Review of School Days

WARNING - Small spoilers but I'll refrain from writing anything too revealing. Story(4/10): The story starts off strong for the first 5 episodes but quickly falls apart on the 6th. The creators for some reason failed to launch once they had created a lane for the plot to play out. At this point in the plot I knew what was gonna happen next and was waiting for my predictions to either be wrong or right yet the story kept stalling. A character who is very integral to the plot, sekai was first used to do this. Small spoiler - She helps makoto get with Katsura butat the same time flirts with him here and there. She's used as an enforcer for the show's genre (Romance) but at the same time has the potential to cause conflict since she's both covert and active unlike the other heroine in the show - Katsura who is sincere and passive(enforcer of harem). Makoto being swayed by feminine beauty is obviously susceptible to Sekai's provocations.
This was an interesting dynamic between the three but as I mentioned Sekai is the engine that keeps it running yet by episode 6 the story changes her role. She's no longer active but now passive. This becomes a problem. Makoto is the MC of this harem anime so his job is to be the goal of both girls making him receptive - only taking from them. Katsura was already passive from the get go so she's hardly worthy of driving the story unless given a reason to. The issue is, none of the main 3 drive the plot at this point which feels like a cop out. It's almost as if the creators needed the status quo to remain the same even though underneath the surface things HAD changed.

Now what do the creators do to solve this problem of inactivity?
Implement Artificial drama.
Since the three main protagonist no longer drive the story, the creators must now use other supporting characters to take charge. The amount of random ass characters who have no real connection to the main three and just assume things and run with it, is plentiful and it becomes cringey to watch. One character in particular, Setsuna just listens to Sekai without question and creates even more problems for Katsura. Katsura fails to catch on cause the creators won't give her any meaningful action and becomes a punching bag for many other characters. This is basically what the story becomes from ep 6 till 11. Poor utilisation of all main characters and lack of payoff from what had been set up prior to these episodes gave me a headache.

Characters(3/10):
I have a hard time trying to relate to these 3. Once you get to the end of the show it ends up recontextualizing them imo. I started to think they suffered from psychological issues because of how dysfunctional their actions were towards the end but I then realised how little I knew about them. I was never given any clues as to why the two girls were so hung up on childish Makoto. The show never acknowledges their faults or punishes them for it (Like Katsura being desperate or sekai's deceit or Makoto being greedy). I then realised it was a tactic done by the creators of the show to absolve the characters of any sense of responsibility. No past information about them is given (some childhood trauma would have sufficed like bruh). The show doesn't even explore the girls relationship with other people within their proximity, as if to say "Makoto is the only important person in their lives because he's the Main character". So I found it hard to empathise with their actions and it's ensuing outcomes as it just was not deserving.
Makoto also becomes boring after ep 5. I pretty much predicted everything he'd do and how'd get away with it cos of plot armour.
Thy name is - Itou, monotony.

Sound(5/10):
The BGM is nothing special. The score usually just reflects what's happening on screen. No character themes as well from what I remember. I Like to believe a shows OST reaches high levels when the story and characters are progressing alongside with it and though that was the case in the beginning our main characters eventually stopped developing, yet were on screen just as much as before. You can imagine just how samey the OST felt for me during this point because I couldn't even pick a particular one out, except for the creepy menacing theme that would played towards the end. I did, however enjoy the ending theme that played at the end of ep2. Each Ending was different for every episode but the opening theme would remained the same. I'm indifferent to the opening as well. Just also want to add that Makoto's voice can get whiney at times so get ready for that.

Art(4/10):
The Art is typical but honestly I never was a fan of the big eyes, no nose and pointy chin design that anime is filled with. It can look appealing here and there but in this anime it just looked shoddily drawn at times. The character design is plain and this ties in to my previous point about how the characters lack depth they don't even try to make it up with style. Nothing to quickly tell us what they're about. Also these characters look bad when they're drawn from a side view.
You'd think with simplicity that comes from the premise and character design the animators wouldn't have too much of a hard time animating with more frames or interesting character acting in mind but you'd be surprised. I don't know how long the studio took in the production phase before it's release but man it clearly shows much wasn't done outside of get it finished and out there. The animation hardly has any energy and is filled with many still frames which is a shame. Don't expect anything cool to look at when venturing into this show.

Overall enjoyment(4/10)-
If it wasn't for this shows unprecedented reputation and funny hateful comments towards the characters of the show I wouldn't have enjoyed it just as much. Seeing people insult these fools was hilarious however, this is no credit to the show itself so I consider it to be lame overall. It was alright in the beginning and quickly turned into mediocrity and then crude melodrama.