Reasons Why School Days is actually a Good Anime

styLIShT Before this review begins, let me warn you that it comtains spoilers of the anime - School Days

This is the type of anime that is usually serves a goldmine for rants and discussion, mainly rants. For those who aren't familiar with the plot, here it is. High School student Makoto Itou meets a beautiful girl called Kotonoha Katsura on his way to school. He develops a crush on her, and his other female 'friend' Sekai Saionji helps him to be together with Kotonoha. Seems like a cliché love triangle which is the plot of a cliché harem anime with your cliché set of characters comprising a clueless male protagonist and a bunch of girls who throw themselves at him. Well, afterward, he feels sexually dissatisfied with Kotonoha and starts secretly having sex with Sekai... and then starts making love with a bunch of other girls while still maintaining a relationship with the two main girls, and everything goes completely downhill. Okay, now we got the cliché out of this anime. Not a clichéd anime at all.

Seems like a horrible anime, right? No. In fact, this anime is actually one of the most realistic ways for a harem to end, and is one of the most realistic anime of all time. Instead of getting a fairytale cliché (the term cliché has gotten so cliché, hasn't it) harem, we get a dose of reality, but we all choose to hate on it, because it's being real.

Let's have a look at the main characters.

First, Makoto. Sure, he's a horrible character who makes really bad decisions, but is he a poorly executed character? No. When a producer wants to make a role of a villain character, he must ensure that the villain comes off as evil, and menacing, and not as a {(v)}. [10 cookies for you if you got that reference] Just look around for a second. There are tons of douchebag teens like Makoto in the world who cheat on girls in order to satisfy their lust. (It's because of guys like these that the 'niceguy' concept was formed) Makoto is designed as a character that is meant to be hated. If you hate Makoto, it means that the producers have done a good job.

Second, Kotonoha. Another example of a realistic and well-executed character. Even though she knew that Makoto was an a-hole and was aware of his sexual relationship with Sekai, she still loved Makoto. There are a lot of girls like this out there, mindlessly in love with their boyfriend, and will continue to love their boyfriend even if he treats her like crap. She is a character that we are supposed to feel bad for and sympathise, which we did. Again, the creators did a good job. Also, the Yandere scene at the end was realistic too.

Third, Sekai. A lot of women, are complicated, but not sophisticated - like the tangled mess of wires you see in third world countries. Sekai is a good example of women in that category. She helps Makoto get Kotonoha, then gets into an affair with Makoto, then gets mad at Makoto for cheating on her with Kotonoha and eventually stabs him to death. Is that complicated? Yes. Sophisticated? Not at all. This show is depicting how women might potentially behave in real life. We sometimes see news headlines such as'teenage lovers commit suicide' or'teenage girl stabs her boyfriend for cheating'. That is exactly what happened in this anime. Again, this character was designed in such a way that we are supposed to like her at the beginning, but eventually despise her to the very core, which we did. Another example of a realistic and well-executed character.

Am I saying that this anime is flawless? No. The animation was pretty much bland, with reused animations and subpar animations for a few times, the secondary characters, other than Setsuna Kiyoura were bland and generic. The sound was really good, particularly the widely known 'Kanashimi no mukou e' ending track. The voice acting was good too.

The ending is something that is perfect, though, in my opinion and it is something I absolutely saw coming, but the way that it was done was really something creepy and gave me chills - I really enjoyed it! It was an awesome turn, but something I saw coming the entire time and something I kept repeating throughout the entire thing, over and over again and when it finally happened, I was extremely happy and satisfied.

Unlike other harem anime, this one actually and realistically addresses teenage lust and cheating. This is a great show in my opinion. It's one way how harem shows can turn into and maybe more realistically because love triangles are not a pretty thing and someone is bound to be hurt, this is something that is not shown in other harem animes. And really, almost any healthy young boy surrounded by girls crazy in love with him will probably do what Makoto did because temptation is hard to avoid at that age and at 16 years old, your hormones usually go beyond the roof, and yes Makoto is a complete a-hole, douchebag of a protagonist and THIS is rare for harem show protagonist! This is no generic stuff and can actually teach people something, unlike those stupid harem shows that is more mindless fanservice than anything. This is a must watch for everbody, especially guys because of the moral of the story. Don't treat girls like objects, respect them and love your girl & be loyal to her. For me this show is an excellent show and doesn't deserve all the hate that it's getting. Oh, and forgive any of my older comments where I hate school days. It's been about 3 years since then and my opinions have changed.

Comments

Oh my god, wow, never thought of seeing that way. It actually DOES address cheating and lust in a better way any other shows do it. This whole time, it was actually trying to give us a message and we were blindly hating on it. Just... wow - TwilightKitsune

School days is just an anime similar to an Indian T.V. serial - styLIShT