Apologies for a quick entry, but that just means I’ll have to leave the discussion open-ended instead of just babbling on forever. We’ll see if this incites more comment.

But, anyway, if I do manage to get this post finished in the next half-hour, it will have been roughly one year since the airing of the first episode of School Days, the infamous harem (some say anti-harem) show that was groundbreaking or shocking in so many ways. Truly it is one of the most unique shows the anime world will see – maybe not in concept, but in execution, you just have to wonder what kind of ideas were running through the producer’s heads, for better or worse.

I thought it would make an interesting topic to look back from much further down the proverbial river (hey, you make the boat jokes, not me) back at School Days, and see if it’s still everything it was cracked up to be.

When School Days first aired, it was the talk of the otakusphere. People would simply not shut up about it, myself included.

It was what seemed to be a simple show, but one that incited discussion, or at the least, rabid screaming. It’s been a long time since the harem genre has had a hero they can truly hate; truly, there have been a lot of ambivalent, meh-inducing, or just plain forgettable guys out there, but very few have had the guts to be as brashly promiscuous and two-timing as our dear Makoto Itou.

All this was rather odd to a fanbase which is used to much happier and much purer harem shows, and so there was a base-level talk of just how much Makoto (and, later, Taisuke and company) needed to die in a fire.

However, it wasn’t just that which was the source of all the chatter; School Days has had a long legacy, dating back to its visual novel roots, which were even more explicit and even more bloody. It was rather infamous for its endings, and so a lot of its veterans looked for clues in the anime version of School Days, seeing whether the train was headed for the cliff.

Perhaps the fact that School Days was a lot easier to talk about than any other show was simply due to how it incited anger and emotion in a viewer like no other show, and as we all know, the first thing to do when you’re angry is to rush to your computer and tell everyone all about it.

Although, equally, the trainwreck drama of the show may have left an equal amount of people spellbound and speculating.

We may never know – School Days was really a perfect storm of an anime. Not only did it steal the show during its airing, but some grim real-life circumstances in Japan caused the delay of its final episode, and the birth of perhaps the most lasting legacy of School Days, the ‘Nice Boat’ meme. Really, one could not have asked for a more controversial show, both inside and outside the canon.

But as fiery as it got us, as emotional as we got (for better or worse), the true test of worthiness for an anime is that of time. Would it still invoke the fiery rage in us in the second and third viewings, where we knew what would happen? Or would the feelings we felt toward the show fade, cooling over time?

Sadly I have not been able to find out quite yet. I’ve only seen School Days once, and somehow I feel that a lot of people would only be able to stomach it once. But I have a few conjectures to make.

School Days is very much a shock value anime. A lot of holes are left open, a lot of threads untied, in order to greaten the raw impact on a viewer – a strategy all not too uncommon in the dramatic-visual-novel anime, but optimized here in School Days, with twists and stakes much higher.

But the thing about shock value is that, it doesn’t last all that long. It’s kind of like the each generic massacre that sweeps the media in America. Everyone’s shocked, crying buckets, asking “how could this happen”, and bonding together. But before you know it, in a manner of weeks, we’re back to laughing at dancing dogs on the news and forgetting that that ever happened.

School Days is much the same. It’s shocking, yes. Sad, maybe. Spellbinding, for sure. But it’s not all that personal, for a lot of people. Maybe some readers have gone to schools where people get stabbed over romantic disputes. Hell, I wouldn’t dispute that a lot of guys in real-life do sleep around (although I’ve never had the experience with that crowd).

But for a large amount of viewers (especially considering the anime viewership), School Days is just shocking because it’s different from your standard escapist fare.

But as long as there is your general moe-moe anime material, School Days will be swept under the rug. The ‘Nice Boat’ meme along with time has helped to distill it down to a sort of superconcentrated point. Like most anime, it’s abstracted to a short message, or memory, but nothing sharp.

It’s also the fault of its story-weaving as well… it’s not really that intricate. “Cheat on your girlfriend and die.” Perhaps a bit exaggerated, but not all that complicated. School Days is lacking in complex motives, and, as IKnight remarked a while back, it’s not really a tragedy.

The most memorable shows are the ones that makes you think, which is why tour de forces such as ef ~ a tale of memories or Five Centimeters per Second, and their stories of gray areas, are so widely acclaimed (not just by the majority but by myself as well). They challenge your views at times, they don’t give you what you expect all the time, but they do this without throwing the drama (and thus, believability) balance all out of whack.

School Days certainly leaves you guessing, but it doesn’t leave a lot to apply to oneself. Perhaps your mileage may vary, but I really think that while it’s a noteworthy anime, it’s not a memorable one. Like I said in my original review of it, watch it once – but only once.

It’s an anime that everyone should see just for how different and how unbelievable it is, but evolution-wise it’s a dead end. There’s no sense to the bad end, to the raw hatred induced by all the main characters, and the only reason School Days got away with it was because people, to a degree, expected it. It’s a twisted form of fanservice.

It’s not an anime I would really reccomend to anybody looking into anime. It’s not a ‘classic’ like that. Really, School Days is an anime reserved for either those in the darkest state of mind, or for those who fully know what they’re getting into. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone looking for just another happy visual-novel conversion.

Rather, School Days is something that will go down into the history books, but not as a great. Rather, it’s kind of like the six-wheeled Formula One car by Tyrrell – something noteworthy and, yes, innovative … but something that we’re not going to see more of, and for good reason.

Your thoughts on School Days, one year later?

-CCY

(Well, so much for that Nodame / Haibane / Kure-nai review. We’ll get to that.

Also, new record for post time: 30 minutes. When you have a deadline to hit…

Finally, pardon for the sudden NSFW image – didn’t notice until I had already uploaded. Oh well, I doubt people will complain.)

Day before yesterday I saw a Not Boat,
yesterday an sentimental fic,
and today, you…weird…music video…thing.

I keep trying to be a crazy anime fan. As a guy, I watch magical girl shows, as a realist, I watch ridiculous harems and visual novel adaptations, I fanboy over 2D things more than anything 3D, and I have an adoration of glasses-sporting characters that will put me in a straightjacket someday.

Yet somehow, I always seem to be one-upped by the manic minds across the sea, of what undoubtedly are self-labeled the “true otaku”, those who really have no shame nor sanity.

Perhaps this is the wrong type of person attribute to a mix-up like this, but on a scale of one to SHAFT in the what-in-the-hell department this Kaiji MAD (or whatever music-video-edit thing) probably clocks a nine thousand.

The Japanese really enjoy their weekly dose of zawa zawa, and for some reason this directly correlates to the show being placed in a bunch of strange situations and videos. And I’m not talking semi-plausible mash-ups like Haruhi and Lucky Star here. I mean, first there was Nanoha fanart in Kaiji style. Then they inserted Kaiji into Lucky Star. The Azumanga Daioh OP was redone with Kaiji animation.

