School Days

Characters - The characters are ALL, ALL devoid of ANY logic. It is VERY clear that this anime started out as a visual novel. The characters are absolutely ridiculous. Almost nothing that they do makes sense. There is one character that you will feel empathy for, but only for a couple episodes. Very quickly this character turn into complete trash like the rest. Apparently every single girl in this show is insanely stupid. Girls in this show are portrayed to be walking sex dolls with JUST enough brain power to give consent to sex. The ONE THING that I will give to this show about ... the characters is that the girl cliques seemed pretty accurate, barring the random "herp derp, you know our best friend who we've been helping to get that guy that we've never talked to or met before? Let's all 3 of us go have a foursome and bang him". Cheating is as common as breathing air in this story. Doesn't matter that you've went through half of the girls in your school, your only consequence will be hearing the phrase, "Are you cheating on me? Promise me you won't do it again!" x 100. Here's my favorite bits of "logic" from this show:

I want you to stop cheating on my best friend! If you promise me you will, I'll let you cheat on her with me!

I came here to talk you into talking to your girlfriend, but hey, let's bang.

Story - "Love triangle" is putting it lightly. It's a love pyramid, with one guy at the top and his harem of women at the bottom. If I was reviewing some hentai visual novel, it'd make sense, but it doesn't fit well at all in this format. The story is literally a joke, and the person laughing is the writer, thinking to himself, "I can't believe people actually liked this". The ending of this show is so obvious, you'll see it coming way before it happens. What happens to the characters at the end would give you slight satisfaction if watched immediately after the first few episodes. However, by the time you actually see the end, it's too late to derive any enjoyment and wash away the horrible taste that this show has left in your mouth.

Comedy - You'll get a couple chuckles during the series. Although not enough to warrant watching it all. Most of the episodes in the second half are almost completely devoid of it. Sadly, the few laughs I had convinced me to continue watching the series. Big mistake.

Music - Can't really complain about the music. Nothing great, but nothing bad either.


1/10. Of all the manga I've read, anime I've seen, and visual novels I've played, I've NEVER thought of one so bad as to rate it 1/10, so you can imagine how it must be for me to rate it that. Save your time. You've been in non-existence for nearly 14 billion years. This is your once chance to fucking LIVE. Don't waste 4 hours on this pile of nonsense.

School Days the game was released a few years ago and it drew quite a bit of attention because of the fact that it was completely animated eroge. In addition, a 30 minute non-interactive ‘demo’ (it was basically the same thing as the first episode of the anime) was also subtitled when it came out. Watching this ‘demo’ gave me the impression that School Days had a very typical romance narrative. Well a few weeks later I saw several gifs of the 3 infamous endings. Like many, I when WTF!? and became excited when the anime was announced so I could ... see how such an ending would be possible. Although, I though that they would animate one of the more normal endings. Well thank goodness they didn’t because the ending was the only thing that made this train wreck worth watching.

At first School Days started off as a normal romance anime with your typical love triangle. However, a few episodes in the reason why I kept watching was not normal. I kept watching because I wanted to see what kind of messed up thing would happen next. It was pure morbid curiosity the kept me going. Sure there times I paused and started screaming at the idiocy but my morbid curiosity was too strong. School Days transformed into a stereotypical soap opera...wait scratch that. School Days transformed into a parody of a bad stereotypical soap opera. The actions of the characters were so over-the-top, sexually driven that one cannot help but laugh (or scream) at the idiocy. It was at this moment that I felt confident they would animate one of the bad endings. Interestingly enough they didn’t, instead the anime ending is on a level higher than the 3 bad endings combined in the game.

Once again the only reason why anyone should watch School Days is for the awesome train wreck that it is School Days as well as the ‘Nice Boat’ ending. The animation was almost identical to the game, but for anime standards it was quite poor. Art wise I guess it was ok, its saving grace was the fact that the school uniform mandates zettai ryouki. This is something that all school uniforms should have!...ahem anyway... Characters as mentioned above are complete idiots and the most mature/sensible ones are Kokoro (Kotonoha’s little sister) and her friend. They did do a good job with Makoto’s character, by this I mean he was designed to be hated and you will be hard pressed to find anyone that likes Makoto. In addition, this hatred is important in setting up the most important thing in School Days, the ending.

So why should anyone watch this? Well there are a few reasons. First, just to see first hand what ‘Nice Boat’ is all about. If you watch 2 episodes and drop it, that’s ok but if you watch more than 3 you must watch it all, else you will have wasted your time. I believe that the primary purpose to animating this was to show/set up an ending far worst than that of the game. In a way School Days can be considered one of the biggest fanservice anime titles out there. Second, out of pure morbid curiosity, admittedly this was the reason why I started/kept watching. That is until I was confident about a bad/bloody ending.

A pitfall for many shows that attempt to be dark and mature is that they often mistaken edginess for depth. They present dark world views, display acts of immorality and cruelty, all under the misconception that they are laying bare some dark truth of the world. For an example, look no further than this infamous 12 episode anime series. School Days is the perfect picture of a show that confuses sadism for pessimistic insight. This is a show that is thoroughly patience testing in its sheer unpleasantness; saved from the bottom of the barrel only by the karmic bite of its conclusion. While its ambition ... (to put a dark twist on teenage romance) is quite an interesting one, the show sacrifices human dignity and decency in its attempt to shock us, and becomes too mean-spirited to stand with any sort of validity.

School Days starts simply enough, like all high school romance shows, with a crush. High school student Makoto Itou has a crush on Kotonoha Katsura, a pretty but quite girl from another class. He's had his eye on her for some time, but is unsure of how to approach her. That is until the girl that sits next to him in class, Sekai Saonji, finds out about his crush and decides to help him. After some effort, they succeed, and Makoto and Kotonoha start a timid relationship; while Sekai hides the feelings she has developed for Makoto. Problems begin to emerge when Makoto wants to take the next big step in their relationship, namely having sex, but Kotonoha is less comfortable with rushing things. Makoto looks to Sekai for help, and after some convincing by Makoto the two begin to participate in "practice sessions". Thus, School Days simple romance turns into a profoundly screwed up tale of infidelity, which might have been compelling if it was handled with the maturity and delicacy such a story requires. Alas, this isn't the case.

