Review of School Days

This review will contain spoilers, as I feel it is important to review this anime based on how this anime begins, and what it turns into by the end of the series. I’m about to make a based review. I’m about to make the most based review, ever reviewed by a reviewer ever known. Case in point, I watched School Days, with the expectation that I was going to get some kind of shitty animation akin to Mars Of Destruction, with the plot being laughable and its attempts at even creating a worthwhile story being all for naught. The internet cess-pool had told me that thisanime was supposed to be terrible, and so bad one could coincider it funny. In short, I was expecting a terrible anime. But, what I found instead was the exact opposite.

School Days is the story about the main character, “Makoto” attempting to get with a girl named Kotonoha. However, once he succeeds, he quickly gets bored and starts engaging in an affair with his friend, Sekai. This quickly escalates as the story continues, to the point in which he begins to have multiple relations with girls, without really giving a shit about whom he hurts. To me, School Days seems to be a deconstruction of not just romance anime, but harem anime as a whole.

The protagonist, Makoto is our everyday anime protagonist. He’s innocent, he’s sweet, and he’s kinda perverted. Equally, he doesn’t really have much going in the personality department. However, over the course of the anime; he subverts everything his character is supposed to be. He becomes lustful, somewhat aggressive, and begins to blame everything for his problems except for himself. He begins to demand more sex, destroying his relationships in the process.

Some say that this anime is boring, and while that is subjective; in my case…I found it very engaging. Especially when viewed through that meta lense. This anime is truly painful to watch at times. And I think that was intentional, on all fronts. The shitty, awkward romance of a first kiss, or the uncomfortable and guilty feeling of cheating on someone to even the pure hopelessness of the situation that Makoto has put himself in by the end of the show. It’s all very deliberate; that’s what makes it so good. This anime knows what it’s doing, and it does it perfectly.

School Days is both a story about being a teenager and dealing with awkward first relationships while also being about temptation and giving in to lust.

School Days is one of the most real anime I’ve seen. I’d compare School Days to Higurashi. Especially, the ending. I feel it’s like Higurashi in a sense because both anime begins with a light-hearted start however both have a lurking darkness within themselves and it quickly delves deeper and deeper. There’s a reason why I personally consider School Days a, “psychological horror.”

I should however say that the characters are quite bland. However I feel that’s not much of a problem because the story this anime is trying to tell doesn’t need deep characters as much as it needs a theme, and a enthralling plot. Both of which this anime delivers quite well. Although while I am mentioning it, the design of the anime is a bit…bland as well. The art is fine however, and the music does wonders during the anime’s more impactful moments.

So yes, School Days is the story of a teenager having an innocent crush on a girl, only for that child-like fascination to quickly be perverted into a lustful carnal desire that he cannot control. One that damages everything around him, and we watch the effects play out in real-time.