Review of School Days
Can you really do the right thing? Or do you even want to? This show captures the damage you can do when you act without taking into consideration feelings besides your own. This show is very popular given the controversy of the topic that it portrays. I am here to offer a different, objective, view of the show. In my opinion, people hate this not because it is poorly executed but because they hate what the characters do, and I find that as a good point. I say this is not poorly executed but rather OK, and takes the viewer through a very emotional experience, whichis what the creators intended! (Or so I'd like to believe).
There are a lot of people out there, specially reviewers, that, with all the influence they have, say this is the worst anime ever made. I say otherwise, this is not the worst, nor it's the best. It's good, but it's not for everyone. The main reason people find this work bad is mainly because of the characters taking immoral decisions that end up hurting other characters that weren't actually bad. I think this is why the show is good! It feels so real. It manages to make you angry at a character and root for another at a whole other level than other shows. I'm pretty sure most people feel the same way, I even felt the pain they were going through, the guilt, or even the anger towards someone. The decisions they took felt wrong and you could say "Oh! He should have done this other thing and nothing would have gotten so complicated" but really, what would you have done in those situations? And even if you would have done the right thing, not everyone has perfect emotional control in their life and make mistakes that hurt others. Some people find it hard to hurt somebody even though the world says it's the right thing to do. Some people have social anxiety and cling to the ones that have showed them a little bit of affection. The cast represents the dilemmas of immaturity or even normal human behavior.
The characters act so real, and their emotions jump off the screen. That is what this show has going for it. On the other hand, there are some things that take that engagement away. There are some inconsistencies in some of the characters, especially towards the end. Of course, it is consistent and rewarding for the viewer to know that immorality has consequences and is punished, but I think they went overboard with that. It got me trying to figure out what really drove them to do the things they did, with little to no hints to work with to realize they could go to such extremes. That gets you by surprise.
The purpose and message of this show of course is taking the plot to the worst possible outcome, but sometimes it seems a little forced. I know I said the characters are made to make bad decisions, but there are times where the characters show hints of doing the right thing and some outside force stops him, too many times, like a reverse Deus Ex Machina. It's abused and is debatably transformed into a melodrama.
In conclusion, I think this show has flaws but delivers an experience, and as a content creator I believe it's all about the experience. It puts you in a situation of human mistakes and nature and is worth watching if the subject of infidelity (probably the only spoiler here) doesn't trigger any emotional outbreaks in the viewer, because it is very strong, and a lot of people have gone through the roughest times the human mind and heart can go through because of this.