Review of School Days

Some anime you recommend because of its engaging, thought-provoking story, others for its insane production quality and animation, others for its great cast of characters, others... for kicking all sense of logic to the curb and being so bizarrely stupid that it's hard not to be intrigued by how we got here. This is the latter. This is definitely an anime to watch with your expectations set WAY low. I expected to be just bored to death with all the fanservice slice-of-life garbage and I was thoroughly surprised that this anime had a semblance of a plot. The big problem is that the anime tries tobe some kind of deconstruction of the harem genre while at the same time falling for the same tired trappings- weird filler and way too many gratuitous boob and butt shots. Most of the dumb stuff thankfully happens within the first half of the series, and by episode 6 we actually get knee-deep into the affair plot.

I had a hard time really sympathizing with most of the characters, because they make so many contradictory actions it's not even funny, it's hilarious. Let's go character-by-character

Makoto- This guy is extremely dense, like most harem protagonists. Except, instead of being completely oblivious everyone in his harems' feelings, he accepts EVERYONE'S feelings and proceeds to bang everyone for increasingly inane reasons, except for, of course, the one girl who needs the emotional support the most. Not to mention he ignores pretty much all the advice of his friends. Sekai tells him not to get too aggressive with Kotonoha? He tries to hit 2nd base by the second date. Literally every one of his girls tell him to stay faithful? Naw, let's have a four-way with three random bitches.

Kotonoha- I want to feel sorry for her. Her "boyfriend" is cheating on her and half the school is harassing her for it. But she's perpetually in denial when it is perfectly clear that her relationship with Makoto has completely collapsed and either does jack about it or goes completely mental and doesn't ask a parent, a teacher, a counselor, a friend, any decent human being, or literally anybody or thing for help with her crisis.

Sekai- Sekai is either manipulative or she's just too dumb to realize that her actions are not helping him at all in his relationship with Kotonoha. She offers to guide him in getting to second base with Kotonoha, but, for some damn reason decides it would be okay for that to lead to them having sex. She lets her feelings get in the way of her helping Makoto get closer to Kotonoha, and then completely forgets that and throws a fit when he finally does.

Setsuna- I liked Setsuna more than most of the other girls, and she seemed relatively right in making sure he stuck with Sekai, even if her actions against Kotonoha were way too cold, but even her way of making sure he stayed loyal was to offer to sleep with him.

Otome- Yes, offer to sleep with that one guy you kind of knew in middle school and barely had any relationship experience with. That will certainly go your way. Except it somehow works because Makoto will sleep with anyone who asks him to.

Yuki Ashikaga- 404 Cross Days not found BestBoy.exe can not be run

The ending is certainly surprising, but it is yet another bizarre tonal shift from wacky harem slice of life, to serious NTR drama, to slasher horror. Still, it's a unique ending for a very unique anime. It's like The Room. In fact the plot is kind of the same as The Room. Is this the anime adaptation of The Room we've been waiting for?

All joking aside, this is another very good anime to watch while inebriated and/or with a bunch of friends who want to watch something really stupid. This anime's not that good and the production quality is fairly decent but not exceptional, but this anime is a 12 episode trainwreck that has to be watched to believed