But, seriously…KimiKiss? Maybe they’re poking fun at the uber-manly drama of Kaiji as well, but the whole “kiss kiss koishiteru yo” thing, combined with Kaiji art in KimiKiss style (plus some ASCII yaoi) truly makes this video one hell of a strange sensation. KimiKaiji Pure Zawa? Straaaaaaaaaaange. I call dibs on the Zawa Brigade, with Kaiji featuring as Haruhi, Mikuru, and Nagato, because God Knows Andou and Furuhata ain’t going to cut it. (well, Ishida could be Mikuru, I suppose. Hello, mental imagery.)

On a more sane note, in case you have been hiding your eyes trying to make the boats go away, let me pry them open with the reminder that School Days has two OVAs in the works, both of which seem to be decidedly lighter than the usual fare. Magical Kokoro-chan, a shameless magical-girl parody (I imagine; Kokoro sports a Beretta handgun-weapon-thingy in one clip), will be released later in March, but Valentine Days was bundled in with the School Days LxH game release for the PS2 (yes, sanitized School Days, isn’t it weird?), and having been subbed recently, I had the chance to check it out.

Straaaaaaaaaaange. Again. It’s really weird seeing School Days take on a light-hearted tone that I’d imagine you’d find in a comedy-harem like show, like the early parts of Shuffle!, or what I imagine Love Hina is like. It’s not exactly a self-contained piece; it seems to be a prologue to the anime (replete with purposely tacky ‘monologue while panning up’) and makes a lot of jabs at the show, such as the references to two of the bad ends, and Makoto’s deliciously ironic line “My fate is sealed! I’m going to be killed!”

It’s a great finisher to the show, many months later, similar to sola’s second OVA; it’s a light-hearted work that reminds you to have a little fun with the show after some intense drama. Yeah, I know there’s another OVA; but it looks to be a bit more fanservice orientated than this one. There were quite a few funny moments, both intentional and unintentional; the oh-so-subtle “oh yeah!” in the background as we slow-pan over Sekai’s scantily-clad mom is a moment of the latter that jumps to mind.

The only thing is that just like in the real anime, I find myself dissapointed in Setsuna. This time, she really did move over, but for Taisuke yaoi lovin’? I don’t know about that…

And for the third segment to this short post, I recently unearthed a years-old fanfiction of Cardcaptor Sakura that I enjoyed reading five or so years ago at the height of my low-level fandom. It’s over fifty chapters – quite an accomplishment – and I’ll provide a link here, although I have no guarantees as to quality, sanity, or pinkness of the page.

It was something that stirred quite a sentimental moment in me, knowing that such a piece was still hanging around the internet; it’s really funny how much things have changed in just a few years, and at this rate I’ll be senile and making snaps about how “back in my day we had to see sad girls in the snow, and we liked it!” by the time I’m twenty-one.

I’ve distanced myself quite a bit from my ‘old fandom’ self, the days of watching one or two shows and writing cheesy fanfiction, something that seems common in a lot of anime fans, and I wonder, whether it’s better to embrace this past after all. Certainly, there are a lot of good stories out there – it’s just scarily similar to the genre of harem in that there’s a few good ones and a lot of rubbish that will make you wince.

It’s almost like a parallel to the subs vs. dubs argument, in that I’m finding myself increasingly repelled from non-art fanwork (music videos, fanfics, etc) for surprisingly familiar reasons (”it doesn’t do the characters justice”, “it’s just not the same”, etc). Is the anime blog community in a sense just an extension of this fan community, except with essays instead of stories? I wonder…it’s important not to make too many “us vs. them” distinctions.

I’ll end this with a question: what of your anime fandom past? Is it something that you feel ashamed of? Should all the old fanfiction, all the fan pages and connections be swept under the rug? Or are they a mark of pride as well? At the age that a lot of anime fans are at there tends to be that long search for identity, even in a microcosm of life such as anime fandom. Should these moments of the past induce thoughts of “what was I thinking?”, like any more normal mistake of youth, or are they just something to build off?

-CCY

When in doubt, Kotomi. This picture is not yet related.

(I always worry that my introspections sound a little too depressing, but hopefully they aren’t. I have fun with them.)

(Incidentally, I’m thinking of changing the style of this blog a bit. The Track Two category will probably be spread out into more posts, instead of consolidating them into hidden-in-the-archive posts. This will result in more short, spur-of-the-moment posts like this, and less of the organized format. I think it’ll be simpler and entertaining.)

I’ve said it once, I’ve said it again, and now I’ll say it three times: music is what can make a show great.

A story is the framework an anime is based on. With no foundation, the entire thing will collapse in on itself. With a cliche story, or flat characters, there will be nothing for an anime to build off of.

But there’s only so far you can go with a base. A show with a good story might have logical appeal, might be interesting in theory, but like a socially inept savant, won’t express itself to its full potential to others.

One might think that good looks, great graphics, might be the key to an anime being top-notch. Certainly there have been a lot of great anime that are drop-dead gorgeous. But really, graphics are only a fresh coat of paint; only really good for a first impression.

As long as it’s not a horribly shoddy job, the graphics don’t noticeably affect perception of an anime. They say, looks are only skin deep. Maybe a naive view, but one that holds relatively true in anime; pictures typically will not stick in memory quite as well as a poignant moment.

Or as well as music.

I’m not sure what it is about music that makes it a direct path to a viewer’s heartstrings. There is something about the notes that a piano, a violin can make, that instinctively cues a certain reaction.

But no matter what it is, a good music track is what can make an anime stand out from the crowd. A theme that’s infectiously catchy is something that a lot of people have come into contact with, and certainly a good OP / ED song, being heard 12+ times over a series’ length, is important to get right.

Greater than that, though, is a memorable soundtrack, one that can take great moments and burn them into the mind, linking the two together.

School Days may be remembered for many other things, but for this reason, the ninth episode is what stands out from the series most.

12 Moments of Anime 2007
#2 School Days 09
“Sad Girls in School”

If School Days could be boiled down to two words, it would probably still be ‘nice boat’.

Certainly the character-vs-character uber-drama elements of School Days, finally culminating in the bloody conclusion (and To My Children, I suppose I should add), is something that makes School Days stand out.

It’s very doubtful, despite all the talk going around the anime community at every harem show, that we’ll ever see such rampant sexuality and character conflict in an anime again. The yandere might have been pioneered by other shows like Shuffle! and Higurashi, but the ‘nobody-is-safe’ attitude that School Days has takes it beyond the safety lines that every other anime stays behind.

Those of us who tried to back a character, tried to believe that anyone was pure of heart – even simply relative to the rest of the characters – were proven wrong, to say the least.

School Days’s reputation came and will continue to come from this element of drama, the fact that it went where nearly no other show had gone before in screwing ‘em all, screwing the audience, and staying with it’s twisted-fable-like-story until the very end.

And it only barely got away with it. The only reason that fans didn’t turn out to burn the animation studio, those responsible in droves, was that School Days had an established pedigree, that it was famous for being ‘that one eroge where she slit that other girl’s throat’.

They were expecting it, they wanted it, they demanded it. Any newcomer who came to the show fresh, would be at least a little hesitant at demanding Makoto’s blood, if only because it’s a little extreme. A ridiculous cap to a ridiculously dramatic show.