The biggest and most apparent problem is the characters. The thoroughly unlikeable, usually flat-out despicable characters. Makoto is simply a terrible protagonist. At first he seems like a completely generic rom-com male lead, then as the story continues, he turns into an irredeemable sex-crazed sleaze. His development is essentially like watching plain yogurt become moldy spoiled yogurt. As the series progresses, Makoto spouts lie after lie while completely disregarding the feelings of everyone around him, especially his supposed love interests. When he gets tired of Kotonoha, he avoids and ignores her while starting a sexual relation with Sekai. When he gets tired of Sekai, he moves on to having sex with every girl he comes into contact with, including Sekai's BFF, Setsuna. Any momentary kindness he displays feels like a forced attempt to make him sympathetic, which fails because he is a loathsome little worm. Makoto is such a profound scuzzbad, and his actions so despicable and far removed from what a feeling human being would do; it becomes impossible to empathize with him. It becomes impossible to feel anything other than boiling rage toward him. This might have been the show's intent, but it hardly excuses the mean-spirited lengths the show goes to, and it certainly isn't good characterization. Makoto is one-dimensional scum, and for the show to try to pass him off as an average teenage boy who is misguided because of sexual desires is outright insulting.

Sekai, for her part, is just as despicable in her own two-faced way. She's often shown feeling guilty about having sex with Makoto while he is in a relationship, yet she continues to do so because she's in "love" with him. She even lets people incorrectly think that she's his girlfriend at one point, and lets Setsuna harass Kotonoha about being around Makoto. This is a character that the show expects us to sympathize for. Kotonoha is easily the most sympathetic of the three leads, but doesn't make her likeable, nor does it make her a well written character. She's just the nice, timid girl... until she loses her mind. The stress and paranoia from her strained relationship drives Kotonoha insane in almost comedic fashion; by mid-series she's walking around dead-eyed and delusional, having imaginary phone conversations. Both girls are very unflattering depictions of their gender, each in their own way. However, both share the most undignified of characteristics: their obsessive and unhealthy love for Makoto.

Of course, this might have not happened if every other girl in the show wasn't a bitch to Kotonoha. Majority of the supporting cast, which mainly consists of girls, are there to be horrible to Kotonoha or have sex with Makoto... or (most likely ) both. Even the only guy in the show besides Makoto is a horn-dog who only makes things worse. Herein lies the reason School Days twisted drama doesn't work, none of these characters feel like people, let alone high school students. They are nothing more than mean-spirited caricatures; driven only by an obsession with sex and shallow feelings they take for love, and devoid of any of the other passions or anxieties that people would have at that age. This robs the show of any potential poignancy; since all these characters are lacking humanity, there isn't anything to relate with or sympathize for. All that is left is a mess of unpleasantness.

Still, that isn't to say there is no reward for those who have the patience to sit through this unpleasantness. School Days concludes with a violent flash of karma. I'll restrain myself from giving away any details (though I'm sure most already know what happens), but suffice to say that it is satisfying to watch characters get some well deserved comeuppance. It isn't really enough to forgive all the anger inducing smut that came before, but does enough to qualify it as a guilty pleasure for those who enjoy watching miserable excuses for people learn that karma is a bitch... the hard way. (i.e. me)

Visually, School Days looks like most visual novel adaptations. Character designs with big eyes and cute faces, wearing neat school uniforms. Backgrounds that comprise of the usual class rooms, apartments, rooftops and cityscapes. This isn't of any surprise as the show is adapted from a visual novel, and attempts to be a deconstruction of sorts for the genre. The music is also reminiscent of most visual novel adaptations, though some tracks are a bit more focused on evoking shock or dread. Unfortunately, it isn't all that effective nor well composed; it almost feels just tacked on to some scenes. Sometimes it is unnoticeable, other times distracting. The inset song that plays at the climactic scene in the final episode is oddly fitting and certainly memorable, though the latter might just be because the scene it is featured in.

School Days is a failed attempt at a dark subversion of school romance dramas. Sure, it took dark shocking twists that turn some tropes of the genre on their heads, but ultimately it was all for naught. In all its effort to shock and offend us, the show throws out any notions of human decency and consequently gives us almost nothing to connect to. As a result, it comes across as extremely juvenile; something a disgruntled teenager who has no idea what he is talking about would write and claim as a deconstruction of the romance genre. It is a vile, horribly convinced, poorly written monstrosity. It must be said, however, that School Days isn't something easily forgotten. It's the kind of bad that will linger in your head long after you finish it. At the very least, the ending will most certainly be burned into your mind.

Story: What can I say about the storyline? It has its up's and downs as well as its "WTF" and "...". I can already see the creator of School Days trying to portray an image to the viewers that this is typically a normal life of a teenager would lead, but forgetting that not every teenager leads this type of life. Getting deeper into this, I would say the moral of this story goes beyond your ordinary imagination of ecchi and romance. All I can say is, prepare yourself for a story like no other, a story that even sometimes exist in reality and that ... things like this can happen. From emotions to physical pain, happiness, WTF moments and moments where not even a word can express what this anime is about. It's all for the.. you know what? I'm just going too 'cheat' my way through this review. Haha.

Art: I'm not one to judge on the art, but sometimes I have a hard time picking out who's who. That is if you are looking specifically at the eyes! The art is on a level that isn't medium, neither low. It's something good enough to get you through the dreading 12 episodes. Aside from the ecchi, the art is well drawn for a kid who's taking anime art class!

Sound: Not much to say about sound, but there is a few songs that were thrown into the anime that caught my attention. I believe because of that, I actually didn't move my hand to the mouse to skip some of the parts that made me angry.

Character: Okay! Aside from all the whores, sluts and the main character. I gave this score a two for ONE good reason. If you are reading this review before you start watching it, I suggest you keep your focus on Kotonoha Katsura. She is sweet, innocent, shy, new to relationships and very what's that word. Hm, figure it out yourself when you watch it. Katsura, deserve a +1 in my case, else wise I would of gave each and every character a 1 (too bad they don't have 0's). The characters each played a special role and possibly at one point, I felt the same way one of them felt. Trying to relate was something I did with each and every one of the character, sadly. It did not work out. They are all emotional and selfish! Like really now. From what I believe the creator of School Days, took love and just tossed it around like it was a volleyball thus creating a crazy atmosphere of insanely robotic girls wanting to kill and sex the next guy. Haha, do you believe me?

