Reviews

School Days is one of those shows where you hate it or you love it. There are parts in this show that people can't help, but to love. There are parts that hurts the show and for some hard to get past. I enjoyed School Days a lot and hopefully one day there will be more anime similar to this. School Days is adapted from the egro visual novel game under the same name. Egro visual novel is a game where the player would have to complete a route in order to date or have sex with a certain girl in that story route. There plenty of anime that are base off of visual novel games(Air, Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, Clannad, etc), but the direction that School Days takes is a lot different from most adapted egro game, moe or harem anime by letting Makoto(the main character) try to have a sexual relationship with different partners. Makoto acts how the majority of guys would've given there were a lot of girl throwing themselves at you in the first year of high school which is a lot different from most harems where girls throw themselves at the main male character, but the male character always do something to avoid them or always doing something to mess-up an intimate mood.

Story: 9
The strong point of School Days' story is how it differ from other moe and harem anime rather than just the story itself. The story starts off with the other two lead characters Sekai and Kotoba as your typical love interest in a love. School Days begins with the usual love triangle story where one person likes or fall in love with two people and those people become jealous of each other and ends up fighting for affection of that one person, but slow the take a turn and becomes something else as the show progresses. The show starts off very slow and painful to watch, but picks up pace a little bit before the middle. While the show is a lot serious and real then any harem I know it do things to let the viewer know that this is just entertainment. The ending was quite shocking, unexpected and just a little bit too extreme for this type of story, but it somehow works because of how different this story for this genre.

Art: 6
The art in School Days do not stick out at all. I think the characters look bland, and they all feel like they fit into any type of moe-ish show (character being made from the same people as Clannad, Air and Kannon). Kotoba and Sekai the two main girls of the show for a short period I had a hard time figuring out the difference between the two in different scences. Makoto is suppose to be a very attractive guy I guess seeing that he has a lot girls in that school liking him, but with his hair looking the that way and no noteworthy phyical appearance makes you question why all these girls like him. To be fair it's not like any of the girls in the show pop out as beauties neither. The animation is pretty much flat throughout the whole show and there is no scene that will wow you at all. While I'd have like to seen some scenes animated better, but I'm not too critical about the animation since it's a school drama and I didn't go into this expecting stellar animation or artwork. They put enough effort into the animation and art to make it work for the type of show it was, but they didn't go beyond that.

Sound: 7
School Days had a few interesting songs, the opening and ending song sounded like a song you would of heard from any moe show given the way differ from the standard moe/harem show. There is a song that is play at the end of the series fit the mood of that scene so well. Besides these examples there is not much music that stands out that much. The voice acting was good, nothing to comment about.

Characters: 8
One of the problem that will arrive in the show is how annoying some of the character can be at times. Makoto personality doesn't stand out at all, but I don't think it needs to for this story. The problem I have with his personality it's very passive in certain situations like where he is indecisiveness on whether he is going to stay with a certain girl or leave which leave the story moving at a slow pace. Even if Makoto would have been more of a bad guy and acted like a jerk or at least lied about how he felt to resolve some of the problems then that would've move the story faster in the beginning and middle and also I'd enjoyed his character a little bit more. I'm also don't see what girls see in this guy personality that make him attractive. Contrary Sekai and Kotoba personalities are opposite of each other which makes up some interesting situation with Makoto as the story goes on. It's also entertaining to watch as Makoto interact with the rest of the female cast as well, but entertaining in a difference way.

Enjoyment: 9
I'd enjoyed School Days a lot and it kind of remind me of when I was in high school and I wish that I was in Makoto shoes. There is some realism into Makoto character that I can relate. A lot of the enjoyment also comes from the fantasy of being in Makoto situation, even seeing the dark side of being in this weird harem.

Overall: 8
School Days has it ups and downs, but it's strong point comes for it's take on the harem and moe genre and enjoyment also comes from the fantasy of being in Makoto situation. The characters personalities could have had more depth. The art and animation in there was not strong. School Days remained very entertaining throughout the show making it very hard to stop watching after a while.