Make no bones, I enjoyed watching School Days. I hated the characters. I hated everyone in it. But the strange mix of both hoping for the characters to improve and hoping for them to die allowed for enough reasons to watch the show and to be enraptued by every dramatic moment. There was just enough hope to leave one attached, rooting for certain characters, but little enough so that when one was wronged, they could easily turn against the show, asking for it all to go down in flames.

And verily, when it did, life was good. Personally, I was not one hoping for a bloody end – perhaps a fate worse or more demeaning than death would fit – but that is something irrelevant to the topic. (Best transition ever coming up.)

The topic is how School Days managed to keep my attention, managed to really inflame the emotions. And a lot of that, beyond just simple shock value, was due to School Days’s excellent soundtrack.

There was a lot of work put into the music, I believe. Maybe it wasn’t evident in the show itself, but one thing that seems unique to the show is how a different vocal theme was used for the ending theme for each episode. It’s something that adds a nice touch to the show.

Additionally, there are a couple well-placed insert songs as well, and where these two works intersect at their finest is at the end of School Days 9.

A typical high-intensity moment to cliffhang another episode, we are concluding the school festival with an insert song as Makoto and Sekai (his current girl, for those keeping score) dance at the typical end-festival bonfire. It fades as the two of them twirl around, and Sekai asks, taking Makoto’s hand,

“I’m your girlfriend, right?”

Makoto can only look stunned as another song, Anata ga Itai (if I recall correctly) cues in, slowly. We cut to a ribbon falling slowly into a dark pool, symbolizing another important event happening, which would be Kotonoha being raped by Taisuke (a fun show, I know, I know).

The music builds to a crescendo as we get an extreme close-up of Kotonoha’s glassy eye, and lulls for a moment of silence.

The screen goes black. “Makoto…” she utters.

Then the music kicks back in as the title card, “School Days: After Evening”, displays, and we get launched into the credits, the music continuing in the background.

It’s a pretty emotional song, slow-paced but sung with a lot of heart, almost sad-feeling (although I can’t interpret the lyrics), perfectly fitting for a scene in the show like this.

The credits continue scrolling, the same as always, as the song continues into it’s powerful chorus; but it’s not over yet. Exactly in time with the cut to the ‘next episode’ preview, the backing instruments cut out, leaving the melancholy singer’s voice with only a piano behind her, as the next episode title, “Heart and Body” are typed out on the phone.

It’s never failed to give me goosebumps.

The synthesis between music and visuals in School Days here is something I’ve never really seen in my days, the perfect match of sight and sound, and it even transcends the typical boundaries of the ‘end’ of an episode as well.

It’s really a sealing touch to add to a series that’s already unforgettable – one way or another.

School Days is one of those shows that won’t dissapear from the public eye – maybe for it’s content, maybe for it’s ending, maybe for it’s meme. It may not be one of those things that people want to see a lot of, and something that we probably won’t see a lot of; this is one of those shock value shows that only works as the exception, not the norm.

Without all the other nice, happy harem shows to lull us into complacency, School Days’s senseless sexuality and violent ending would be nothing. But since harem anime is, so often, what it is – more than a touch unrealistic escapism, School Days excels by looking to be another one of the same – if only for a bit – and breaking those expectations. (Admittedly, by being more than a touch unrealistic, except on the other end of the scale.)

You can say you saw it coming. You can say you knew it was going to happen a mile away. But there’s believing, and then there’s seeing – especially with such a misleading first episode, it was surprising how wrong School Days got and how fast it added it up, like a harmless prank gone horribly wrong.

School Days as such is my pick, hands down, for the most overall influential anime this year in the anime community – like it or not, it’s become the bar for every harem anime to be set against in terms of drama and conflict, even if very few anime dare to approach that bar.

It may not be a comparison that I’m in favor of making, but I won’t lie in saying School Days isn’t indelibly printed on my mind, or at least the anime-orientated part of it. It’s not just the characters, not just the drama, not just the conflict, but also the emotionally charged music that made it what it is, more than a simple harem meltdown and more of a wrenching, disturbingly serious (maybe real) romantic apocalypse that you can’t turn away from if you wanted to.

A public service announcement by Makoto Itou and all his ’special’ friends.

-CCY

School Days is quite possibly the standout anime of this year.

Never before have I seen an anime exert such genre-shaking power; after all, the true test of an anime or any work of fiction is not how much you support it in the moment of actually consuming it, but how much you support it after its run is over.

In that regard School Days has become harem’s Azumanga Daioh, the eternal bar for other anime of its genre. And quite frankly, people won’t shut up about it. Even I’m writing about it…again.

But like all things blown out of proportion, one has to question how much School Days lives up to the hype. Has it really affected how we see harem shows today? Should it? And, has it unleashed something revolutionary in the genre itself?

(Nice Spoilers ahead, also for Myself;Yourself as well.)

The answer to the first question is obvious. Any show nowadays with even a hint of drama in the background of it tends to get at least a small crowd of people saying “Oh no, not another School Days”, or something of the like.

Some of these are valid – Myself;Yourself certainly has the requisite character conflict. Da Capo II, maybe, but it’s a bit of a stretch. Shana II? Not even close to being close.

My main issue is that School Days did not invent the ‘drama in romance’ idea. It may have been one of the most extreme examples, but we had just as much character conflict in Shuffle!, or the original Da Capo. Hell, you could make a case for Tsukihime (take the end of Ciel’s arc).

Certainly School Days took it to a new level with the ending – where other characters started regretting their actions, Kotonoha and Sekai sharpened their knives – but by no means is it genre-defining.

This is because, to me, School Days is an outlier in harem-land for these reasons and others. School Days is a decidedly more dark show, almost sadistically so, than any other romance out there. Most harem shows aim to be somewhat escapist and bright, with the drama just leading to a reconcilation and conclusion. But School Days uses the same idea to chart both the rise and fall of one of anime’s most incredible womanizers. It’s like one giant, completely-messed up fable.

The endless references to School Days feels like more of a comparison brought on by mental scarring more than any valid reasons. In the same way that Nanaka (M;Y) goes into mental convulsions whenever she sees fire, harem viewers get all twitchy and scared whenever they see a knife or a hint of conflict in anime. Most of them don’t want it to happen again; at least not to these non-Makoto-characters.

I am of the viewpoint of giving these people a nice, reassuring hug like a typically bland harem protagonist, and murmuring that I’ll never let it happen again to them. Because it won’t.

School Days is an equally special case in that it was probably one of the most widely-spoiled anime in history. It was ‘that one show where that one girl stabs the other one’. Because of that shocking revelation, viewers began to expect that, expect School Days to go where no anime went before. At some point, backing off from the ’shock ending’ would create more controversy than anything else.

On the other side, original anime, or other, more tame visual novel adaptations are less likely to go said “boat route” since logically, there’s no reason to. Since as mentioned, most anime are generally pleasant affairs in the end, there’s no reason to go to such extremes which would logically lead to a bad ending of a show. Most animation studios do not hate viewers enough to give them an ending that leaves them feeling guilty or sick.

