Review of School Days

GENERAL SUMMARY WITH SLIGHT SPOILER I have never written a review before, but after watching School Days, I felt that it was my duty to warn any potential viewers. This anime was painful to watch throughout and actually traumatized me at the end. If you are looking for another school romance anime do not watch this. The only reason you should watch this is if you are looking for something to mess you up. Even then, don't watch this one. The psychological elements don't make up for the utter crap that made up the majority of the anime. FULL REVIEW WITH SPOILERS I value enjoyment above allelse in an anime. I know that many others value things like character development, themes, story, execution, or other things in anime more highly but my warning applies even in those cases.

Story:
At first, the story seemed like just another school anime about relationships (which I have nothing against) but it took a turn for the worse. You had some pretty heavy drama going on with all the cheating Makoto did side-by-side with scenes that fit inside a comedy like that ridiculous class wars thing in the school festival episode where you had a stampede of zombies, little sisters, and chibi costumed characters. It seemed pretty out of place together.

Art and Sound:
I don't have much to say about them so I just grouped them together. Even though this anime is a decade old, both were still fine.

Character:
I have a lot to say here. I hated literally every character in this anime except for Kotonoha.
I have never hated a character more than Makoto before. Before you say that he was a well-done character for garnering such hate, let me explain. Not only was he the douchiest main character I have ever seen, but his character itself was developed in the weirdest ways. He begins looking like a good guy, but he has no tact whatsoever when it comes to girls. Then, somehow he magically was able to seduce like every girl in the anime. He was a douchebag if you looked at it objectively, but the he never overtly acted like an ass in the anime. He still tried to stay nice and spare people's feelings despite doing things that would send you to the depths of hell. That confused me.
Sekai starts out someone who wants to help her friends get together, but suddenly stabs her friend in the back by screwing her boyfriend. She feels guilty about it, but just rolls with the lies Makoto tells Kotonoha. At some random point, she stops feeling guilty out of nowhere and just keeps screwing around with Makoto.
Kotonoha is a typical shy, lovable girl you find in most school animes. There were some poor points about her character. She goes from just liking Makoto a little to being full-blown in love with him out of nowhere. What I find interesting about her though is that she is the linchpin of the psychological aspect of the anime. She just can't accept that Makoto would break up with her. Despite all the things she heard from other people, all the evidence of cheating, and eventually Makoto telling her directly, she just won't accept it. She eventually becomes a husk of her former self and is dedicated to becoming the perfect "girlfriend" for Makoto. If you wanted to evaluate the anime from a psychological standpoint, you could say that how her character was developed was pretty good. I didn't like it, but I respected it.
But what about the other characters? All the other girls just one by one fall for Makoto randomly. The writers are like "let's throw in another one" and write in some stupid story like him helping Setsuna out at the opening ceremony or Otome being in love with him from Junior High. It was kind of preposterous and pretty much just fuel for Makoto's douchiness that was executed poorly.

Enjoyment:
I only continued watching this anime for two reasons.
1. A friend pressured me to finish it (When it was over, I spent a full hour planning out what I was going to do to him for making me watch this when I saw him next).
2. I wanted to see if there were any redeeming qualities at all for this anime.
Forgetting about the ending, it was overall just hard to watch. So many elements of the anime were executed so poorly that it was just plain boring and unenjoyable. I was about to make this the first anime I ever stopped watching halfway, through but my friend convinced me not to (I wish I ignored him). The only thing any anime fan could enjoy is the messed up ending and that's only if you're a fan of psychological anime. When my friend told me to watch this he said that I shouldn't read any reviews or even a summary. I was convinced that it was a crappy school anime for most of the anime. At the very last episode thought, the psycho yandere twist came in. It was completely unexpected and honestly shook me up. I was actually breathing heavily and shaking after seeing that. I don't really consider myself to be a person who is shaken up easily so this was serious. Granted, it was completely unexpected and it was 1AM when I finished it, but I am sure that the ending is scarring enough to make you stay away from anime for a while. Definitely the least enjoyable anime I have ever seen.

Overall:
Stay away from this anime. If you are not looking for a psychological twist, then absolutely stay away. If you are looking for a psychological twist, it's not worth it. You have to sit through 10 episodes of pure crap before you can see any hint of a psychological element to this anime.