Enjoyment: PATHETIC. IF YOU WANT TO BE ANGRY THEN THIS IS THE ANIME YOU WANT TO WATCH! Don't miss out on a chance to call each and every character, BAKA!!!!!

Overall: I want my 12 x 30 = ?? time back. Thank you, no extra charge.

This review WILL contain spoilers.

When I first got into School Days, I didn' know what I was getting myself into. I had heard about it, by people who either loved it or hated it. So I didn't know what to expect from it.

2 years later, I still don't know exactly what I watched.

Story: 4

The premise of School Days is simple; boy falls in love with girl but he doesn't exactly know how to approache her, so he gets help from another girl to get them together. Pretty innocent, right? Sure, I thought the same thing, a cute couple with a change of love blooming. Thing ... is, this is where things start to get out of control. He soon starts fooling around with other women, sleeping around with any girl who seems interested enough, basically saying "f*ck you" to everyone and the viewer. So I'm supposed to support this guy...? It's this out of the blue BS that gets thrown to your face, attepting to surprise to viewer.

I know it's regarded as "psychological", and that "it's not supposed to be perfect because love's not perfect" blah, blah. I didn't see it. I only saw sh*tty decisions made by sh*tty characters.

The only reedeming thing about it, if I'd had to say, it's probably it's infamous endind that, if you haven't seen or even heard about, I won't spoil it for you. It's almost majestic. Just gonna say "nice boat." Yup.
Art: 5

It's a hit or miss. It's neither good or bad. I've seen worse. Some scenes look nice and others look dreadful. Okay-ish animation.

Sound: 5

Again, hit or miss. Some of the voice actors sound horrible, i.e Sekai. Soundtrack is eh.

Characters: 2

Seriously, the characters are the main reason I have such hatred towards this anime. Makoto f*cking Ito is probably the most pathetic, disgusting character I've ever had the misfortune of laying my eyes in. He has absolutely no godamn respect towards ANY of the characters he interacts (aka f*cks around with), is a selfish individual, and plays the victim when blamed for something. He has absolutely no personality whatsoever, he's basically a cardboardbox. Except not, because even cardboardboxes are more useful than him.

"Oh, no, yeah he's a unlikeable character, but that doesn't make him a bad character!" Yes, it does. He's a disgusting character, he's not "deeply messed up, such emo, much need for the v" no, he's simply disgusting. Get over it.

Any other characters (which is 99% females, seriously, there's only two guys counting Makoto is this school, what the flying f*ck happened to the male population) are bland, maybe with the exception of Kotonoha, because seriously, I felt bad most of the time for her. The others were either sluts he slept with or unimportant characters.

Enjoyment: 2

No. No, no, no. Most of the time I was facepalming at the stupidity of the whole situation and how low life Makoto was. I was enraged, just hoping for the episodes to end so I could just get it over with. The only thing that brought me joy was the ending. I burst out laughing. It was beautiful.

Overall: 3

I hear that the visual novels are better. Can't confirm, since I never played them nor do I plan to. But this is by far the worst thing I ever had to sit through, and I would not recommend to anyone. Really. It's a waste of time.

School days is a terrible show that is completely dependent on its ending. Otherwise, it wouldn't even be relevant to us.

Think about it, remove that "moment" from this show and what do we get? A poorly animated, poorly written story that needs a big kick at the end to leave somewhat of an impression.

None of the characters in this show are likable, and all of them are simply nonsensical. There's nothing special about the male MC, and yet all the girls are flaunting their bodies to him. Sekai is a braindead character. Just watching her made me lose some brain cells. Why did she introduce ... a girl to the guy that she likes? Is love a game to her? (clearly it's not) Also, associating the word "love" to this show is blasphemy. If you think that this show is about love, you are misguided. This show sucks so bad that even the author realized it.

So instead of ending it normally, he decided to make an unforgettable ending to make up for the disgrace of a story he came up with. And it was still terrible.

School Days is just one giant piece of fanservice, and that is it. If you are looking for your typical high school romance, this is not it. This anime takes the "perverted harem" genre to a whole new level-with some surprising and extremely unneccessary twists. The anime starts out average enough- you have your unexperienced, yet cute main boy, the shy girl he has a crush on, and the tsunedere who secretly likes him, but is in denial. The first half of the series revolves around their love triangle. Interesting enough.Throw in some uneccessary boob, crotch, and panty shots while you're at it.
Then all of ... a sudden, Makoto (the guy) becomes a manwhore. All of a sudden, every female cast member has a crush on him, despite prior interactions, and he has sex with them all. You really grow to feel bad for the two original girls-Sekai and Katsura- who still love Makoto, despite him being a horny bastard. Katsura, especially, is bullied for unneccessary reasons. The later half of the series is just random, pointless sex- which makes sense, considering School Days is also a hentai game.
The climax of the series is what this anime is best known for. I will not write any spoilers, but it is unexpected and VERY creepy.
Some may say this anime takes a "psychological" look at high school relationships. If you want a psychological view on high school relationships, please watch Kare Kano. This is mindless fodder. In one of the episodes, some of the girls place a video camera in a room at the school festival where kids have sex and then show the tape to everyone, for crying out loud!
Don't waste your time on this unless you're really perverted, or you're curious to why the fuck it ends the way it does.

Overview:

Today we review School Days. A tale set in Victorian London that serves as an example to children of how to become an ideal British gentlemen. Wait...that's Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes! What are we reviewing? Oh GOD NO! Unfortunately, we will be looking at that OTHER School Days. (sighs heavily).

Plot: 3/10

The plot is that there is an obnoxious little shit named Makoto that is filled with angst that he is in high school and is still a virgin. So this is going to be an anime American Pie right? Right? No, instead we have to see this guy plow every girl ... in the grade and have zero remorse when he breaks their hearts. Why the girls keep falling for this creep is never really established other than the tired stereotype of "girls like bastards". Although this almost seems like it could be interesting or some kind of thought provoking critique of teen sex comedies, this series wallows in poorly written melodrama and the first half is SLOW as a 3 toed sloth moving through jello. Will Makoto eventually get his comeuppance? Honestly, who cares!? After about episode 5 you will just want to quit. Only continue if you are a true masochist!