School Days was a show where nearly all characters were developed to be equally detestable. But most shows paint their characters with at least some good traits, or at least do not intend to put them in a bad light; in romance shows there are very few true ‘villain’ characters, just a bunch of competitive rivals that can wield the power of the fanbase.

Naturally a character taking such drastic action against another would really hurt their reputation at least in the eyes of a lot of people. You never hear “I know she tried to kill someone, but she’s really a nice person” that much.

It all goes back to pleasing the fans. Some people like to see a lot of conflict. Some like getting dropped into the middle of a character war (Kaede vs. Asa, for one). But a large amount of people would rather have something easily digestible, something warm and fuzzy; they watch anime to get away from all the yelling and screaming and shoving.

A little bit is of course acceptable to move to plot but most of the time shows don’t go to such extremes, because it would just be too repulsive for some people to watch, too overblown for something as simple as teenage love. Trainwrecks are an acquired taste.

Will it happen again? Of course it will. As ridiculous, as depressing as it is, School Days manages to compart a sort of raw emotion very few anime can touch; it’s an emotion that many don’t like to deal with (I know I’m not happy with nearly busting a keyboard), but one that’s very real and if you can stand it, very intriguing. There will always be people willing to push the boundaries of taste, and I don’t blame them nor plan to stop them.

It could be happening again as we speak, some say. Myself;Yourself is on the Boat Radar of many people at the moment; the Wakatsuki father, Nanaka’s uncle, and Grandma Kaiji are all under heavy suspicion of doing Bad Things, and we certainly are getting our share of screaming, sad music, and drama.

Personally, I think it is a bit of a stretch; all visual-novel-type games tend to have at least some level of dramatic conflict, yet 95% of them end well. Myself;Yourself may be deeper entrenched in the stuff than most shows (not a bad thing, yet) but it’s quite clear that from the overall atmosphere of the show – from the light-hearted beginning to the rocking OP, that these are all means to some good end.

My main issue, if you had to boil it down to something, would be that people are becoming over-paranoid in the post-School Days era. Shows like this that really go outside the box, that really stand out, are the exceptions, rather than the norm. Not every show that gets a bit dark is going to end up in Bad End City. Nor is every show that’s dramatic copying School Days. Tension is a natural part of fiction, and only when it becomes wildly overblown – to nearly a post-apocalyptic tone – can we really say that we’ve got the Next Boat entering the harbor.

-CCY
(My apologies if this post is less coherent than usual. It’s one part rant, one part post-SAT, and one part Tsuru Pettan. Probably a bad mixture.)

“Just as I thought. There’s no one inside.”

School Days is unquestionably the most blogged-about anime of the summer season, perhaps even eclipsing the king from spring, Lucky Star. Whether the hype is proportional to the quality of the show is the major question here.

This story of the three people who met in the school and got turned into three “love” stories has been getting reviews all over the spectrum; and it’s not just anti-votes that are killing the show’s rating.

Aside from the seasoned SD vets claiming that the story doesn’t stay true to one plot – which is likely true, although unverifiable by me – the wide range of review scores and feelings about the show stem to the fact that School Days, above anything else, is unquestionably different from any show of the genre.

It sets itself up as a simple, happy romance show, a bit of a love triangle, something that a lot of anime viewers should be familiar with.

Where it goes from there is what’s interesting, perhaps shocking.

Most of the viewers of School Days are well familiar with its darker-than-expected roots, and quite morally and/or sanity challenged characters. But adaptations tend to change a lot and with only 3 true “bad” endings out of a possible 20 (summing up possibilities from harem endings to ending up with any main character or side character) there are plenty of ways to clean up School Days’s ways.

And for the first few episodes, School Days led you on like a criminal out of prison, claiming that it had changed. There was a happy, bright OP called “Innocent Blue.” The character’s crushes on each other seemed innocent enough. What could go wrong?

Plenty, in fact.

To say any more would be to spoil the show, but rest assured that if you like pleasant, upbeat, heartwarming romances you’re going to be running screaming from School Days.

Rather, what you get is a dark, almost soap-opera-like concoction packed with twists, turns, and drama. This polarized the crowd, which generally fell into three groups:

1) Loved the drama, and the show.
2) Hated the drama, and the show.
3) Found the drama, and thus the show, hilarious.

Your ability to survive characters specifically set up to be detestable will say a lot about your enjoyment of School Days. If you can handle hating characters, if you can handle not making any assumptions that any character is “good”, School Days is an excellent anime.

But not a top-notch one.

School Days is still a flawed anime, despite what one could possibly call quite enrapturing (when it’s not ridiculous, or perhaps because it is) drama. The focus is arguably too thin, as while the main characters will have their stories resolved in a nice manner, the side characters simply disappear by story’s end.

And it’s not by any means a show everybody could find something to like in.

If you don’t mind a walk on the dark side, School Days is still a show very worth watching, as what it does, it does very well. It’s just what it doesn’t do that keeps it from top status…

(Huge spoilers are huge, after the jump.)

The characters in School Days are arguably the most controversial aspect of the series, as they do plenty of things that range from ridiculous to just plain wrong.

Makoto is a martyr for the pimp lifestyle, as I can count on one hand all the characters with names in the show that he hasn’t slept with…including guys. His actions at first were easily defendable; maybe he doesn’t know how to approach Kotonoha, maybe he’s being tempted by Sekai, maybe he’s a good person after all.

And then he slept with Sekai, Setsuna, Otome, Otome’s three friends, and Hikari, somewhat in that order.

The only people left defending him at the end were either the trolls who didn’t take the show seriously, and those who respected him for being able to knock up that many girls. Yet somehow, Makoto was the character that showed both the most development…and the least.

Certainly in the last two episodes Makoto went through at least what seemed like an epiphany. He realizes that just maybe he was being a bit of a jerk to the one girl he really cared about, and he began focusing on the girl he’d been ignoring since the start…

Unfortunately there was another girl that he went through a phase with in between, Sekai, who brought out Makoto’s true colors in trying to hang on to him, just to have him give her the cold shoulder in numerous ways.

Adding to the problems, Sekai was pregnant and so wasn’t just about to give up Makoto to Kotonoha. Predictably, though, Makoto chose the one with the bigger rack and bigger will to make love to him, and Sekai made sure he didn’t live to discover the error of his ways.

But to call Sekai a victim of circumstances would be a lie as well. School Days is filled with extremely flawed characters from every direction. Let’s take a look at Makoto’s harem:

Sekai sent the entire show into motion when she kissed Makoto at the end of episode 1. Had she stepped out there, things might have gone smoothly between Kotonoha and Makoto. Despite what she said about letting Kotonoha have him, in the end her emotional will overcame her logical one, and so she gave in to Makoto when he switched.

But it wasn’t just Kotonoha who Sekai stole Makoto from. Setsuna was probably the original Girl With A Crush On Makoto, who confided in her best friend Sekai that she had a thing for him. Yet Setsuna got the shaft from the love triangle, having enough common sense to not get involved in other’s business.

