Review of School Days

School Days is one of the weirdest shows ever. It's hated all over the internet, and I think it deserves it... but is also interesting, in a weird way. STORY Makoto is in love with Kotonoha. He's also horny as f*ck, and hits on multiple girls without the slightest remorse. The third main character, Sekai, falls in love with Makoto. The entire story revolves around this love triangle combined with a harem (every girl wants to have sex with Makoto). This is it, basically. It's ALL about sex. The girls want to f*ck Makoto. Makoto wants to f*ck the girls. Makoto's friends also want to f*ck girls. Caught in themiddle of this messed up situation, the main characters will suffer more and more as the story goes on.

Let's be honest, School Days did nothing wrong in terms of story. The point is to show how messed up a harem would be in real life.
Sure, there are some people who wouldn't mind this situation. But most of us, while enjoying it for some time, would end up miserable, or even batshit crazy.
And the series shows it perfectly.

The ambiance is tense, and it gets darker and darker as the consequences of the harem start to show. Kotonoha realizes she's being cheated on. Some other girls fall in love with Makoto. Some people get caught on camera while having sex and are being humiliated for it. It's ALL about showing how bad a harem situation can get.

But even though it conveys its message brillantly... this show is just not really interesting. They're all just horny teens with nothing going for them. It's basically a Slice of Life, but not fun or compelling.

On the contrary, it's all about disturbing the viewer, and it works... but ultimately, it was just not satisying.

ART
School Days is... not very beautiful, but not that ugly. It's average. It does the job.

One thing I found weird is the lack of ecchi. The show is ALL about sex... and there's barely and sexual stuff in it. I feel scammed, lol.
Seriously, for ONCE, ecchi would be justified by the story... and they didn't use it.

SOUND
The OST is pretty good, honestly. The music fits the ambiance, and the songs are nice.
I really didn't like the voice actors for the main characters though.

CHARACTER
This is the central point... but also the biggest weakness of the show. The characters are not interesting, and their relationships are unjustified. As a result, everything feels pretty weak.

Harem is infamous because it almost always feels unearned by the characters. The MC is popular for no reason, the girls agree with the situation for no reason. It's exactly what happens in School Days: I know a guy CAN be very popular, but THIS MC? No can do, sir.

Makoto is the biggest son of a bitch EVER. He has absolutely NO remorse or after-thought for doing whatever he does. He just enjoys girls as if they were his property, going deep into sexual harrassment sometimes. That said, the character gets a bit interesting by the end, when he starts suffering from the consequences of his behaviour. He does realize he was wrong.
Sadly, his "redemption" is really not well done. It's too sudden, not strong enough, and although he does try to sort out his life and get better, the series doesn't give him the chance to show it. It would have been interesting to have a redemption arc.

The two main girls, just like Makoto, are pretty dull. Not interesting, and their love for Makoto is unbelievable. BUT they're the ones who suffer the most from all of it, and THAT was interesting to follow, because in the end, I truly felt bad for them.

For the rest, characters are just "sexual plot devices": they get horny when the story needs them to be, and that's it.

ENJOYMENT
School Days is a brillant success in what it tried to do. The point is to disturb the viewer to make them realize a harem IRL would be bad. The message comes across. It's just... really not that interesting for a message (because most people know that already), and in the end, the series is disturbing but not satisfying. Maybe you COULD get that moment when you think "FINALLY, HE GETS WHAT HE DESERVES!".
But personally, I didn't. It was just a miserable experience.

It's still interesting to watch, because there's very few interesting psychological thrillers in the anime industry.