Characters: 4/10

I gave it a few extra points by having the balls to have such a complete scum bag as the main character. At least School Days had some guts, even if it is just based on the concept of making all the bad choices in an ero dating sim. The main girls are Sekai and Kotonoha, and I honestly hated both of them! A lot! There isn't a single character in this cesspool that makes you feel attached to them or cheer for them! Other than maybe one of Kotonoha's actions in episode 13. I cheered for that at least!

Sound: 5/10

The soundtrack is average. It isn't great, but it isn't horrendous either.

Art: 7/10

The art is actually pretty good. If I had to pick a "highlight" in this piece of shit, it would be the character art. Makoto does have one of those faces that you just want to punch again and again ala Ladd Russo from Baccano!

Enjoyment: 2/10

This series is about as fun as getting an arrow shot through your neck, and then finding a gas bill attached.

Overall: 3/10

I'm honestly not sure why I rated this as high as I did. I guess the art is actually decent, it has some production value, and it took a chance being ballsy. At times it almost seemed like it could have worked. Perhaps as a black comedy that critiques and skewers teen sex comedies. Unfortunately, this series lacked direction and any kind of proper execution.

School days is probably one of the most boring anime I've watched. I've watched plenty of romance anime and have enjoyed them, but from the first episode I was already bored and only continued watching for the ending, which once I saw I was indifferent about it. So this anime get's such a low rating because it's boring. If you're looking for drama go look somewhere else because if you're like me you'll only be disappointed and bored.

The entire story sucks and takes forever to get going and once it does it ends pretty quickly. I also thought the characters are all rather unlikeable. I ... can't seem to find anything to counterblance that. When you have a story that can be done in about two or three episodes you should do it in two or three episodes to avoid boring people who actually expect something well done. So for a crappy prolonged story that's rather who cares to begin with I can't give it a higher score.

School Days known to be one of the worst anime ever due to popular belief in the anime community. I only went into this out of pure curiosity about how terrible School Days actually is and to give out a personal opinion for the sake of reviewing it. Is it as bad as the anime community says it is?

Story (5/10)

School Days had a mediocre through the first episodes. Nothing really meaningful at the least and some morally idiotic decisions by none other by Makoto himself. It was boring to watch, but first half was overall 50/50. The second half? I'll get to that later into ... the review. Now we get to the last two episodes. At the end of episode 11, I was actually surprised that such a scene existed in this dreadful anime. I 'd say it was the best part of School Days. The only good part of it anyways. However, I didn't feel anything that made me feel the scene. In fact, I was still frustrated at certain characters during the scene that it interferes with with the emotion. And we get to the last episode. It's just the three main characters making some of the idiotic decisions ever. The stuff that made the twists are very illogical. This was without a doubt the worst part of School Days

Art & Sound (5/10)

School Days doesn't seem too appealing with the art & sound. The Art just seems bland all the way through and there were no soundtracks that stood out to me. The arts overall are just flat out mediocre. However, the arts are the least of problems.

Character (1/10)

This is by far the worst cast of anime characters I've ever seen. I found none of them to be likeable at all. the cast is so terrible that it drags the story into piss poor condition. I'm only going to mention the three main characters. First we got Makoto Itou. This guy is just the worst and he knows it, but doesn't seem to have a care in the world. Makoto just makes all his decisions without thinking about certain people without a damn given. His decisions at the first half were not done near as frequently as the second half. He make me yell at the screen every time he showed up in the second half. Sekai Saionji. This character didn't make sense from the beginning. she caused Makoto to go follow his instints, but Makoto had a choice. Sekai just sometimes makes some horribly illogical decisions like in the last episode. Now Kotonoha Katsura. From the beginning, she was the only character that I could tolerate, but her direction of being overly attached to someone like Makoto just makes an unlikable path for Kotonoha. The others? No! everyone just go to hell. I'm done!

School Days does deserve the reputation it gets. If your going to watch it to review it? Your funeral. If you are just looking for enjoyment? This will piss you the hell off. One of the worst anime I've seen thus far.

Overall (2/10)

School Days is based off an eroge of the same name released some time ago. Already a problem arises: the producers intended to translate this type of game into an airing tv series. Seriously now...

The game is basically a series of animations cued depending on whichever branching paths the player inputs. There are 3 possible endings for the game, which we'll look into a little further into this review.

There's the male protagonist, Makoto, his female friend Sekai (oshit, no wai!), and some other girl the guy's interested in Katsura. Words cannot even begin to describe how ridiculously predictable this seems. Basically, ... its a love triangle, guy gets new girl, other girl gets jealous, BOOM! congradulations a bloody fricken original plot is born....again...for the 407th time. You'd think that this is your standard romance story, but oh hoh no. it get worse. Worse beyond belief. Again, we'll look into it a little further down. What's tragic is that there are some decent themes that could have been emphasized like destroying friendships for your own selfish desires.

Characters. The elements that either captivate viewers with their performances enchanting them into progressing further and further along the story OR f*ck it up. School days...does both. No I'm not a pothead. These children have the sexual instincts of sewer rats, emotional habits of blueberries and personalities that almost shine brighter than sandpaper. Seriously, the actions each character exhibits causes one to cry oneself to sleep shortly after the ending theme starts every episode. At least, that's how i reacted. Others may howl in terror or laugh in disbelief. These stereotypes cannot seem to grasp common sense and strictly rely on their sexual urges and...even more sexual urges. I couldnt believe this was actually happening. Do japanese highschoolers really get into this sh*t? What really drove me to keep watching until the end was to see how much sh*t these kids got into. In a way, it was worth it to finally see them drown in it.

The art direction gets the job done (whatever sick job it is) and delivers recognizeable backgrounds and characters. However, I've seen stick figure with more life than these characters exhibit. Although easily recognizeable the models are boring as hell and are terribly bland.

