Its these kinds of questions that should really be posed after watching such a story as School Days because many seem to not like School Days, and to a certain extent I can understand why. But, for the reasons people dislike School Days, is it because it has a bad story, or bad context within the story?
I will admit, School Days seem to have started off as a typical high school drama story. What I ended up with is something far from where the story started off. So I want to hit on something that caught my eye right off the bat while scrolling through some of the other comments made.
Others stated that there was no character development. While I have no issue agreeing that there was not much back story to our characters, what we where presented with was a window into their current present day of life. As we got to see how things transpired we really didn't need much of the back stories but only to see and understand what was going on with our characters in the hear and now. With that said I cant understand how anyone could not see any sort of character development within this window.
Case in point: Makoto is a naive, innocent, inexperienced boy who also is a coward. Because of these attributes we where introduced to him early on and it is no surprise he acted the way he did. Between his adolescent nature of being a young boy and being completely jerked around/misled by the other girls around him we witnessed his cowardice blossom into a complete jerk of a guy. But his actions, while completely wrong and misguided, put him into a position of extreme stress. The character didn't have enough gumption to face the swirling issues around him but instead allowed them to fester and go completely out of control. His way of coping with these stresses was simply to heed no regard for the other girls around him because the ones close to him where hurting him so much. He was looking for an escape but this path only made things much worse. I am by no means giving this guy and out. None of this would have been an issue if he simply acted like a man, grew a pair and took control of the situations he started getting into. Ask yourself this, how many times did Makoto stammer when asked a question or confronted by others on the situation(s) that was causing him stress? We as an audience saw first hand how much of a coward he is. We also bared witness to how he reacted. Through the stresses he was dealing with we saw him develop into something far less desirable. I call that plenty of character development. This character is a mirror unto our own society. We are a sincere-less culture that is afraid of actually saying what needs to be said which allows other things around us to spiral out of control.
Kotonoha was introduced to us as a very sweet, innocent and inexperienced girl. Even within the story we were told how poorly she was treated in her past due to certain physical attributes. Yet we see this very cheerful, happy, soul of a person that literally had her spirit broken by everyone around her. What we ended up with was a completely broken shell of a woman that simply lost her mind due the world that was thrown at her which she never asked for. Of all the characters I can not understand how anyone could say this character did not develop at all. We as an audience again bared witness to fall of this characters sanity brought on by others. Furthermore she tried everything to set the wronged ship right and was constantly blocked in doing so. As a person watching this I could not help but feel for this character. To top things off, she is truly the personification of our current society. Where men throughout high school, collage and beyond, break and bust up women psychologically because they have all been led to believe that women like jerks and the bad boy. And because of that kind of thought we are left with women of all ages filled with angst, spite, and vexed understandings of what is good or not.
Sekai is a real piece of work. A person so willing to go out of the way and do things for others, and from what I gathered, enjoyed the end result. She just could not handle dealing with the consequences of her own decision when it came to Makoto and Kotonoha. She innocently played match maker and concerned herself with other peoples happiness instead of simply looking to herself, being a little selfish and dealing with her own happiness. That is until it was to late, which then we see someone completely change from someone selflessly creating happiness for others to selfishly trying to gain what she lost in the process. That is Jekyll and Hyde character development if I have even seen any. Furthermore she went so far as to lie about something very profound for her and Makoto yet held onto that lie right to the very end even after she was confronted with the truth right in the hands of the very person she screwed over. Someone willing to do such selfless acts for others in the beginning could not let go of her own selfish desires in the end. She is truly the picture of the death of sincerity in our culture. if there was any character anyone should hate in this story it should be Sekai well before Makoto.
Look the bottom line is that for anyone who thinks there is no character development in this story I would simply ask them to watch it again. The problem is that this story is a reflection of what is wrong with us as a people today. This story has some very deep psychological undertones that I can understand is easy to miss by most. But that does not make it a bad story at all. What gives me pause mostly is how I started this review off in the first place by asking what makes a good story. So many people where effected by this stories ending and how "messed up" it was. And yet it is that very reaction that I pose those question at the start of this review. This whole show made me squirm in my chair several times included the ending. That means it did its job and did it well. It created a reaction and for that I cant help but say that this was a good, no, great story.
Knarfis
