes the third wheel and is slowly becoming disillusioned over it. At this point, the plot has progressed to such a point where the Seinen genre has become readily apparent and us as the viewer understand that this is no ordinary School and Harem anime anymore. This is something more, something exquisitely more that no other anime has ever managed to astutely recreate in any form. Anime are just not ready to take the same risks School Days did upon deciding to follow its most negative route in its respective visual novel. Had School Days followed any other route, I don't believe it would have had the same impact that it actually had: An impact that screamed to everyone that anime was not all cute and fun and games for the School and Harem genre; We got something more: We got bona fide realism the likes of which still offends many to this day for some reason, even though realism is being seen as huge positive for any anime lately.

And oh yes, later on, as if Sekai wasn't enough, Makoto also banged Sekai's close friend along with the girl who originally had a crush on Makoto, and several other girls I can't even remember anymore, I literally lost count. But people cheat on their lovers in reality --- that is reality! My emphasis on anime being realistic is not detrimental to those anime who are not realistic, but is a strike against those anime who are advertised as being realistic by the community when it's obviously not. In addition to that, I loathe it when anime try to blatantly sugarcoat everything for no reason other than to avoid another School Days fiasco. Your characters are supposed to be human-like, not robotic. Robots have little room for error and internal flaws, which leads to boring characters. But so many mangakas and authors refuse to go the extra mile and stick to tried and true, but depreciating character norms that leave little to no room for growth or development of said character. This point could be another to add to the list of why School Days is so often misinterpreted and never looked at properly under a microscope like I am.

As events in the story are progressing, Kotonoha is slowly going insane and becoming irrational. She even has sex with Makoto's best friend to simply get him off her back. The pity for her is slowly turning into the same hate and disgust many viewers have developed for Makoto and Sekai; And now we've arrived to one of my most critical and imperative points in this whole thesis, and probably the one I recommend you take the most to heart:
JUST BECAUSE YOU HATE A CHARACTER, DOES NOT INSTANTLY MAKE THE ANIME AN ABOMINATION.
In fact, if you feel anything towards any of the characters, you should praise the directors for managing to elicit any sort of emotion out of you! I literally cannot stress this enough. I hate Makoto just as much as the next guy, but I can understand his actions and train of thought well enough to know all the lust and disloyalty are just a part of his character. It just so happens that for once, the character exhibiting these characteristics is the protagonist of a story, so for a lot of us, a hero or "good guy" was never even established in School Days. All we got were girls getting screwed over and Makoto doing most of the screwing. I can name many, many other anime protagonists from multiple genres that would engage in the same behaviors Makoto did if similar situations arised. Would we hate them too just as equally as Makoto? Men desire sex more frequently than women, this is a fact of life and it's something many guys in real life would also mirror just like Makoto. Sex is a weakness some of us are just more prone to than others.

Again though, this is a THING in real life, not a good thing but a thing none the less. Sometimes we turn a blind eye to it in real life, but this anime spills it all over your face for its duration until the bitter, satisfying end. Speaking of the end, we're getting to the end of this long journey as well. I applaud you sincerely if you've read through all of this and thank you ahead of time.

Sekai no longer cares about what Kotonoha thinks and the two have essentially become rivals for Makoto's affections. Love triangles like this are also abundantly common in reality, though few anime have ever managed to paint such a harsh and beautifully relative interpretation of one. There's nothing wrong with playful love triangles a lot of other anime represent such School Rumble's and Gosick's, but the industry is over saturated with those kind of triangles, to the point where I highly question why we're so obsessed with this kind of happy-go-lucky ideology. Sure you can argue humans naturally gravitate more often towards happy and bright things , but then why are we so mesmerized by something as tragic as Clannad? In more ways than one, School Days is incredibly similar to Clannad, and this is further proven by the fact I have both rated extremely high in my favorites list.

This is the end of the story. Kotonoha has managed to seduce Makoto back to him, and Sekai played the ultimate trump card of saying she was pregnant with Makoto's child. How sagacious Sekai must feel and look right about now! How does Makoto take it? Well he basically asks if she can abort it of course! What fun we're having, right?
Well as the saying goes, the rest is history, history that I'm about to reiterate:
Sekai texts Makoto one last time the simple word "Goodbye" before she plunges a fat knife straight into his pathetic guts, then proceeds to turn him into a glorified, bloody pin cushion.
Why is this scene so powerful? Why is it so memorable? Why is it so infamous among the anime community? It is for the simple reason that this scene is the culmination of the entire show; The ultimate result of what happens when people can no longer understand or forgive one another. Reality check: People kill each other, and we can all safely agree that this airhead deserved all that he got coming towards him.

Know what else instigates violence? Jealousy, in particular envy. This is the last major point I should have mentioned earlier, but it works just as well here. Sekai's and Kotonoha's conflict ultimately began and ended as a result of jealousy and envy. When they confronted one another on the familiar rooftop, Kotonoha wanted to know for a fact if Sekai was indeed pregnant with the now very dead Makoto's child. Guess what Kotonoha did when she confirmed Sekai wasn't pregnant after all? Basically:
"So there was never another to compete with me after all. Guess that means you're all mine now and no one else's <3" - as she spoke to his decapitated head in a sports bag.

As guys, we might all have felt at least a little jealousy of the unfathomably lucky spot Makoto was in prior to his death. But we and everyone of all genders can agree he should have stuck with just one girl early on, and his story would have played out a lot differently. Why should a little envy make someone dislike an anime for? It, really, really shouldn't. And I'm not saying you as a male viewer are set for a doomed fate to be jealous of Makoto in his prime, but as with most anime, it is simple wish fulfillment and inserting yourself into Makoto's shoes and questioning his decisions as the omnipotent viewer. You are a god but an angry god more than willing to smite anything that rubs you the wrong way, and you have the authority to do that as the viewer, but the real question is, should you?

You've arrived at the apex of this or the most well-needed TL;DR you'll ever need in your life. Please don't consider this a strict summary of my thoughts and reasonings, rather, a conclusion that's tantamount to your reading of everything in the above. School Days is one of those anime where you either love it or hate it with few in between areas, and most people aim to hate it right off the bat simply based off its reputation. But why should we hate something just for the sake of it being hated? Why can't we be more open minded to this sort of thing so more anime can follow in School Days' footsteps, no matter what you might think of it?

For me at least, this is the magnum opus embodiment of the Drama genre in anime. No other anime has kept me on the edge of my seat at this level, not with these kind of emotions. I gave you almost all the reasons why people gravitate towards disliking School Days and counter arguments for said reasons; I gave you justifiable and coherent reasons why School Days set the bar high from the start and only went to the stars by the end. I juxtaposed this anime with other anime to back up what I had to say and mentioned several sources that can support some of my claims. There is nothing more I can do for you besides thank you once again if you truly read all of this, and at the very least, I hope I opened a third eye somewhere in you; An eye that can pick up on all the things you could not prior to reading this, whether they be new points of view or new criteria for rating your anime. I also hope that you, yes you my hopefully immaculate reader, that you one day rewatch and appreciate one of the crowning gems of anime that is School Days, and for a few of us out there, a truly impeccable masterpiece.