School Days

Were your school days like theirs?

Genre - Drama, Romance, Harem, Seinen

Length – 12 Episodes

Run - Jul 4, 2007 to Sep 26, 2007

Animation Production – Marvelous Entertainment, Lantis, Avex Entertainment, TNK

After reading Endo's review on this series I decided to go and watch this anime, mainly because I was curious about the ending. I have to say this is arguably one of the worst anime I have seen, but for whatever reason I still liked it =/

So here goes my second opinion on School Days...

Being an adaptation from an adult VN, I expected the anime to have typical things like sexual encounters, overly shy main characters, and an overall bad and typical plot with little character development. All of these were present in School Days, so I wasn't wrong on my assumption. The anime starts out with Itou Makoto ogling Katsura Kotonoha in the train they both ride to school every day. Makoto has a crush on Katsura and does not have the guts to tell her he wants to go out with her.

It all starts here...

This is where Saionji Sekai comes in to hook them up. Sekai sits right next to Makoto in class and are good friends. This friendship leads to problems which in essence results in a twisted love triangle spawning many little side relationships. At first I despised Makoto for being such a wuss. During the first half of the anime he's pretty shy, perverted, and awkward. But then he turned out to be a player hooking girls left and right. So in a way he redeems himself, but he's still very despicable for reasons you will have to find out when and if you watch this anime. Katsura at first glance seemed to me like the girl next door, but she turned out to be exactly like Makoto. Unfortunately her progression gets worse due to her being an easily influenced pushover. After a certain incident in the roof with Makoto and Sekai you start to see Katsura in a different light which in essence makes you the viewer feel bad for her while also asking yourself "She's crazy man....like srlsy O_O". Many unfortunate things start to happen to Katsura, so I'm not surprised about her behavior throughout the rest of the series. Sekai pretty much stays the same throughout the anime. Her character makes no drastic change, though she starts becoming a bit like Katsura later on. One of the reasons I continued to watch School Days was because of Sekai. She brought humor to the show and made you think about what would be her next step and is overall a lovable character.

Sekai showing Makoto how pro she is :3

I saw many talking heads while watching School Days. What I mean by that is there was a lack of motion/animation which isn't easily noticeable but It's one of the reasons this anime disappoints. From my standpoint some of the sexual encounters portrayed were impossible, and demeaning in a way. The supporting female characters flock to Makoto in the peak of his promiscuity, both out of a social obligation to satisfy male sexuality, and in an attempt to express themselves the only way they can think of. Just about all of the characters were somewhat shallow and detestable which also includes my dear Sekai. The characters are unable to say anything serious directly and are obviously sexually repressed and in need to rebel against their cultural norms; but of course they do it in a way a child would learn how to interact with kids in his/her first day in kindergarten. Moving on to the soundtrack, the music used throughout the series which included the opening and ending were average at best, nothing memorable.

It is the ending of this anime that makes watching the whole series worth the trouble. The ending defies the cliché of similar anime and leaves both a bad taste (for obvious reasons) and a sense of satisfaction. "Le sigh, stfu and gimme my score."

Art - (6/10) Sound - (6/10) Plot - (7/10) Enjoyment - (7/10)

Overall
6.5/10

Note: Makoto deserves what happens to him....like srsly =/