***Please note that while I’m going to do my best to not spoil much of the story, there may be an instance where I do spill a main portion of the plot, so please be aware.
Writing – School Days takes place in, you guessed it, a Japanese High School. In a nutshell, the story is about a long triangle that goes bad. Strike that, really bad. To start things off, we have our infamous protagonist, Itou Makoto. He is entering his second year of high school and has his eyes glued to a lady by the name of Katsura Kotonoha. Kotonoha is your usual quiet and shy girl who really likes to read. After building feelings for Kotonoha, Makoto is not sure how to approach her until another lady by the name of Saionji Sekai notices Makoto’s little issue. She decides to go ahead and help Makoto out and Sekai successfully succeeds in getting Kotonoha and Makoto to be in a relationship each other. Sadly, Makoto fails to make the relationship good on Kotonoha’s end multiple times. Sekai sees the issue and decides to give Makoto on “practice”, meaning sexual intercourse and yes, Makoto is still dating Kotonoha at this point. After the “practice”, Makoto seems to abuse this practice and gets Sekai in bed a lot more often than both of them expected to. This also opens up Makoto to more and more women as the series goes on forward.
Let’s jump into the characters. The three main characters were listed in the paragraph above. First off, we have Itou Makoto. I find Makoto to be really, really boring, generic, and uninspired. People got pissed off at him for the things he did throughout the series, but I think it’s more suitable to be pissed off at the fact that he is just a bore to watch. No emotion, no liveliness, just a drawing that is filled with nothing.
Next off we have Katsura Kotonoha. As well as Makoto, Kotonoha is much uninspired as well with the only thing being good towards her is the amount of fan service she gives at the start and somewhat towards the end of the series. While she does play the quiet and shy person well, it’s just really boring seeing her as well.
Finally, we have Saionji Sekai. She is the energetic girl of the three and also the most mischievous. I liked her character a lot through this. I felt that she did her part well and knew when things were bad, she would act (at least at the start of the whole triangle) bad about it. Now, I want to take a second and complain about the supporting characters and say that while I do understand that they are supporting characters, I’ve seen anime that has given more meaning to them while making sure they stay in their supporting role. This anime just gets them to have sex with the Makoto and they just get dropped like that.
Now, the story with School Days isn’t original or good by any means. I mean, it’s just a cute little romance building story at the first four or five episodes, but then just goes somewhere off until we reach eleven. I was surprised at myself for being able to keep on watching School Days throughout this boring show up.
Surprisingly, two things that I do congratulate TKN on doing is making the last two episodes worth watching and making you feel a large amount of emotion towards the characters. As said before, people got pissed at Makoto for his actions throughout the series, with some even mentioning that he is the most hated protagonist (or even anime character for that matter) in any anime series to date. Even pity and hatred come to Sekai and Kotonoha as well. While it does seem easy to get the audience attached to the characters if the story is good, I think TKN does deserve some credit for how they get your feelings twisted throughout the anime, as well as making the ending shocking, but amazing and satisfying. Still, I don’t think that can help the writing all that much in the end.
WRITING FINAL SCORE – 5
Art/Animation – I don’t have a whole lot to say about this part. The characters were drawn out just fine and the environment was also very nice to look at as well. In the last episode, I feel that is where TKN really dishes out the nice animation.
ART/ANIMATION FINAL SCORE – 9
Sound – The opening was a very nice listen and I felt that it did set the mood well. While it does feel somewhat out-of-place near the end of the series due to its upbeat sound, I still think it does fit well. As for the ending, it’s also done nicely with its slower sound, since the series does take a turn for the worst as the series goes on. The music playing throughout the series is nice, but not something that’ll make you say, “Oh yeah, I remember that song playing at this part!” or something of that sort. At the last episode, the background music is done very well and should more than likely leave an impact on you.
SOUND FINAL SCORE – 8
Enjoyment – Alright, to tie in with the story part of the writing, I said that most of the series is really boring up until the last two episodes. I really tried to like this anime, but there really was nothing I could do that would make me say, “Yeah, I’m having a lot of fun watching this!” While I did keep watching, I just kept getting surprised as to why I just didn’t drop this. Once the ending arrived, that’s when it got good, but it’s sad that TKN really couldn’t just keep my full attention throughout the series. I understand that this is supposed to be based off one of those harem visual novels, but that doesn’t meant that it should just be boring throughout. While I had fun watching the ending, I just didn’t enjoy ten out of the twelve episodes.
ENJOYMENT FINAL SCORE – 4
OVERALL FINAL SCORE – 5
I really, really wished that School Days packed a lot more punch other than the last two episodes. I think this series would’ve easily been a top series due to the different route it took to end the series from other romance/slice of life anime. Would I recommend this to anyone? Honestly, not really. I did already to one person and now I regret it for her. While there are some people who may find the story to be very interesting, it just felt too generic and uninspired, which sadly kills off School Days. Maybe next time, TKN.