The sound is easily School Days' highest point. Unbelieveably, the songs are impressive and the voice acting, while lacking personality and passion, delivers enough to give whatever life it can to the characters. But seeing as all this seems to go to waste being used in a failed abortion such as this, the bubbling sound of ripping ass at least seems more entertaining.

*WARNING SPOILERS IN NEXT 2 PARAGRAPH*
It's truly amazing how the these kids would willingly let themselves be fondled by douchebags just to practice for another girl. wtf. Sekai, who secretly loves Makoto says she lets him go for Katsura because she loves him and wants to support him. seriously what the fucking shit. The parents of these kids seem to not notice or give a shit when they hear the bed springs in their daughter's room bending and the sound of moaning ang groaning seeps through the walls. Oyea and realizing "Oh noes, vat hav i done!" after you stab a guy to death requires no comment...

The real element that makes this series legendary is the "nice boat" ending. It is an original ending which differed from the three endings of the game. in the game: (1) Sekai + makoto walk along bridge, Katsura shows up, slices Sekai's neck, blood shoots out her neck like a garden hose, and Katsura laughs like a Joker. (2) Sekai stabs Makoto at beach...thats it. and (3) the two bitches get along and are just about to have a threesome.
The anime ending: Sekai stabs Makoto in room and Katsura takes head, kills sekai and checks her womb for bebez, then drifts off on her nice boat grasping makoto's decapitated head into her tits and she lived happily ever after. the fuckin end.

If anything, I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to see how f*cked some animes can be, how cliched they can be, how an overused love triangle theme is f*cked with to the lowest degree, or how many times this series spells ass. You'll despise the characters for their utter stupidity and you will enjoy their plummet into hell. Also, if you want to know why the fuck people are talking about the "nice boat" either in public or 4chan, watch it and love to hate it as i have.

Oyea one more thing. I'm not entirely sure but i think in the game, every other girl in the anime gets fucked........as in...by makoto........in the vagina

words cannot describe how much I hate this show. the characters the story, just about every thing made me mad.

Story- starts out innocently enough with the usual guy trying to get a girl, and he does, in the first episode. and it just goes downhill from there. the guy, Makoto, cant seem to do anything right for his new found girlfriend, so he ends up cheating on her. thats about the jist of it, all thats left is the flurry of lust that follows. with women throwing themselves at makoto, and he just soaks it all in.

Art- the art is about the only decent thing ... about this anime. while the character designs were rather bland and didnt offer anything new, but they were clean and crisp with fluid animations.

Sound- I couldnt bring myself to watch the opening all the way through, nor could I do so for the ending. the voic acting was decent, but again, nothing out of the ordinary.

Character- This was by far the worst part about this show. all of the characters are greedy and only out for themselves. there is nothing redeeming about any of them. not to mention the total 180 degree turn that the three main characters make about 4 episodes in, they completely change their mindsets. I thought that I could compare to Makoto, because I had gone through similar things. right up until episode 4 when everything changes, from there he just becomes more of a pig just lusting after any woman that talks to him. by the end he just does whatever can get his jollies.

Enjoyment- two thumbs down. so far down that I had to cut off my thumbs and bury them six feet under ground.

Everyone hates School Days. Thing is, no one hates it for the reasons it’s actually bad.

School Days is infamous for its extremely dark ending and despicable protagonist, but what most people don’t understand about School Days is *why* it has them. The answer to that is because it’s meant to be a deconstruction of the harem genre—or, more accurately, the galgame genre, as it’s adapted from a visual novel. And therein lies the kicker.

Part of why School Days fails is that it is a visual novel adaptation.

The main character, one Makoto Itou, is someone meant clearly for audience projection. You, the assumed male target audience, ... are meant to imagine yourself as him. In fact, his personality varies wildly depending on your choices in the VN because he is not a real person; he’s an audience insert. So, bringing that to the silver screen is immediately less effective.

Now, I’m not saying it’s impossible for audience-inserts to work outside of interactive mediums. There are plenty of audience inserts in television and other non-interactive mediums out there, and they have proven to be effective at drawing in an audience (if they weren’t, we wouldn’t have dozens of mass-produced isekai cheat-skill slave harem light novel schlock every season). What I *am* saying is that it does not work for School Days, as not only is it adapted from a visual novel, but it’s adapted from a visual novel where *your choices matter.* When bad things happen to Makoto Itou as a consequence of his actions, they’re actually bad things happening to *you,* as consequences of *your* actions, because the story is sending a harsh anti-infidelity message to you, the player, directly.

When bad things happen to Makoto Itou as a result of your choices, you think, “damn, I guess I should have chosen to stay faithful.” When bad things happen to Makoto Itou as a result of *his* choices, you think “man, this guy fucking sucks.”

And, of course, it’s certainly not impossible to deliver your story’s message by way of having a character who does bad things who you’re not supposed to emulate who makes the audience think “wow, fuck this guy.” Just the opposite, in fact. Generally, most works of fiction aiming to send some sort of message require a bad guy who does terrible things in order to do so. However, it only comes off as effective if this bad guy was written as a complex, meaningful villain from the get-go. Makoto Itou was not initially written as a complex, meaningful villain. He was written as a blank-slate audience insert.

When a character does bad things, you are supposed to find it compelling and interesting. You’re supposed to think “wow, what an intriguing antagonist!” Makoto Itou does not make anybody feel that way. Rather, he instills a violent rage in everyone who sees him because he is nothing but unpleasant to watch on screen. His villainy is not compelling or interesting; it just makes me wonder why I’m watching a guy do terrible things for no reason.

I wouldn’t even call his descent from amicable, friendly guy to sex-addicted woman abuser interesting either, because, as an audience insert, he had absolutely nothing going for him before his descent. The only thing he had going for him was being a vessel for the player’s choices and now he isn’t. He is an absolutely nothing character.

However, this is not the only reason why being a VN adaptation makes it fail. The other reason is that the VN sucks too.

School Days is an eroge. It is a porn game first and foremost. This takes away from its message. When you are focused on providing trashy porn to your audience first, any moral message immediately gets lost (and yes, the hentai scenes *are* trashy. I’ve seen them). Like, why is this fucking seedy hentai game telling me not to cheat? Lmao.

If it only had tasteful eroge scenes, I could be more on board, but that is not the case.

