Review of School Days

School Days, a twelve episode TNK anime production based on a notorious visual novel by Overflow (which featured a few graphically violent endings) was an extremely divisive topic during its prime. Some argued it was an excellent deconstruction of school life romance dramas, while others argued it was overblown and gratuitous. I would definitely fall into the latter camp. Story (3/10): I will give School Days some credit; the premise of following a group of high schoolers perverting love into a self-fulfilling fantasy well all their desires are met is an intriguing one that hits surprisingly close to crises that occur in actual high schools. And theplot is structured logically with key events happening in time precisely when you'd expect them to. The pacing of the series is impressive as well, with the plot moving at a steady beat that's never too fast nor too slow.

However, to properly follow through with such a concept, you need build-up. The author would need to work their hardest at developing life-like, understandable characters who despite their warped actions, would have sympathetic qualities. We'd have to explore the friendships these characters have, and the reasons, whether in back story or in present day, why things go worse and worse for the character as the fall semester of the school year progresses. If this is at least ATTEMPTED, the series would have a hook-worthy premise that has rarely been attempted in anime before.

Instead, the author copped out, leading to what is probably the most shallow soap opera story of all time.

Characters aren't ex-posited upon; we don't get relevant peeks at their backstory or explorations of their thoughts and opinions on different subjects relating to their relationships. We don't get any type of feel for how these characters normally interact with each other, or the reasons they might start to take increasingly selfish actions to get what they want (hint hint, it usually has something to do with romancing an increasingly unlikable male protagonist). Actions are not preluded with prior events or interactions that justify their existence; they just come out of the blue to add drama. As a result, we don't get a feel for any of the characters because what little we do know about them is promptly discarded for cheap drama. I don't really feel I understand why a single one of these characters did any of the stuff they did. From beginning to end, the series snowballs into increasingly bizarre drama that flies off into one of the most horrifyingly gratuitous endings in anime history. It was memorable, I'll give it that, but otherwise still non-nonsensical.

Why? Because for a soap opera to be compelling, we need to know the motivations, friendships, and feelings of a character and how they relate to the actions they take in the series.

School Days doesn't do this at all. And that's why the story fails on virtually every level.

Art (4/10): Visually, School Days is pretty bland. The backdrops are uninteresting and un-detailed, with some shows from the 90s actually having more convincing background. The female character designs do nothing to distinguish themselves from this series' visual novel competitors, and the palette is really weak, favoring dully bright colors and really, really lame looking dark ones.

On the plus side, the animation is slightly above average for a show with a mid-range budget of its time. Character motion is slightly more frequent, which would (normally), give us more of a chance to understand the characters in subtle ways. In addition, the ending gets a noticeable increase in quality in this department (adding to the terror this scene instills on viewers). Meanwhile, cinematography is standard, with only a couple of scenes (such as the aforementioned ending, and a scene where lead heroine Kotonoha discovers the truth behind a main character's suspicious actions) standing out. However, the two male characters have surprisingly distinct designs. Our lead avoids the generically bishonen look of his peers by looking frumpy and average while still having attractive qualities, while his friend has a distinctly off-putting facial structure that possibly foreshadows his later actions.

Sound (6/10): The show has a memorable score, combining primarily original violin and piano compositions to set the atmosphere for the show. In certain scenes, the music actually overshadows the main series it's so effective. Also, there are a large number of ending themes the show cycles between over the course of twelve episodes, giving viewers reason to stick through the credits.

On the downside, most of these ending themes were fairly forgettable. The opening in particular failed to leave any kind of significant impression on me. However, the ending theme that played during the show's final episode was chilling, well-made, and perfectly fit the on-screen action. The scoring isn't perfect either, with certain repetitive tunes being played in scenes where a previously un-played tune would have sufficed better.

Voice acting wise, the actors do a solid job. I had no complaints with the performances (aside from Sekai's grating every once in a while). Daisuke Hirakawa's Makoto is also strong, gently persuading the viewers that our main character is likeable when his on-screen actions tell us he's clearly not.

Character (1/10): THIS category is what really causes this show to crash and burn in an unceremonious blaze. For a show to deconstruct character-driven dramas, the characters need to be compelling.

AND THEY AREN'T! There is a clear disconnect between the disposition of the characters in the first two episodes (which sets up some standard stereotypical personalities for our leads with a couple interesting traits) and the rest of the series. Starting with the third episode, EVERYBODY starts doing random crud for no reason whatsoever. There's no logical build-up to the drama, no motivations for the characters to act like they do, and most of all, NO REASON OUR MAIN CHARACTER IS ADORED BY PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE HE MEETS FOR NEARLY THE ENTIRE SERIES!!!!

Because of how flat these characters are, and how their every action is decided by the plot, the show became extremely unpleasant to watch. I didn't feel bad for the characters or relate to anyone's actions, I just felt off-put by how vicious and cruel some of the things that happen are. And I feel purely off-put by them because it doesn't feel like there's any quarter-decent reason for any of the characters to be acting so vile, cruel, and hateful towards each other (If there is supposed to be, the series sure doesn't wanna convince us there is!)

And that's a terrible feeling, because workable characters could be created to fit around these situations. But the series doesn't try at all. And what's worse, beside the normal female demeaning that comes from ecchi, the show paints high school females as going hopelessly gaga over a jerk main character who's not even good at manipulating. He can't even act nice in private settings with them sometimes!

There wasn't a single character whose behavior in this show I understood (though, to be fair, at least Makoto was distinctly mean starting with episode 3). And that HAS to be the show's biggest fault.

Enjoyment (4/10): As I said, my enjoyment of this series was hampered severely by how illogical everything that happens within it is. Despite this, I did garner some enjoyment from watching this thing through.

Why? Because there's something attractive about the promise of dark, horrible things to come. Viewers are enticed by the idea of seeing characters find new ways to dig themselves into worse and worse situations. It's disturbing, yet fascinating to see how we ENJOY seeing the reasons people end up in inglorious, awful ends.

That promise of drama and darkness was what kept me going through School Days (and the completionist part of my soul). And, to be fair, the direction does a decent job of promising more dark things to come.

And, the ending delivers on that promise. It is fittingly dark, bleak, chilling, and ultimately incomprehensible. The fact that we cannot begin to understand how these characters' normal lives sunk this low is part of this show's appeal. And I did feel that.

Despite that, however, it was nowhere near as effective as it could be because the characters were paper-thin and events pretty much happened out of the blue.

Overall (3/10): Like I said in the previous section, I can understand why people enjoy this show. But, honestly, I am firmly under the impression there is nothing deep or thoughtful about this show. The people in the show have no consistent character, events in the plot happen with little to no build-up, and the series doesn't even compelling artwork to distinguish itself from the grain. I just can't find the worth in sitting through 12 episodes of unpleasantness just to get to its visceral conclusion; it's not worth it.

If you're looking for a GOOD anime that examines the psyches of its main characters, go watch Neon Genesis Evangelion, Fate Zero, or Your Lie in April. Those shows have well-developed characters that the writers do an excellent job of persuading us to care about them.

Viewers can do so much better for character drama than the gratuitous, blood-stained mess that is School Days.