Review of School Days

I've seen the ending on youtube many years ago, always was intrigued but never actually got around to watching it all the way through. I saw here that this anime has such a low score, and while I can see where some of them are coming from- personally I feel like this entry is a little misunderstood. You're maybe one of the few that immediately got disinterested at the first sign of the main character cheating. I don't think it is fair to rate something low solely because it does not suite your tastes. So I will judge it based onwhat it's trying to be. The theme of this anime is taking responsibility and for the most part, that is the story it told.

If this anime was an AITA thread on reddit, the consensus would clearly be that ESH except for Kotonoha.

Firstly, Makoto. The main character.

Makoto is a student who is trying to live up his youth, and wants a girlfriend. He gets urges to move quickly, and wants to advance to things more physical and sexual. This is the downfall of Makoto as he once was a nice and caring individual as seen through the memories of all his flings, who develops into someone who is devoured by lust. Kotonoha, his first girlfriend and the start to his story, is a forgiving girl ( way too forgiving smh ) that is very pure, and is unable to satisfy him. However, I do believe Makoto realizes this and doesn't want to hurt her while also pursuing his own personal interests. He refuses to formally put off breaking up with Kotonoha and tries to find roundabout ways of saying he is no longer interested in her due to his sexual desires and pressures that manifested through other girls who were willing to try things with him.

Makoto is not supposed to be a likeable character. He is a character in which you're supposed to see vividly his flaws and the outcome of his actions. There are other characters who share this similarity.

In our main characters: Makoto, Saionji, and Kotonoha. There is so much character development. You see Makoto's downfall to lust.
You see the innocent and pure Kotonoha change. You see Saionji's buildup of jealousy and sorrow eventually throw her overboard to some extremes.

The show knows what it's doing, and while theres a few areas where moments were kinda bland. It for the most part knew what it wanted to do and it shouldn't be faulted for that.

Near the end, I think Makoto started to realize where his actions have taken him when the people around him started to shut him out. As a viewer, I want to believe that he wanted to be better and start anew but his situation with Saionji was preventing that and his mistakes made it so that he was far too gone from salvaging.

To wrap things, there's a lot of moments I thought were really well done with the music choice being very fitting for the scenes they really wanted to emphasize. This isn't something most people will like and watch. It's not something i'm likely to watch again- but it is a story that is unique and isn't told often. The ending is wild, and after the brewing of eleven episodes. It is justified and is the perfect way to hammer in the theme of this anime. Taking responsibility.

7.7 / 10