The fact that it’s adapted from an eroge is blatantly obvious with the high amounts of fanservice present. Sorry, I couldn’t hear that moral message you’re screaming at me, I was too distracted by the bouncing boobs and panty shots.

And at the end of the day, I just can’t take a message about the mistreatment of women seriously when it’s trapped under layers upon layers of the male gaze. It doesn’t respect women enough to send this message; it hasn’t earned it. This is an erotic story for men about the abuse of women pretending it’s not trashy as all hell by dropping an anvil on your head about how cheating is bad. If you’re going to be trashy, at least own it.

I think the biggest example of how the men making this game clearly don’t actually care about or understand women well enough to send this message is that there’s an almost *random* rape scene at the beginning of episode ten for absolutely no reason. It adds nothing to the story and could be removed without consequence. It’s there for cheap, quick sympathy for poor Kotonoha. Because the female characters in School Days aren’t really people. They’re objects for the audience’s desire/pity who sometimes get violent to drive home how bad cheating on your girlfriend is. It’s moe before it’s a message.

The worst part about it is that I *love* the idea of a violent, dark deconstruction of harems/galgames about how damaging cheating can be. Unfortunately, School Days is too busy being dominated by the male gaze.

That being said, there actually *is* one thing about it that the masses are correct about hating:

Pacing.

The show drops pretty much no hints that it’s going to deconstruct the genre until you're well over halfway through the show, which is much too long. Before that point, it’s a regular love triangle school romance. It’s not until you’re over six of the twelve episodes into the show that it even starts dropping *hints* that it’s actually more sinister—and even then it’s still misleading. Based on the previous five episodes, the tone shift in episode six reads more just like a romantic scandal par-for-the-course in a drama series rather than any sign it’ll go in a horror direction.

And even still, the dark tone isn’t totally clear by episode six. If you’re being generous (or rather, trusting), it’s not 100% clear for three more episodes.

It isn’t until the very end of episode *nine* that it becomes clear Makoto isn’t just a flawed protagonist but an irredeemable character, and it’s not until episode *eleven* of *twelve* that his behavior goes from scummy to actual supervillain behavior. He was just an indecisive, horny two-timer for 80% of the show before becoming a full-on womanizing sex maniac in the span of a single episode.

And that feels like straight up tricking the audience. I guess you could argue that Makoto’s horny behavior and two-timing is what foreshadows his sex-crazed villainy, but that alone is not enough to foreshadow the dark things to come when it otherwise looks like a normal romance anime for most of the duration. And not even a good romance anime too! Most of the show is just a mediocre and generic romance anime before it suddenly gets super dark.

And what’s more, even once it picks up a darker tone, the gory ending feels like it essentially comes out of nowhere; a dark tone alone is not enough to foreshadow blood and death. Seriously, I doubt anyone was expecting it to end with bloodshed the way that it did. The violence feels weirdly out of character, even considering his broken the girls are, because it did absolutely nothing to establish either of them, as someone who would do this sort of thing.

Obviously plot twists need time to execute, and things need time to get worse. But I’ve heard many stories of people tricked by this show because it looks like a regular love triangle/harem romance for half of the show if you are skeptical, and 80% of the show if you are generous.

Compare it to its infamous rival, Higurashi, which also plays with the harem VN genre in a gory (albeit completely different) way. Higurashi *opens* with a scene that not only warns you of the gore to come, but uses it as a hook to draw audiences in. After cutting to slice of life shenanigans, it makes sure to once again foreshadow the bloodshed at the end of the first episode, and continues to do so until the big moment. It also has a tonally appropriate OP, as opposed to School Days.

Now, I’m not saying your gory deconstruction needs to start with gore from the get-go, or that the foreshadowing needs to be as obvious as Higurashi’s, but I *am* saying you need to pace it well, (seriously the story shouldn’t wait until it’s well over *halfway* over to even so much as drop a hint that it’s going to be a dark story), and if a character is going to get violent, it needs to feel in-character for them.

Anyways, I figure I might as well end this review with my favorite fact about the School Days franchise, just for fun:

Makoto Itou is canonically bisexual.

I am not joking or exaggerating. In one of the spin-off games, you can make him fall in love with a guy! Granted, it’s mostly just more trashy porn (but this time for people in the otokonoko/trap audience), but he says “aishiteru” while balls deep in a man, so take it as you will. The funniest part is that in this game, Makoto is not the protagonist who is able to wind up on the route of a cute femboy. The *femboy* is the protagonist, and he can end up on *Makoto’s* route. Makoto didn’t get a gay option—he *became* the gay option. Extra funny considering I can’t imagine anyone in the audience wanting to date Makoto since, as I stated before, he was created as a blank slate for audience projection. It should be the other way around. I guess you’re just supposed to ignore that you’re playing as the femboy and not him.

This is the funniest yaoi route to ever exist. Diversity win! The guy who broke the minds of two women by horribly mistreating and cheating on them is bisexual!

If I think about School Days any longer my brain is going to melt.

Remember everyone, it is always correct and moral to slut shame Makoto Itou!

That’s all folks. Have a good night.

Now onto the very controversial School Days. School Days isn't your average slice of life romance where the character never chooses a girl. In fact, Makoto, the main protagonist, makes the choice of getting all of them.

Story: 4/10
School Days has the advantage of having no plot holes whatsover. Moreover, its story manages to piss off the viewer in less than 4 episodes making it a torture to watch. After seeing it, you'll even find Guilty Crown good. Its pure awesomeness resides in the fact that once the story is settled you cannot feel anything but hatred towards this anime if you haven't dropped it ... yet that is. I love how the story has no incoherent developpement (except for the characters but I'll talk about it later) and even manages to please the viewer with its awesome ending. Personnally, I couldn't do anything but love the way School Days ended; it was a burst of freedom.

Art: 1/8
The art is just bad. I mean, even for a 2007 anime, the girls aren't even cute and the backgrounds look sooooo freaking rushed.

Sound: 1/8
Bad OST, bad OP, bad ED (did it even have one?). I mean, since the story wasn't great, I didn't expect much in the artistic domain and guess what ? I didn't get much !

