Review of School Days

School Days... Honestly, I only watched School Days because I couldn't escape the large section of the anime community going on and on about how awful it was. Needless to say, I was a little surprised to see quite a few people praising it for being wonderfully realistic and gripping when I did get around to watching it. I am on the side of those who most certainly did not enjoy this show, but that may have as much to do with my personal preferences as it did the actual attributes of the anime itself. As with sci-fi, I've never been a huge fan ofthe Slice of Life genre. I tend to find the stories to be a little slow and boring. Whatever else can be said about School Days, it certainly tried hard not to be boring.

Unfortunately, in its quest to be interesting, it created some unrelatable, unlikable characters. I don't absolutely despise any of the characters... Except maybe Taisuke. Even Makoto, who's as notoriously hated as this show, I didn't hate. If anything, Makoto came across as immature, not innately evil.

If the creators had taken the time to develop their characters a little, it could have buoyed this show up quite a bit. Instead, I got the feeling they were trying too hard to make this as shocking as possible, and it just came across feeling cheap.