School days has haunted me ever since I saw the credits of the last episode roll, ever since I heard that ear worm of a song play at the end. I can't hear the year "2007" without thinking "hey, that's when school days was made." Don't get me wrong, it's not that good, but it is a real enigma. I will forever be mixed over it.
School days is a dramatic romantic comedy? anime, about some dude named makoto who has a crush on the shy anime girl, who gets some help from the cheery anime girl, named kotonoha and sekai respectively. It starts out as a grating experience. These flat, annoying, and really ridiculous looking characters do their stuff, bringing the worst of anime to the table. Shrill voices, fanservice, and a poor, unfunny excuse of a story run on for a while. I rewatched the first ep, it was worse then I remembered. The whole thing just moseys along. The mc and the two girls all go on with their antics. One dimensional main characters, forgettable side characters. Sexual harassment. Bad jokes and boring plot. Uwu. But then something happens. The plot thickens, slightly. It turns out the mc is only interested in kotonoha for her hot bod, and when she rejects his "too-soon" advances for a while, he gets bored. It went from an unfunny, over gratuitous anime to an unfunnny, over gratuitous anime where the mc is sort of a douche. Suddenly, it had the smallest whisper of depth. It almost said, "this main guy is a douche. Now hate him and see what happens next." But I didn't really get interested until the real swerve came in. Cheery girl sekai is in love with the mc (of course), and the mc, who's been ignoring his gf shy girl bc she won't smash (much to her worry) decides to sleep with sekai. That's really when things picked up. It had a bit of drama, and tension. I had a reason to watch other than the really unflattering art style and terrible jokes. Unsurprisingly, the mc goes on to sleep with every girl he can get his hands on, with little regard to sekai, or even kotonoha, who he doesn't even remember at this point. It was really investing to see how this would turn out.
After a school festival, a terrible insert of comedy which had no place in the show's dramatic spiral downwards, a dance, and a terrible event, makoto breaks up with kotonoha, which devastates her (along with bullying, isolation, etc.) She becomes increasingly unhinged, and so does the rest of the story.
Mega spoilers here: Sekai (cheery girl) reveals she's pregnant. Suddenly no girl wants to be with makoto, so he crawls back to kotonoha, who turns somewhat back to normal, with a few changes. Sekai discovers makoto's with kotonoha, and angrily storms off. She feels betrayed, and even more so when makoto texts her and essentially tells her and the baby to buzz off. But don't worry. Things don't end well for him. Nothing ends well for anyone in the end (expect for the other dumb guy who got off scot free for his actions, I'm still mad). Sekai, at her wits end, meets makoto at his apartment, and while he's making a phone call, she brings out a knife. Cough. Later, kotonoha discovers makoto, and decides to get revenge. She meets sekai on the school rooftop with a blade and a bag... and she gets revenge on sekai, and the baby. Our final shot ends with former shy anime girl kotonoha (head over heels in love) on a boat, with makoto (sort of), with the sunrise, up ahead. To top it off, the credits play a really catchy pop song that was in one of the good endings of the original game (that's right I've seen it, only slightly better than the anime). I can't help but wonder what in the world the people who made this thing think about it. An epilogue reveals the aftermath, mainly, that their classmates go about their lives as normal, with no mind to their missing classmates or their terrible ends. Quite the ending indeed, the ending was what brought me to it in the first place.
That was school days. A truly mixed experience. If there's anything to praise, it's how well everything spirals downward so perfectly and awfully that you can't help but be invested in how these characters, while still bare, have more convoluted and complex actions. The way that ending jumps out at you, because you didn't expect it at the start. Even after everything had changed, it still came crashing down. That cursed, blessed ending changed everything, it was the reason why I didn't have to have another kotonoha bath scene, thank god. As for everything else, ewh. I truly can't place my thoughts on it. Did I enjoy it? I guess so. Did I like it? I have absolutely no idea. Like makoto's horny a**, I can't pick one side. As for the people who made this show, what do they think? Is this a satire? Does this have a message about how you should handle relationships? Was this for a joke? For fun? For seriousness? Or is it just senseless, a basic adaptation of the game, but with that heavy stuff thrown in to make it different from all the other anime like this one's beginning. What was the intention, the thought? I've seen other anime like it a thousand times, and yet this one is something all of it's own. I shall never know peace, and it's because of school days.
Mini-review of the two OVA's: They're both awful. Right at square one in terms of plot. The first one is about how all the girls want to give makoto Valentine's Day gifts. There's also a random bath scene in the beginning :/. The second one is about how some of the girls in the show have to fight robots or something, so they magically transform into revealing suits. When it came to fanservice in this episode, no one was holding back. Also kotonoha's little sister was there. Yes she was involved. Ew. You know what, I think I hate this show. That's solved. These two ovas threw me off. They're as terrible as the beginning of the show. I still don't know the intent, the message, the audience, and who's supposed to like this show anyways? I don't like it. The worst otakus probably wouldn't like it. What I want to know is: who would fully and enthusiastically like most of the aspects of this show, enough to give it any more than a 6/10? Forever a mystery, I'll leave this show to rot in 2007.
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