Review of School Days

First of all, if you don't know what exactly School Days is, and expect a lighthearted high-school romcom: DON'T WATCH THIS! If you are into the typical lovey-dovey fun romp and you are not a stone-cold cynic or have nerves of steel, give a wide berth to School Days, for your own good. Seriously, stop reading this review, close the page and forget you ever heard about this anime. Don't say I didn't warn you. (Oh, and tell whoever suggested this anime to you, to go where the sun doesn't shine, because you are obviously being trolled.) So, what exactly is School Days, and how didit become one of the most controversial anime ever?

In short, School Days is a landmine. It's a cruel joke. One, that you play on your anime loving friends you don't wanna be friends with anymore. It's especially effective if your target loves high-school romantic-comedy series or games, like Toradora, Clannad, Love Hina and such. It's obvious the creators had the same goal in mind, because School Days is a horrific deconstruction of the genre, that not only makes fun of the premise and those who watch it, but it also breaks every rule in the book to drive the point home. It's a clear and concise "F*** YOU!" to the entire genre. The whole anime is perfectly camouflaged for a sneak-attack. The description, the cover images and even the first few episodes reek "fun romcom romp". The only thing, that might raise a red flag, is the R+ rating, but who looks at that anyway, right?

The story starts out normal enough. One could say TOO normal. Our protagonist, your average high-school student boy Makoto Itou, falls head-over-heels for a mysterious girl he rides the train with every day, yet he is too timid to even say hi to her. Instead, he takes photos of her with his phone and daydreams. His classmate Sekai Saionji finds out about his secret crush, and tries to play cupid to get Itou, and his love interest Kotonoha Katsura together. She succeeds in the endevour, Itou and Kotonoha becomes a pair, but in the process Sekai falls for Itou, too. Enter cliché'd high-school love triangle fun times. Or so you though! Be prepared for one of the wildest roller-coaster rides you've ever experienced in anime!

[SPOILERS AHEAD! No specific plot points, but if you don't wanna rob yourself of the shock value of this anime, skip this part!]

School Days' ability to lull the audience into a false sense of security is simply masterful! There is a reason for the R+ rating, which becomes VERY apparent in later episodes, and it WILL catch you off-guard. Let's be honest, School Days can be very shocking, unsettling and even downright vulgar and disgusting for some people. But the creators played the "boiling frog" concept like a boss, it all comes on slowly and gradually, it sneaks up on you until there is no escape, and that's when it tears off your head and screams into your soul. It hides the dark side, packages the vulgar in ecchi, the shocking in drama, etc, to the point you'll constantly be puzzled as "Wait, did I just see that?!". School Days breaks all the rules and stuffs them into your mouth as a ball gag while having it's way with you. This anime has everything from easy going humor, light romance and cliché'd hooks all the way to hardcore ecchi, bullying, depression, mental problems and all the "hard stuff" darker anime dares to go. But wait, School Days doesn't stop there, oh no, it goes BEYOND all that. Underage sex, physical abuse, teen pregnancy, outright mental breakdown, suffering, graphic violence, psychosis, murder and everything in-between. Don't worry, it's never outright graphic, all the NSFW stuff is merely suggested/off-camera or only talked about (this is not hentai after all) but it's there enough to make it VERY clear what just took place.

After the first few episodes, the anime takes all the drugs from the trunk, all the uppers, downers, screamers and laughers and it won't stop in Bat Country. It gets realer than real, it becomes a story that you might see on the evening news or read in the paper. After the last episode, I could've imagined what the news anchor would say about what happened, word for word. It's creepy! Not only that, but the reality seeps in through my own (and I imagine many people's) personal experiences. For example your very first incredibly awkward attempts at "love", physical intimacy, kissing, groping and even sex. How the inexperienced, hormone-filled minds try to rationalize everything and try to tackle very real emotions. How easy it is to go overboard when you don't know the boundaries yet, and how easy it is to just lose control and just catapult your brain to space, especially the last few episodes. The characters themselves are but hollow shells, they don't really have distinct personalities. But what they have is the uncanny ability to serve as a vessel for the viewer and their own personal experiences, like I mentioned. Like Itou, the high-school boy. We get to see inside his head based on his actions and dialogue. I mean I'm a young man (close to 30), but I still remember how I was back then, we all had dirty thoughts and I imagine many would've done the exact same thing Itou did in the series. Maybe not go as far as him, but given the opportunity, I think many would've jumped at the chance to do some of the things he got to do. [SPOILER] I mean what standup high-school boy didn't dream of banging all the girls in the school, LOL! [/SPOILER] But it's not only teen angst and suppressed urges, it's the rest of emotional scale too, ranging all the way to the inexperience resulting in insecurities and indecisiveness of dealing with your first relationship, the good and the bad of the learning experience. I can't speak for the female viewers of the anime, but I imagine the creators captured at least a good number of the thoughts, desires, insecurities and fears that really goes on in the heads of high-schoolers.

It's a downright insult to call School Days "dark", it's way beyond that, It's like waking up from a nightmare to the smell and warmth of your house burning down around you. It's something, that not many people will walk away from unscathed.

[END OF SPOILERS]

I'm pretty sure School Days was concocted up as a sort of genre experiment. A sort of anti-romcom, that may or may not have actual artistic merit to it, it all depends on the viewer. One thing is for certain, however, that there is intent and effort behind all this. A sort of method to the madness. School Days is not just some random psycho's idea of a sick joke that he made in Paint on a lazy afternoon. There is real work, artistic credit and real production value put into this anime, by not just one, but many people. Someone wrote this, someone directed it and someone animated it. What I'm saying is, School Days is not an accident, it's been intentionally made to be what it is. And if you can look behind the shock value and the pretty obvious stream of "in your face" innuendos, there are some very real and very hard questions and societal critique buried in there. And also, there is the WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU, why are you still watching this, are you mad, seriously it only gets worse and more mental the more you watch it, why are you doing this yourself *cries*

In my experience, the only way to "enjoy" watching School Days, is to not take it seriously. Channel your inner cynic and go all the way, draw every last drop of sadistic pleasure from it. Disconnect yourself from the story, and watch it as a very badly made drama/dark comedy, and you might get a few laughs out of it. Because if you let yourself get immersed in the story and you get emotionally invested, you WILL get wrecked. School Days doesn't pull any punches, in fact, it lays into them with incredible force. It wants to hurt you, and knows exactly how to do it. The one person I inflicted School Days upon, got reduced to a sobbing mess by the end, with a thousand yard stare, whispering to me "Why? What did I ever do to you?"...

So, in closing, School Days is a landmine for the fragile-hearted romcom watching crowd. If you look at it like that, it's a brilliant anime. It's exceptionally unassuming, draws you in and then blows your soul sky high, you won't even know what hit you. If you are cynical enough and/or have no soul, you might even find it weirdly entertaining. There are morals and the asking of hard questions, and some profound meaning in there also, if you are into that sort of thing. Other than that, School Days is the perfect weapon to troll your light-hearted anime watching friends, but do take care in choosing your target, because this landmine is definitely not a dud.