Not until late in the series anyway, when she kissed and slept with Makoto…in a desperate attempt to get him to stay with Sekai, and not turn back to Kotonoha. It’s a strange paradox, where she sleeps with the guy she loves in order to keep him with another girl.

Otome was the third wheel, an outsider even more than Setsuna. Despite being a childhood friend of Makoto and wielding a powerful trio of evil friends, she didn’t really have the courage or the opportunity to approach Makoto until the end, where she had a short fling with him, in between his Sekai and Kotonoha phases.

Her trio of friends slept with him later too, by the way. And inexplicably Hikari, the girl with a strange crush on his friend, Taisuke.

It’s easy to see that all the characters suffer from a typical struggle of common sense vs. hormones, and in almost every case, the latter won.

Kotonoha is the “exception” to the rule in School Days, being made out to be the pure character, the real victim. Which arguably seems like patent lies, because she is quite mentally unstable, not to mention, possessive. She’s easily pushed over, and there’s probably a reason Makoto was the first one to approach her. You can’t overlook any character in this show.

It’s definitely a possible argument that these characters aren’t as flawed as they look just because they had a slight (major) slip of judgment in bed; some say it’s a realistic view of high school society.

But School Days takes the high road, ironically enough. It almost seems made to condemn this type of action. It certainly seems like the anti-harem show (not to be confused with “anti-harem” shows), a warning to future high school pimps out there to be very careful how you manage your harem.

Certainly Makoto could have gotten away with his life if he had, amusingly enough, stood up for himself a bit more. His ignoring of Sekai did more damage than anything else; his main flaw was that he failed to close relationships forcefully enough. He didn’t ever really break up with anybody in person, instead taking cowards’ way outs like using e-mail.

It’s almost ironic that Makoto has the same problem as many harem leads, despite being so different: he lacks a backbone. Period. He just goes with the wind instead of just not going anywhere at all.

The characterization of the main trio worked relatively well, and despite all the ranting about their characters above they did seem like oddly realistic characters, realistic in their personalities and ability to make stupid decisions.

This is one of the interesting points of School Days, as for a long time it seemed like one of those things that Could Happen To You. Obviously at the end, it got a bit out of hand, but School Days’s strength compared to other harem shows is that there is no supernatural premise, no magical secret. Everyone’s a real person, with real friends and “lovers”. It’s almost creepy in it’s realism (as stated over by the guys at Epic Win).

Unfortunately, the storytelling cracked a bit near the end, which may have alleviated the concern of some from the above regard, yet angered many more watching the show from an objective point.

Simply, the show takes on too much. There are so many plots introduced for the side characters that never really get solved. As interesting as the main love triangle was, there were many more things that needed to get conclusion.

Nanami got set up as the pity character at the end; admittedly I had hopes for her, since she was the only one untouched by Makoto. What happened to her?

Setsuna made a splash and dash with Makoto before flying off to France. Were they going to let her off? Never show her again? Apparently.

Otome seemed like she was getting somewhere in realizing she was foolish for ever liking Makoto. Why no true resolution on that?

Don’t forget, there were probably almost as many people waiting for Taisuke the rapist to die in a fire as were those for Makoto.

And yet none of these plots were ever closed. With the one-minute “back to normal” scene at the very end of SD, after the credits, it’s almost like they were anti-closed.

Unless, everyone would really forget and move on that fast?

Naturally in the end, there were some other logical loopholes too that didn’t get covered, such as the body of a certain Saionji being discovered on the rooftop, or the dissaperance of Makoto and Kotonoha (off into the sunset, in a nice boat), or just why There Are No Parents In Anime.

One might argue that this show might slip from drama into the horror genre if that was covered, but in the end the show can get written off as an obvious work of fiction.

From that standpoint School Days works quite well. The soundtrack of School Days is one of the strongest I’ve seen in recent memory. While the actual music itself may be forgettable, the insert songs and changing credit themes really take the show to a new level of impact.

The end of the ninth episode, starting with Sekai’s question “I’m your girlfriend, right?” really never fails to give goosebumps, with the way the song’s highs and lows coincide with not just the ending of the episode, but also the following title display and episode preview. It’s simply amazing.

Other insert songs are plentiful and strong, and add to the emotional effect of the show as well. I can’t complain in the sound regard; while I can’t really judge voice actors that well, I found them to fit quite well to their characters. The whiny Makoto, the desperate Sekai/Kotonoha, the quiet Setsuna…it works.

Graphically School Days is a good looking show as well; it’s not fantastic (I think in terms of school series, it is topped by TokiMemo), but it’s not ugly by any means. It GETS ugly in the show, but it doesn’t look ugly.

On that note, the censorship in the series didn’t bother me, if only because if it was uncensored, I’d probably be reaching for a bucket right now.

To sum it up, School Days is a dramatic and almost haunting school life show, which definitely gives perspective on the side of romance so rarely seen in anime these days. It makes a good contrast to the Shuffles and the Da Capoes where everyone gets along.

The audience can really feel the emotions from this show, which is what makes it such a hotly discussed series. One’s mental state almost follows Kotonoha’s throughout the show; first it’s very pleasant and pure, followed by the creeping sensation that something’s going wrong, and then topped off by a sort of insane laughter of the “this can’t be happening” kind.

And that’s what makes School Days such an appealing show to watch. If not because it’s different than every other harem show, because despite the radical difference from the idealistic views and lives of many an anime viewers, it really connects.

It’s one hell of a twisted roller coaster. Ride it once. Twice might make you sick, but it has to be experienced once, if only so you can say you hated (or loved) it.

-CCY

Alternative, all bets are off.

Just like the girls, I can’t seem to stay away from Makoto and his story and so it’s time to fire up the prediction machine one last time to see where this story is headed.

You’d think that with the original content and with the expectations of the fanbase one would expect the conclusion to be obvious. You’d also be wrong, with the curveball that the penultimate episode served up.

Strangely enough the last episode effectively neutralized, for now, the Kotonoha threat. I kept looking at her hands all throughout the last scene. Where’s the knife? Where’s the knife? Nowhere! Her eyes are back to normal and everything!

It certainly seems strange for all that buildup to be shot down in the second-to-last episode, even if there still are twists possible. It’s just not flowing right – I suppose, in a sense, that Kotonoha’s very existence is clinging on Makoto now and so it makes sense for her to swing to wildly – but if she ends up snapping anyway next episode this episode will seem a lot like a bad attempt to make a “calm before the storm.”

Speaking of calm, this is true also because the rest of a cast on a whim decided to back off Makoto almost as quickly as they came onto him. Perhaps it’s because they found out Sekai’s actually pregnant (omg, panic, etc) or perhaps it’s because they realized Makoto’s a stupid pimp or perhaps it’s because Nobody Cares About The Side Characters, but it certainly seemed almost deux-ex-ish.