Character: 1/10
Why can't I rate it 0! The characters in School Days are beyond illogical. It isn't the sort of "illogical" humans can be, it's beyond that. They act in random ways. The character developpement is present within the first few episodes and then it becomes a senseless massacre. The way the chararacters interacted with Makoto was incoherent. Girls went to bed too easily. The script was written in such a bad way, and it is easy to see that it crumbles 3 episodes into the anime. There is still a sub-plot which stays good until it ends but that's about it.

Enjoyment: 1/10
I've never harbored such feelings of hatred towards an anime. I have to praise School Days for making me feel something while watching it. I quite 'liked' how it pictured the vile human nature but it wasn't realistic enough for me to buy it.

Overall: 1.6/10
A lot of anime come of as average and are easily forgetten but that isn't the case with School Days. This rollercoaster of nothingness manages to make you hate the main protagonist so much and pity all the girls. Kenji was right, it's a conspiracy.

Well, that's about it for School Days. Also, no offense but people who say School Days is good because it is a psychological anime are just fucking with you or are trying to play smart. There may be some people who genuinely appreciated this anime but I don't think they are numerous.

Have a nice time watching it, that is if you ever want to watch it.

The rage i have for this anime is so overwhelming that I am seriously contemplating filling this review with nothing but fuck loads of swear words.

I fucking HATE this anime.

Ladies and Gentlemen, do NOT be deceived by the title of this anime, it is not as innocent as one may think. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for animes that surprise you and turn out to be slightly more disturbing than one may expect, so it was'nt the element of surprise that put me off this anime...

NEVER have i come across such pathetic excuse for characters in my anime life-span. The girls are weak, ... stupid as fuck, annoying, and disgraceful. And as for the one main male character (known as Makoto) .. ... Well where the fuck do I even begin.


It's unbelievably complex to describe why i hate Makoto so much without any spoilers, so instead enjoy this list of British swear words that perfectly describe him:

- Dickhead
-Twat
-Cunt
-Bellend
-Wanker
- Bastard
-Plonker


Don't get me wrong, there are moments in the anime that are quite funny and show tremendous potential. The first few episodes looked promising, especially with Sekai's personality leaving one to think 'awww isn't she just so cute.' (She alone is the reason why this anime is a 3/10 and not anything lower.As for the other characters... well just watch the series and you'll see for yourself how pathetic they are).


It really is a shame how much this anime sucked.. the story had so much potential.. But before you know it any excitement or positivity felt towards the series will gradually diminish with every episode.


Would I recommend this anime to anyone? NO. I also strongly advise any type of feminist to stay away. YOU WILL THROW YOUR LAPTOP OUT THE WINDOW.

Story:

On the surface, School Days appears to exist simply so it can torture fans of the harem genre. But in actuality, it is a deconstruction/satire with morals (“be faithful to your significant other” “don’t treat Women like objects”). However, what lies underneath is not the only thing that matters. The journey from event to event moves at a grueling pace, padded with dialogue, fan service (which operates against the “don’t treat Women like objects” moral), and gags that fall flat. The events themselves are melodramatic, and supported by illogical actions and cruelty. We are given no prior indication that the characters are capable of what ... they do at the end, so while the ending is shocking and memorable, it seems to come from nowhere. Personally, I felt that there was not enough content to properly fill 12 episodes.

Art:

When scenes take place in a populated area, background characters rarely move. This may be true to the original game, but as an anime it comes off as lazy. The female characters have pointy chins, pointy noses, and the same type of animesque eyes. Without the distinct hairstyles, I wouldn’t know the difference between girls. The animation mostly focuses on close-ups, while long shots are almost always a still frame. The color and shading is nothing spectacular, but it is fine.

Sound:

‘Kanashimi no Mukou e’ is a very memorable song. Other than that, I cannot recall a single note. The theme is forgettable, and the sound-effect gags used in the first couple episodes did nothing for me. The voice acting is good, but in all fairness I’ve never seen a sub anime where the voice actors were terrible. Overall, I’d say there isn’t much to notice in the sound department.

Characters:

Makoto starts off as a goofy, likable guy. Personally, I can understand why he started doing what he did, but as the show progressed he became cruel to near sociopathic levels. Sekai was vapid; her oblivious nature is taken to comically stupid levels at times. Kotonoha is meant to be the innocent, naive character but I found her to be rather boring. Come to think of it, there was not a character in this show who was not either boring, vapid, cruel, or naive. There is nobody to relate to, and as the show progressed, it became harder to empathize with anyone.

Enjoyment:

I thought this show was a boring waste of time. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed the OVA’s way more than I did this anime. The characters do not act like people, intended messages become blurred through hypocrisy, the plot moves slowly and covers very little, and at the end we are left with an ending that amounts to shock value.

I'd recommend School Days to anyone who hates harems and has the patience of a saint.

Updating:

I am personally amazed that I managed to actually finish this show, but I some how kept hoping it would get better... and it didn't.

The first few episodes were like "okay, this is okay, generic, perverted, but okay"
then it turned into "okay, now just perverted and depressing, fanatical and insane"
only to transform into "what the bleeding hell were the writers thinking?!"
and by the end "..."

All I can say is that this anime was relatively well done, for the type of show it is. So if you like your characters/plot sadistic, perverted, masochistic, insane, psycho and overly dramatic, you should watch this show.
...
However, if you like your characters with a modicum of sanity, reasonable pervertedness, a tad of humor, and generally all their braincells... don't watch this. You might end up killing something, someone, or yourself.


My two cents, and now I shall go watch something that's not a total waste of time.


=^.^=

*CONTAINS SPOILERS*
Oh great, some random person ranting about this anime and how awful it is. Well, you're not wrong if you thought that, but there was something that intrigued me.

For starters, I came across this anime by accident. Just browsing through romance anime ( like a normal guy (not really) ). And the brief introduction about this show caught my attention.

So as I watched the first episode, I knew that this isn't your regular romance anime. It was rather different from the ones I've watched. Just your classmate kissing you after school when she hooked you up with some ... girl in another class. As you do on a regular basis.

