Don’t be fooled this anime’s poster: it’s not all happy girls and good times. School Days is the adaption of a visual novel with the same name, infamous for its brutal bad endings. A notably absent genre this should be categorised is psychological – it shows the worst of human desire in a twelve episode, slow-paced fashion which is either a make or break depending on taste and overall dedication to observe when the plot actually moves forward. School Days is a satirical take on the harem genre as a whole, taking on the realistic approach when it comes to the genre deciding that the main character will inevitably get every woman he’s ever interacted with. In reality, this is not the case and School Days explicitly shows the consequences of wanting too much and giving next to nothing in return.
And that’s why everyone should watch it.
I’m serious – no other anime can replicate the emotions that School Days is capable of, one of which is mainly pure anger. It’s possible to feel emotionally attached to a number of the characters, though in the end it’s realised that their actions have been brought upon due to lust, a factor that would’ve cementing School Days into pornographic territory if not of the actual plot and character development. It starts off cheerfully and as it goes on, the temper of the audience will rise to the point of smashing their television or computer in disgust due to the characters’ actions. They say school is one of the most beneficially periods in a person’s life: School Days shows the exact opposite.
The plot follows token male harem protagonist Itou Makoto who develops a crush on a girl – Kotonoha – whom he observes on the bus every day with lustful eyes or at least, eyes of affection. It’s Makato’s first year at High School and he’s seated next to Sekai, another girl in which e feels no affection for yet is as outgoing as a celebrity. Sekai finds out that our token protagonist is in love with Kotonoha and decides to become her friend in order to obtain information about her so Makato will actually know something about her and not stare at her body endlessly. Sekai and Kotonoha do legitimately become friends, with Makato later confessing to Kotonoha ending the first episode with them being a couple. Makoto tries to thank Sekai for her effort and there’s only one thing Sekai will take for a reward: a kiss.
That’s all in the first episode – a fast pace never seen again.
Perhaps ‘protagonist’ isn’t a word well-suited for Makoto as his main objective is to bang anything that shows the slightest sense of movement. The main factor that attributes to the anger School Days supplies is the main character. Itou Makoto is not a role model. He’s not someone to aspire to and he’s not someone you’d like to know unless you’d want to have a fleeting orgasm with. He’s a relentless hormonal machine similar to the Terminator – he’d bang everyone until he has a nice glass of brandy before banging the actual target. Itou Makoto is perhaps the perfect definition of “the worse”, a complete knob of a ridiculously high caliber and yet is the basis for any viewer of the male gender who would like nothing else to be the Terminator of sex.
And the side-characters aren’t much better. Sekai is everything that Makoto desires that Kotonoha isn’t or in better terms, won’t perform. Being as horny as a rabbit, Makoto’s quest for seemingly endless sex doesn’t start at Kotonoha, but at Sekai after a couple of episodes in that cement Makoto’s douchebaggery. By the end of the third episode, he finally decides that he’s sick of her due to not being entitled to sex after a period of time. Not taking it steady is Makoto’s bread and butter, as in he just wants to spread his butter all over his seemingly endless bread – wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Perhaps it’s because every other side character has a vagina and the only other character that has a knob doesn’t supply any moral support and would be just horny as our main character. We don’t really get to know the other side characters that the Sexinator bangs very well, which is a shame because they’re all part of an indecisive wanker’s sexual quest of glory. They actually have motives, unlike our lovable cyborg sex maniac so that’s a big plus in their court.
Perhaps something else that brings School Days down is the rather unappealing art style. The characters don’t seem very attractive, especially the female characters. This is an oddity considering the harem genre that School Days deconstructs over the course of the series, however this has lead me to believe that it was entirely on purpose – what does Makoto see in all of the girls over the course of the series? He decides to pound every woman he comes in contact with and even falls in love several times, yet there is seemingly nothing that contributes to his sudden attraction or at least his hormones being set a full throttle. Being based off a visual novel, it’s not really unexpected for School Days’ lacklustre art as it’s practically ripped from the game itself.
Another gripe to be had with the anime is its slow pace. The finale felt like an eternity to reach, as nothing much happens – or at least, that’s what it seems to be with Makoto going back and forth as he’s just as indecisive as any other harem protagonist. It emulates what it’s actually like to be in school: nothing happens for a while and any drama that occurs may pace itself out to the point of wanting to reach the end as fast as possible. However, when it gets to the finale, everyone will scream for joy and it remains as one of the greatest endings in the history of anime.
And it deserves a paragraph of its own. So, spoilers ahead!
In the final episode of School Days, everything goes down – Makoto and Kotonoha reconcile after he’s realised that being a robot only made for having sex with everything in a one centimetre radius isn’t has glorified as it should be, after Sekai reveals that she’s pregnant with his child and every girl he has had sex with in his school – which is nearly all of them – begins to fear him due to this sudden revelation. However, seeing them reconcile in front of her, Sekai murders Makoto when he suggests that she should get an abortion. Kotonoha visits Makoto’s… corpse, in his room and takes matters into her own hand: by killing Sekai on the school rooftop in an admittedly badass fashion. Beforehand, she cut off Makoto’s head and put it in a duffel bag. After she killed Sekai, Kotonoha invalidates her previous claims of pregnancy, which means all of this tragedy has been caused by a lie and most likely cementing everyone’s hate for her as a character and a work of fiction. The final scene depicts Kotonoha and Makoto’s head stranded on a nice boat, thus ending the series.
So, after all of the negative things about it, why did I give it a high score?
School Days – for this viewer – had something that is nearly indescribable that kept me hooked the entire time. I hated the characters, I didn’t particularly like the art style or the music; yet I wanted to see how it ends, I wanted to see how exactly the tragedy plays out. I had heard about people discuss this absolutely hating and even liking it, I can see why it’s hated amongst many people. It absolutely ensnared me the whole time and even if you hate everything about it, you still want to see how it ends. If a series can keep a viewer hooked the whole time even if it’s being despicable and absolutely loathsome, it has achieved something great. That’s why I believe that anyone and everyone should watch School Days.
If you don’t want to, however, my spoiler saved you some time. You’re welcome.