I can understand Otome backing off. She was one of my clutch characters from last episode that could hopefully swing this series around, if anyone was going to be a salvageable character from School Days. It certainly seems that way now, as she is joining the ever-popular-club of “Promise sex (but maybe not deliver) to Makoto so we can turn him onto the path of righteousness.”

Hikari confuses me. She did it at least twice with Makoto, which isn’t making an entire lot of sense considering that she was the one with a thing for Taisuke. For her to abandon that for Makoto, even if she does manage to knock some sense into him regarding Sekai – seems very strange. As does the complete and total dissapearance of Taisuke. Perhaps he’s smart and is fleeing to Canada.

Nanami’s a question mark as she sure seemed troubled a lot during this episode, but Hikari claimed that Nanami was feeling better a few days later. I sincerely hope so, since Nanami seems to be (almost) one of the “sane” characters of School Days, a definition that is quickly being synonymous with “did not sleep with Makoto ever.”

Sekai’s change of heart was pretty quick as well; perhaps. As much as she hates him for cheating on her (and 4 other girls) and for getting her pregnant as a presumably high school student, well, she knows she’s “won” because she’s carrying Makoto’s child.

Or has she?

Makoto has gone full circle and turned back to Kotonoha after 10 episodes. He certainly sounded like he “realized the error of his ways” when he was “talking” with Kotonoha, but something about his character screams “Pity pity etc blah blah sex me now kay Koto?”

Perhaps I’m being harsh on him, since he was crying and such, but this late in the game, as I’ve previously stated, is just too late for Makoto to make a full turn around. It’s not going to happen dot period end of story lest a storm of fanboys angrier than I am burn the animation studios to the ground. A “good” good ending at this point just simply is not an option.

Why? Kotonoha’s normal again, right?

For now.

Certainly there’s a lot of focus on Kotonoha and with all this effort made to break Kotonoha we’re not going to fix her in one scene. Another stick on her back just might snap it, which is plausible; despite what I said about that being ridiculous, it certainly feels like it’d be a more sensible bad end than the other option.

The other option being the third bad end from the game, the one involving Sekai as the criminal. Long story short: Sekai pregnant, check. Makoto sleeping with Kotonoha, no doubt. Slashy slashy? Let’s see it.

It doesn’t make a lot of logistic sense doing all the work to make Kotonoha the tortured character only to turn the spotlight on Sekai and let her loose, but running off of game events it certainly seems like the most plausible situation.

From what it seems though, the anime has blended many different game storylines (to the chagrin of many AnimeSuki forumites); Setsuna’s Summer Days crush, the Everybody’s Makoto harem piece, Sekai’s dance at the bonfire, and so on, so certainly a new ending or a mix is possible.

And with a hint of ambulance sirens in the next episode preview, you know something’s going down. It just seems strange that they put so much effort to “fix” everything this episode, since we know it’s the equivalent of pasting a house together with a glue stick.

It might have been better if they shifted the Kotonoha insanity climax to next episode, since right now all it’s seeming to be is a red herring. Sekai, be the criminal? It’s possible. Kind of silly at this point, but she’s a very troubled girl as well.

So, School Days 12, what to expect? It’s hard to call, but suffice to say, bet on red.

I don’t think any of the main three are going to get away unscathed; Makoto’s going to need his last rites, and either Kotonoha or Sekai better start getting intimate with a prison cell. I’d say Kotonoha will be the one that comes off the “best”, if only because she’s the pitiable character of this show.

Hopefully there will be some conclusion to the side characters in this last episode. If Taisuke gets his just desserts, Setsuna makes a final comeback (although not I’m the Wife) and Nanami makes it through “clean”, it’ll personally be a moral victory.

-CCY

But, hey, School Days 9 pretty much confirms whatever that you didn’t want to happen, so it is big. Quick summary and quick thoughts after the jump.

You’ve been warned. Huge spoilers. Like, Civic rice rocket spoilers.

So, important plot points, with screencaps thanks to Random Curiosity:
* Makoto chalks up another one, this time scoring with Otome (the ponytail girl that liked him since middle school)…I believe in the videotaped bed as well.
* Sekai kicks Makoto in the crotch. Probably a short term thing and not a large fight, but, hey, I know it’s going to get some cheers from the crowd.
* Makoto and Sekai end up dancing at the bonfire thing at the end, which combined with some other screenshots seem to correlate directly with the “Taisuke rapes Kotonoha” scene.

So, not all at once now:

Holy shit. The drama just continues to compound multifold in this series.

You want bad end? You get bad end. It certainly is going in this direction as the order in this series is pretty much going to hell. Otome’s officially joined the Makoto battle royale now (although Setsuna appears to have backed down from AnimeSuki summaries), Taisuke’s 99% confirmed to have done pretty much what no one wanted (yet many expected) him to do.

I don’t believe Otome nor Setsuna were ever actually involved in the competition in any of the canon game paths which involved Sekai or Kotonoha – although I haven’t played the game – so it’s strongly likely that the path the anime is taking is a bit of a compilation of many. Needless to say it’s not getting any better as pretty much all hell is going to break loose in the harem and beyond in the upcoming episodes:
* The video of Otome x Makoto
* Pretty much damn everything that’s happened to Kotonoha
* Sekai’s losing ground as well as losing Setsuna to France (don’t think she’s broken the news to her yet)
* Hikari might have a role to play if she hears about Taisuke and Kotonoha; certainly won’t doubt he’ll brag about it, and even if just Makoto hears about it, certainly some interesting possibilities could result.

Seems like we’re getting exactly what we expected and more. Certainly the scary thought. Get out your cameras, this is going to be one hell of a wreck…

-CCY

With the recent episodes of School Days being aired and subbed, the burning desire of fans to go burn Makoto in a fire may have lessened slightly as a lot of the Uber Melodrama which has been kicked up is out of his control.

Still, it’s no secret there was a large crowd that came for the Bad End, which only grew as Makoto did more and more stupid things and as characters did more and more stupid things to Makoto, like fall in love with him.

To that end School Days can almost claim the title of horror-mobile, as the most recent episode almost proves that no one…no one is safe from the Makotomobile. (Hint: You don’t want a ride on it.)

Granted, there’s one girl that has the hots for Taisuke but that goes beyond the realm of horror and into the supernatural, as in “What spell did he cast on her to do that?!”

But the purpose of this post is not to criticize nor support the nearly non-existant bases of the feelings between many of the School Days characters – although, I won’t doubt that this sort of relationship isn’t uncommon in most high schools. Not to mention, show me any anime meganekko and I’ll show you highly biased worshipping.

Perhaps a more important issue for many viewers of the anime is not who has a crush on who or who’s stupid for having a crush on who or who’s stupid for not noticing stupid’s stupid feelings for them but rather when we will get to the slashing (or roof-jumping, or stabbing, or whatnot).

In my previous takes on School Days I’ve tilted toward the kinder end towards Makoto, similarly to perhaps Kotonoha in the anime. Even as Makoto’s brain slowly shifted from his head to his crotch in the later episodes, I stayed on the kinder end of things, suggesting maybe that he live…just not happily ever after. Proverbial life in prison instead of the death sentence.