As I went on, the protagonist changes. His personality, his desire, his conscience and his reputation of himself. In the beginning, he was just a shy, caring person looking for a miracle. In the end, he lost everything, including his virginity. ( and his life I know)

The plot was fair, which could happen to some people in reality, which is completely fine, but what I dislike is the unnecessary H scenes involved. (never thought a guy would dislike this?)

What I despised most was the characters, mainly the protagonist. He was so insanely eccentric from reality and is completely nuts. I mean seriously, reading porn on a date, has he no shame? Also, getting your classmate to be your "practice sex partner" though. COME ON, that's just sick.

In my opinion, for an anime, go for full slice of life, or full insane non realistic plot. This anime was kind of a bit of both, which makes me hate this. There is not proper decision made whether this show is either or.

The ending of this show was awful. I mean, sure he may have cheated on his girlfriend. Sure he (didn't) knock up his classmate. slept with other women in this school, ignored his best friend, drove his ex mentally insane, and did nothing to improve himself to be a better person. But seriously, killing people is not right, especially at his house as well. Whose gonna clean up the mess as well?

All jokes aside though, that rooftop ending how the ex sliced up the knocked up girl's stomach, that's just uncalled for. It's gruesome. How can anyone enjoy this show in the first place. Please, if you actually enjoyed this horror, tell me why.

Overall, this is an awful anime and will definitely not recommend this to anyone ( unless they like horror).

School Days is one of those anime that I was asked to review because one of my lovely fans wants to see me chastise it in the name of intellectualism. Of course, that doesn't mean I'm going to. I haven't watched it yet, so I could find that I actually enjoy it. After all, there have been anime I've been asked to review on the grounds that "they're amazing" that were incapable of standing up to scrutiny. The reverse is liable to happen eventually. What I'm getting at is that I'm not going to go into this expecting it to be bad. It might very ... well be, but there's also the possibility that it will be good. The anime is based off of a visual novel. It was handled by TNK, the studio behind Kannazuki no Miko, Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora, Hand Maid May and some stuff I've never seen. Let's take a look and see if it's as bad or better than I've been told.

The plot... I'm not sure how deeply I can get into details without giving spoilers for this one, honestly. There's a student in secondary school named Makoto who has a crush on a quiet girl, Kotonoha, he always sees reading. A girl who sits next to him, Sekai, offers to help him start a relationship with Kotonoha. At first it seems like it's going to be a typical and kind of boring teenage romance, but it rapidly spirals downwards, becoming progressively stupider and more soap operaesque as the series continues. On the plus side, it has a brilliantly tragic ending that legitimately makes you feel for the characters. Wait... I was thinking of Wolf's Rain. School Days has an unintentionally hilarious ending that's supposed to be tragic. Let's just say that bad things happen to terrible people and the execution is absurdly over the top. The writers apparently didn't know that the characters have to be at least somewhat sympathetic or interesting in order for the audience to care what befalls them.

You can probably guess where I'm going to go with the character discussion based on the preceding paragraph. The characters in this are awful. Makoto is one of the most despicable characters you'll ever see in the lead role of a harem anime. On the plus side, the dynamic between the main two female characters is brilliantly written and develops very organically, culminating in a very adorable scene. Wait, I was thinking of El Cazador de la Bruja. The female characters in School Days represent one-note misogynistic stereotypes. I probably don't even have to say this, but they're all dumber than your average origami crane. Most of them serve little purpose aside from being objectified by the narrative. I'm not exaggerating when I say that every character in this is horrible and/or stupid. The dynamics are just ridiculous. With the female characters blaming each other whenever Makoto does something terrible. Right up until the end.

The art in this is pretty meh. It looks like a kind of standard school life anime. Nothing really stands out in it except for the amazingly drawn tanks. And those fight scenes are just... Wait, that's Girls und Panzer. Yeah, there's nothing special about the art in School Days. The biggest problem it has is the excessive fan-service. Which is frequently used to pad out scenes or in pointless still shots.

The voice acting in this doesn't really stand out. Kawagari Shiho's performance stood out more in Koihime Musou, and she played a character whose shtick was being thoroughly unremarkable. The voice acting isn't bad, but it's not good either. The music is just largely forgettable.

The yuri factor in this is pretty high. The pink haired android and the girl with the glasses are an excellent couple with... Wait, that's Steel Angel Kurumi 2. School Days doesn't have any yuri. The yuri factor is a 1/10.

Before we move on to the final rating, I'm going to take a moment to discuss what School Days might have been about. From least to most likely, here are four things that could have been the point of the series. 1. Men are terrible and women should go forth and be lesbians. This is a possible theme for the series, but it's not very likely since it doesn't have any les-yay and the female characters are almost as bad as the male ones. 2. People are just terrible and stupid as a group and they should be exterminated. This one's also pretty unlikely, unless School Days is a Dalek propaganda piece, but it could be the point. I certainly found myself thinking about the worst aspects of humanity while watching it. 3. The whole thing is a PSA against teenage sex. It certainly is possible given the Japanese cultural stigma attached to teenage sex and the content. 4. It's just a bad soap opera and has no point. That's most probable. One of these days someone is going to want me to chastise something in the name of intellectualism and I'm not going to, because it'll actually be something good, but this is not that day. This day I grab my red pen, adjust my spectacles and chastise away. School Days is awful. The main character is horrible and the secondary characters are all obnoxious morons. the story wouldn't be out of place in a bad soap opera and it was so uninteresting overall that I kept thinking about other, better anime. Even while just talking about it. My final rating is a 2/10 for excessive stupidity. I can really only suggest watching it if you like soap operas about exceedingly dumb people.

School Days: the anime that makes you question your life choices and wonder if you'd be better off pursuing a career as a professional rock collector. It's like they took a perfectly good teen drama and put it in a blender set to 'utter insanity.'

First off, let's talk about the main character, Makoto. I've seen cardboard cutouts with more personality. He's the kind of guy who would probably choose a sandwich over his own girlfriend because it's less demanding.

The animation quality is like a roller-coaster – not because it's thrilling, but because it goes up and down more times than a yo-yo on a ... trampoline. And don't even get me started on the ending. I've seen more satisfying conclusions in a choose-your-own-adventure book with pages missing. Despite all its flaws, School Days is a masterpiece – a masterpiece in making you question your taste in anime, and your sanity.