Review of School Days

Not as advertised. That is the only line sentence that should be paired with this show. It's very fair to assume based off the title and it's genre that it would play out like a harem/slice of life kind of show. I mean, it's literally called "School Days". You couldn't dare guess that the story would end up like how it was. For me, that's how it got bumped up from my original rating of 5. It's not what you expect. I liked that. It seemed nice and normal at the start with nothing really standing out, aside from the fact that the protagonist wasactually considered good looking. That however was one of the only really interesting aspect of any character in the show. Which brings me to it's problems.

The characters are shallow, aside from Sekai who had something going but not enough to the point where she becomes complex and where you want to like her. That's one of the show's problems. A lot of the characters are uninteresting and you can't make a connection with them. For example, Setsuna was just like any other loli and Kotonoha was straight up simple. The main, Makoto was just a scumbag who just thinks with his dick, and as a guy, I'd love to sock him in his mouth. And since the characters are so simple, with nothing to like, you start hating them and the story also makes you hate them since they all become scum in the end. But as for Makoto, while he's perfect for what the plot was trying to do, he was also just as simple as the rest of the characters and easy to read. Again it doesn't help that he's a scumbag.

Another problem the show had was it's plot and ending. The plot wants to explore dark ideas like the potential toxicity that comes when engaging in romantic relationships. And it did that, albeit in an extreme way (that probably wouldn't slide in today's media) but the show went too far. And for some reason adults don't exist. Everyone lives alone and they even got a room in the school festival that allowed students to fuck. That wasn't a good representation of the themes.

And lastly, the ending. It was extreme. Not that I liked that, but I did give it a few more points because of the ending. It was satisfying for me because Makoto got what was coming for him. But, it was too extreme. It didn't need to go that far because not even the characters went that far (in terms of character depth). The show was trying too hard to give a shocking ending, and it flopped bad.

Overall, It's a 7 for me because it's unique, not good, not even decent, but unique and not as advertised.