And in the end I retained some hope for a happy ending, yearning for a Makoto 2.0 that wasn’t a completely hormone-driven two-timing jerk.

But, two-thirds of the way through things continue to change and perhaps I’ve been a little shaken by the fall of even what I thought would be the most Makoto-resistant force to the typically infectious harem vibes that he gives off; it’s hard to say whether a happy ending, a sad ending, or a bad one is the most realistic at this point.

So, it’s time to step back, and take a look at the two-thirds mark as to where this show is taking us. Naturally, there will be more spoilers so I don’t have to talk so ridiculously vaguely after the jump.

My first, almost Kafuka-like impression of School Days and endings was of the “Who would want to see such a depressing ending?” manner. As much of a show with characters that may deserve a bloody end as School Days may be, the fact of the manner was that this is one of those shows that actually airs on TV in Japan for everyone to watch – so certainly there had to be a large mass of unspoiled people out there who didn’t exactly tune in to watch throats be cut.

Increasingly though this faction appears to be the minority; in the English-speaking anime community virtually everyone has seen or heard of the bad ends through experience or word of mouth, and I imagine the situation is the same if not greater on the other side of the Pacific. School Days is, if I’m not mistaken, a show that airs quite late at night (perhaps because it so badly wants to be R-15), so it’s not horribly susceptible to innocent viewers.

As such, the large majority of School Days viewers just may be the type that are out for (Makoto’s) blood. Now, it would be wrong to say that because a lot of people want it, it will happen, otherwise Haruhi would have had 20 seasons by now, Mina would have won, Aeris would have lived, and Makoto would have been long dead anyway.

Still, companies do quite often make an effort to pander to their fans, which is why catgirl maids, childhood friends with 10-year-old crushes, basketball-breasts with no concept of physics, and perhaps harem shows as a whole exist today. And certainly the BAD bad endings are what made School Days the eroge famous (in the English community, at least)
, so they are the most likely to get animated; School Days doesn’t seem to have a per se canon path in which one main girl is strongly favored over the other (i.e. Ayu, Konomi, Arcueid, etc) so certainly any ending is open.

The most likely are at this point either the main characters’ (Sekai/Kotonoha) or the bad ends, because those constitute the majority of said endings. It is technically possible for Setsuna or Otome (Hikari? The ponytail girl that has the same phone as Makoto) to claim victory still but from an anime standpoint they’ve entered the game too late – both of them tried to lay stakes on Makoto when, past halfway, there can really be no more serious bets.

Logically I’ve never really seen a harem anime where the winner did not have major presence with the main character in the beginning – I’ve referred to it before as “keepalive” checks, where a character gets at least minor attention paid to them in most episodes, and neither Setsuna nor Otome has come close to clearing these bars.

Not to mention, Setsuna’s going to France, ponytails don’t turn Makoto on and he doesn’t appear to like delicious flat chests.

Kotonoha feels more plausible than Sekai because from the start Sekai’s been somewhat of an outsider to the official relationship between Makoto and Kotonoha. Arguably Sekai launched the whole series with her kiss on Makoto at the end of episode one, and to that end she’s at “fault” for stealing Makoto from Kotonoha. If the series wants to go with the typical “good” ending where the best woman wins, Kotonoha will probably be the victor.

But really, typical is the last thing School Days has been, being a cold, down-to-earth type harem anime in a world full of peaceful, magical, co-existing harems. At this point, I would really place money on the bad ending. As Mikoto has put it School Days almost seems like a lesson in how NOT to do relationships, as pretty much every character has put themselves in the wrong. And how to cap a lesson like that then with an ending that’ll stick?

Think of those silly educational videos that one has to watch before drivers. The ones with the grisly footage of cars (and people. and families.) torn to shreds
because someone was drinking, or speeding, or something. It’s a bit of propaganda, but it’s goal is to get a message across: Drink, and die.

As such, School Days just might be saying: Have two girlfriends, and die. (Or have one of them kill themself) A bad ending to a convulted story. In the end, no one wins. The only way to win is not to be a player. Player, being in the pimp sense.

Go ahead, picture Makoto in a purple suit with a cane. It’ll be a good break from the post.

Evidence from the anime itself seems to be mounting as well. The pressure is mounting on Kotonoha like they want her to snap. Aside from the rampant peer pressure from the student council – Setsuna especially – she’s come across Sekai in at least two semi-make-out sessions with Makoto, and now coming across Setsuna who’s “making a memory just for herself”, it certainly seems like Kotonoha is getting the short end of the cliffhangers, which would point towards a snap later down the line.

The question is not if but how, as we’ve already seen one outburst from Kotonoha in slapping Sekai at the end of 7. If the pressure builds much longer, like if Setsuna shuns Kotonoha at the start of 9 (as she has done so far) and leaves the whole “Why is everyone making out with my Makoto?” thing standing, then we might see something deadly. If the storyboarders are feeling nice, maybe we’ll just get an emotional breakdown or something.

In any case, I think the characters to watch over the next few episodes to gauge the stability are mostly the two guys. Of course Makoto’s position is very important, especially now; he mentioned in episode 8 how “he’s the worst”, but it remains to be seen whether this is a sign of somewhat change or just a lapse into sanity. How he acts around Kotonoha (em, how he’s going to make out with Kotonoha, whatever) and Sekai, especially considering he knows Setsuna’s leaving, will be key.

Taisuke, the only man to ever possibly eclipse Makoto in stupidity, is a minor character but one single action he takes will play undoubtedly a huge role. For those who don’t know much of the visual novel, there is something that Taisuke can possibly do at the end of the cultural festival that will undoubtedly push Kotonoha over the edge for sure. (I can’t confirm if it directly leads to a bad ending, but it most certainly is a Not Good Moment)

Setsuna is probably the third X-factor; depending on how much she tells Kotonoha at the start of the episode, how Sekai takes her departure, and if she really takes the race for Makoto seriously (as she does have an ending and an entire spinoff, Summer Days), could send the series down completely different directions.

To be honest I’m not familiar with the inner workings of the visual novel, as in what event sends the story in which direction so I can’t make educated guesses based on the events so far; but I think that based off the cues in the anime at least so far…it’s not going to end well.

For them. It might mean that it ends well for us. Feel free to twiddle your fingers and chuckle evilly.

-CCY

Makoto Itou has accumulated more than a fair share of heat for his actions so far through the first half of the soap-opera-slash-harem-slash-love-triangle anime School Days, and by heat I mean rampant flaming. Makoto deserves to die. Makoto deserves a swift kick (or two) to the crotch. Makoto is the worst harem/male lead ever.

Now, having seen up through the raws of episode 6, it’s a nearly impossible task to argue that Makoto is a just person, or a good guy, the typical type of harem lead that one would see in any other anime.

What can be argued, though, is that Makoto is more than a slight victim of circumstances. To put it one way, Makoto is not the only person in the wrong here. That’s right; the girls are at fault too.

