Now onto the review itself:
The animation is up to the same standard as most anime. Meaning it's good, just nothing exceptional. The body proportion of the characters aren't exaggerated (except for the mandatory oppais) and the architecture of the surroundings aren't noteworthy. One thing that for me makes School Days stand out animation-wise, is the fact that all characters' hairs are dark, instead of having varying colours. As such, to identify the characters visually, one has to concentrate on the hairstyle and facial features. While the hairstyles are varied for each character, I find almost all female characters having the facial features. One thing I do praise is how certain characters' eyes changes at the end, reflecting their state and emotion.
The bgm tracks is quite plain and generic and once again, there is nothing noteworthy about it. I liked the insert songs however, but since I don't understand Japanese, I couldn't thoroughly enjoy them. The opening song got painful to listen to after a while though. It wasn't because it was horrible, just... misleading.
Lastly, the story. Like I said in the beginning, 2/3 of the anime is boring. But also, you begin to loathe the characters, making it even harder to continue watching it. While it begins like a normal high school anime, it changes after a couple of episodes to a more mature story. It was boring to watch the beginning, since the interactions between the characters had no feeling. It wasn't funny, it wasn't sad, just plain. However, I noticed that the relationships changed and the story had a certain direction, which made me keep watching the anime (that and its reputation). I was glad I did because the story drastically, but not surprisingly, changes in the end, from plain to sick. The ending is actually gratifying and was enough for me to rank this anime higher than I was going to in the beginning.
And this last part is half rant, half review, ignore if you wish: I hate the protagonist. This guy embodies almost all the bad characteristics of a main character, heck I would go as far to say the bad characteristics of a guy. From the second episode onwards, I shouted profanities and just wanted to jam a certain drill-shaped sword into his head. Yet his outward personality and appearance doesn't reflect that at all and I felt no character development either. I did not like the other characters either, in fact, there is no favorite of mine in this anime.
So to sum it up: This anime gives me (and probably others) mixed reactions. I hate the story, I hate the characters but I don't hate the anime itself. If you think about, this story actually reflects something that has and is happening in modern society. If the creators' goal was to make you absolutely loathe what's happening (and you should!) then they did a f-"BLEEP" good job.
