Review of School Days
Before I do a formal review of this so-called, "mediocre" anime from the majority, let me just say a couple of things. 1. NEVER, EVER, EVER especially for you teenage boys out there who experiment with, "love/romance," ask someone who is close to you and of the opposite sex for their advice on love/dating advice because things WILL definitely go smoothly from there. *^ Note my sarcasm in that last line.* 2. Screw the majority, I personally LOVE this anime! *Ahem* Continuing on...it starts off as a generic, romantic, school life drama with the protagonist, Makoto gazing at the love of his life, Kotonoha on a train stationon the way to their high school to attend their enrollment ceremony. Friendships start to form, hook-ups begin to become evident, rumours start developing, and of course, the bold ones make the move to either join clubs or become the student rep. Everything becomes peachy from the get-go because Makoto is having the time of his life forming a friendship with another girl, Sekai, he makes the move to go out with his crush, Kotonoha, he seeks Sekai for dating advice, and has met other popular female students that apparently seem to have a history with him.
You would expect things to turn out pretty swell for a guy surrounded by so many school girls with his crush on his side for a bonus, right? Well, predictably, THINK AGAIN! Makoto may have initially experienced the best, "school days," of his life, but because of the other potential beauties and his boy hormones kicking into gear, he goes all out and becomes 1 fickle boy stuck in a love triangle of epic proportions.
What I LOVE about this anime is that it starts off with Makoto and his initial crush, Kotonoha, with Sekai by his side for advice, but then, it shifts towards the other half of the anime with Makoto and Sekai, leaving Kotonoha as the third wheel. It definitely plays out like a visual novel, which kept me intrigued throughout the entire series since it is literally like playing one with a bigger emphasis on Makoto X Sekai, which creates the most satisfactory and catastrophically, surprise ending. Also, because of Makoto's fickleness, it never gets boring with him sticking to just 1 girl, but he gets himself in other love situations too. In terms of character development, everything goes downhill as the series progresses and this is where either you hate the characters so much (except for maybe Kotonoha) that you stopped watching the anime or you keep on going, still holding onto the hate for everyone and then, end up with a big smile on your face as all the characters you hate suffers from bad karma.
The only points I would dock off is the cheesy, "soap-opera-ish" typed music and the above par art. The only song I like is the catchy opening song since it seems super, "innocent," until the 2nd half of the opening foreshadows future actions of the protagonist in the anime and other love possibilities that mimics the player's love target when playing the visual novel.
I would HIGHLY recommend this anime to those who haven't played the visual novel since playing the visual novel prior, may distort opinions on the anime, those who like to get angry and vent out in each melodramatic moment, and likes realistic, cliche high school romance drama.
This anime is a perfect mix of comedy and drama under a typical high school anime until.........*SPOILER* a NICE BOAT appears.
Let me repeat myself one more time. Do you like any of the following:
1. Cute girls
2. High school drama
3. Romance
4. Fickleness
If you said yes to any of them, this is the anime for you.
My actual rating of this anime: 9.0 on the dot.