Review of School Days

This anime starts in a way that is typical enough. So typical that I couldn't help but feel confused by the extreme reactions to it. It has C+ Clannad style art and animation, but it's a typical high school drama, the art and animation are good enough to fit the function. At around episode 2-5 or so, the sex jokes and pokes become more numerous, some oft seen tropes, but some good feels here and there, nothing too suspect, I had seen much worse in shows like Seiren. I'm not sure why I kept watching, but the show did start to pull me in. Perhapsit was the foreshadowing that has been mentioned, like the darker character design, or maybe the way the characters weren't establishing expected moral norms, but I had seen similar in shows like Gantz or Mirai Nikki. This was by episode 5- I had no idea this show still had so far to fall.

By episode 6, the show starts to show it's true face. The best way to describe this show is as if you took a normal anime and decided to take the guiding rails off, you decided not to care if it would establish any greater themes, meaning, or morals, but it would just run on like some form of realism. At first, this kind of authenticity felt refreshing, it brought some of the earlier episodes of Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou to mind, if not for the much darker content. The main protagonist being a completely uncaring git for his first love, loses himself completely to his sexual desires and urges. Katsura, innocent and an idealist, is bullied by the girls in her class for "thinking she is better", and perhaps jealously at her relationship with the protagonist. The long term ignorance, mixed messages, and cruelty Katsura experiences from the protagonist and others around her while the protagonist is cheating on her until finally he, without much fanfare, rejects Katsura to her face, without much explanation. Or the inception of the "break room" and when Otome's friends, along with the other girls, humiliate her with the footage with the camera they planted, just for a bit of fun. Everyone in the show, Katsura included, has flaws, and their own under-minding behaviors to achieve their own selfish goals, no matter how short ended, or how emotionally and impulsively propelled in a way that may recall darker experiences you have had yourself.

Some have said that the characters in the story aren't very believable, the main complaint being that no girl would continue to pursue such a cheating, bland, spineless, protagonist. The fact of the matter is that the show establishes Makoto as being reasonably popular and good looking (even if his behavior and appearance sometimes do not suggest it). I, for one, find it possible that a reasonable looking guy like Makoto who is a bit sociopathic and pretty assertive when it comes to his favorite thing couldn't provoke the kind of situation created in the story. Who's never heard the saying "girls love assholes" or "girls want what they can't have"? The show seems to me to suggest this much, as other girls become more interested in Makoto when Makoto shifts his attention to another girl that isn't them, or when Makoto is more hotly pursued by someone else. And the black hole is formed, where Makoto continues to follow his desires impulsively to ruin, taking all involved with him.

I won't spoil the end, but like I had hoped, the protagonist reaps what he sows, though in a more dramatic and perhaps unbelievable fashion then I had expected- I kind of hoped he would just get hit by a bus and lose functionality to his legs or the kids in the school community who discovered he was a uncaring womanizer would harass him unmercifully until he was forced to transfer. There is a line at the beginning which is echoed at the end. It goes:

"It was sort of like I could just look at her... gaze at Katsura Kotonoha from afar. And one day, I just sort of felt like I wanted a bit more."

It doesn't seem like the protagonist was destined to become the way he did. Rather, his introduction to relationships to the opposite sex just ran a bit crooked, perhaps through Sekai's provocation.

So why a 2/10? Because this show isn't profoundly terrible, it's just terrible. The events depicted are people at their worst, and there is no guiding hand to offer anything for it. This show didn't get a 2/10 through objective merits, this show worked to get this rating. This show wanted this rating. This show is based off a VN on the worst route, giving the worst decisions, to get the worst possible end. I don't think there aren't things that one can take away from watching this show, perhaps a bit of an eye opener for how not to treat woman, but just taking a stroll outside this morning, I think, that kind of evil is there, I've seen it, I've seen worse, but I don't see it here. There is a difference in facing terrible things to bring awareness and just putting terrible things on the screen for the sake of it. Around episode 6 or so, I couldn't help but feel slightly cathartic that they would have the balls to take things so low, you can grow weary of shows that aim for a formulaic good time, just skirting with some smut to the extent that it is safe, pushing the real dirt under the rug, but what does this show teach? Nothing. And so I'll conclude by saying this show isn't for everyone and with repeating this: this show isn't profoundly terrible, it's only terrible.