It’s really wrong to focus all the attention on Makoto just because he is the center of the anime; we pull up on the earth as much as the earth pulls us down. For each action Makoto makes, it causes – or is caused by – an equal action.

Yeah, perhaps that is just overdramatized writing, a bit of Shioriism, but it can be shown that School Days is not the result of one messed up, horny guy, but many faulty characters.

Not at all, of course, that that is a bad thing, entertainment-wise.

Kotonoha’s weakness, oddly enough, is what attracts the most viewers to her. No, not her breasts – although they do play a factor in a lot of things, including initially attracting Makoto – but rather her shyness. She simply is just not able to make a stand for herself until it’s too late. School Days has proven to be one of the darker school world, perhaps more representative of the peer-pressure, maybe conformist environment of some schools. Kotonoha frequently allows herself to get pushed around – by her classmates, even by Makoto himself.

To be honest a large part of this could be avoided perhaps, if Kotonoha was a bit of a stronger person – if she didn’t back down and run away every time Makoto did something wrong. In a sense, perhaps it’s the wrong thing to say that ‘Kotonoha should have kept Makoto more in line’, but it’s true. Maybe it’s not her job to do so, but both of them do need steps towards compromise with their equally somewhat extreme personalities. Kotonoha needs guts. Makoto needs more blood to his brain and less to his wang.

Sekai, as you might surmise, can be attributed an equal amount of guilt. Simply put, there’s a line between friendly and meddlesome and you can guess what side she’s on. Perhaps she had good intentions in setting Makoto and Kotonoha up somewhere along the line, but in the end, just like Makoto, her own lust took over, for one, in the kiss at the end of episode 1, or the ’special training’. Makoto and Sekai are both somewhat the same in that they stepped all over Kotonoha on their way to each other, and she took it. Perhaps if Makoto and Sekai had started together it would have ended better, but I think the situation could have worked very well in reverse, because Kotonoha is the girl with the omg boobs that Sekai don’t got.

Sekai, although seeming to have the best intentions, doesn’t seem to be much more forceful with them, to be honest, than Kotonoha. Sure, she says no. Sure, she says she shouldn’t be with Kotonoha. But does she mean it? Or is it the equivalent of girls screaming “No! Stop!” when they’re already naked in bed with the guy? Perhaps it can’t be blamed that Sekai didn’t stop Makoto; of course it’s going to be hard stopping someone you like from liking you.

And still, somehow, the word never got to Kotonoha that Makoto switched alignments until it’s too late.

To be honest, the blame-fest could even extend to the classmates. The classmates who constantly hounded Kotonoha (who is screaming ’snap me!’ at this point). Setsuna, who looks like she could almost be the ‘quiet girl voice of reason’, may have done more in unlocking Sekai’s real feelings for Makoto by bugging her about it every episode or so.

Perhaps it was the right thing to do for a friend. But if she knew Makoto was going out with Kotonoha, maybe some doors should have remained closed.

What about Taisuke? He’s the annoying Harem Runner-Up Pervert. So away with him as well.

Otome was revealed in episode 6 to have something for Makoto as well. This is what we call ‘getting messy.’

In the end, it’s not all Makoto’s fault. Obviously, a lot of this could be fixed if Makoto was not a hormone-laced, impulsive teenager, but it’d be wrong to ostracize only him. Everyone in School Days does have at least a small flaw, and that’s what makes the anime a good watch. There are no perfect characters, no Childhood Friends, no Overly Nice Harem Leads. It’s, in a sense, more real than most anime. Even though I cannot personally attest for it, being living the geeky school life, it feels like School Days could be something that could almost actually happen.

The endings, may be an exception to that rule; but we’ll burn that bridge when we get there.

-CCY

Somehow, I’m lacking that bloody hatred for Makoto, everyone’s “favorite harem lead that needs to die”. Somehow, I’m feeling that he’s salvageable.

Although, he is rather annoying. Perhaps it’d be better to break him up and sell him for scrap parts instead of refurbishing him, but he definitely doesn’t need to be sent to the crusher, just yet. (Controversial statement! Hit jump! Mwahaha.)

What is annoying about Makoto, though, is the blatantly stupid (some might say suicidal) things he does with Kotonoha, and to a lesser degree Sekai. He does do, in my opinion, so much work towards improving himself, getting up to the standard of a Nice Guy harem lead, only to undo it in a few words. Or maybe a grope. Or a funny stare. Or that damned kissy face of his.

But, I think, somewhere down there, there are good intentions. He makes valid mistakes that I think a lot of guys would make in his situation. He does apologize when he’s done something wrong, and seems to be on course to correct his ways. Yes, it’s true that a lot of this is done at the prodding of Sekai, but still, it takes something to go out and do it on his own (in typical He and His Girl Are The Only Ones In The Entire Scene style).

Maybe this is the Sekai trap I’m falling into, into thinking Makoto is workable.

But, it’s not like the two girls themselves are any less troubled than Makoto… School Days is actually filled with a bunch of vaguely real characters; there are no Sayuris here, as everyone seems to have very real issues…

Sekai is still acting rather strangely, pretending to others and maybe to herself that she absolutely completely no way uh-uh is completely head over heels for Makoto. Really, the latter is the only sensible way to explain why she’s trying to hard to make Makoto x Kotonoha work. I could have understood if she set them up and then sort of backed off and let the love train crash and burn, but no, two episodes into their romance she’s still guiding Makoto by the hand.

I mean, unless she thinks that Makoto doesn’t have a shot in hell in staying with Kotonoha, long-term, Sekai’s pretty off in the head. But then again, two girls blushing all over Makoto might be too much.

Sekai also has lots of fun by getting toyed with by Makoto, especially near the later part of episode 3. When her love interest (believe it or not, Sekai) calls and says he’s getting bored with his current girlfriend, yeah, that’s going to set off a chain reaction.

Kotonoha doesn’t have it off easy either, actually being with Makoto as he fumbles his way (hard) through the first date, and thus subject to the Damned Kissy Face, among other date evils. I’m not sure how the relations between Sekai and Kotonoha are; they seem to be pretty good friends, but I’m not sure how things will work out once Makoto starts to get involved with Sekai (which is likely to happen). Kotonoha seems to be a little bit too shy for a Kaede-fest, but Sekai certainly could have a snapping point if Makoto gets too intimate with Kotonoha.

Not to mention the side characters playing a larger role in really stressing both of the harem girls. Kotonoha really seems to be almost shunned by the rest of the Student Council – note the scenes where they walk off to go chat in a corner while Kotonoha does all the work, while Sekai is constantly getting hammered with the “Hey, you actually do like Makoto, huh?” Of the two I think Kotonoha is in the harder situation, especially considering how submissive she is. She soaks up too much abuse, as opposed to Sekai, who I imagine would stand up for herself.

In the end the Kotonoha x Makoto train makes subtle progress as the two of them seem to be getting along better, but with Makoto’s admission of boredom to Sekai, things are quickly heading for a derailing.

Especially since I’ve seen screencap of the episode 4 raws, and what the crap. Makoto certainly isn’t using the second chance I’m giving him very wisely…

-CCY