Review of School Days
School Days: The Art of Hating your Characters I just got to finish School Days after a week of watching it periodically, and oh boy was it a good piece piece of anime. There is a lot to talk about: what it did good, what it did awfully wrong, what makes School Days unique out of any other romance anime (apart of the clear psychological turn it takes on the very end, which I will talk about throughout this review), and how their characters have shaped unconsciously a new interesting formula to character development. --This review may contain spoilers-- The story is simple: perverted protagonist develops aharem throughout the whole anime, and cliché and typical events you'll see in any generic school anime. The protagonist is awful in every single manner, and the rest of the characters just seem to make the experience worse. At first it was annoying and made me question even more why should I keep watching, but then as the story progressed, and the more I noticed Kotonoha's character shaping drastically (and evident foreshadowing of what was going to come eventually), it was when it started to become clearer to me. The characters are supposed to be hated.
Allow me to give you a brief explanation: picture the typical antagonist. The very bad, the pure incarnation of evil, with the darkest appearance you can think of. Then picture this girl, which you've seen how she's suffered from an unfair relationship, gets harassed by her classmates from something she never did, and is betrayed by the people she once trusted, who then goes into a killing spree from all the psychological trauma she's been through. Who do you think will have a more impact on you?
A similar formula is done with the characters: Makoto, who slowly becomes into a depravated, insensitive soul, and Sekai, who takes the darkest turn I didn't expect to see but somehow saw it coming. The story, the events, forces you to hate them. They put on purpose these scenarios where they will not handle properly, and will end up frustrating the viewer. Makoto laying with multiple classmates, and Sekai falling into this immature game, as we also see Kotonoha getting aside from the story as we see them progress for the worst. You wouldn't hate another character the same as you do to Makoto, because it flourished hatred in you towards this character. When you see him die in hand from Sekai, you do feel satisfaction on seeing him suffer. You smile to his death, 'cause you know he deserves it. On the other hand, if you see any other character which you don't even know his name die, you wouldn't feel any satisfaction. Once again, because there was no emotional attachment to this character.
The anime is definitely one of the least expected jewels of psychological horror, if I have seen one. Higurashi, who sadly didn't keep my expectations high on the very end, can't be compared with this anime. School Days may have one of the slowest and worst story progressions in psychological horror content (and definitely makes up to it very late), but the intentions of making you hate the protagonist was spot on. As someone who expected way less, I did get amazed at the end.
What School Days would have done better is definitely speeding up the trama. There are some episodes where you simply feel like you're losing your time and isn't relevant to the story at all, and there are other episodes where it's actually getting good. The focus on certain characters was evident, and left aside other who could've had a better role in the storyline as it progressed.
I would recommend the anime to very few people, but it's worth giving it a shot if you want something different and slow-paced.