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Anime Reviews: School Days

It’s a trap! It really is! School Days is an anime that at first seems to be family friendly and light hearted only to grow darker and come to a conclusion that will bring many fans that were misguided into thinking it was “cute” to tears. In fact, School Days may indeed feel at home on a shelf next to Elfen Lied.

The “Cute” Side of Things

I’ll mention right off the bat that School Days is based off of an erotic light novel by the same name, but if any of you feel this is the sole selling point behind it don’t bother pick it up because there’s no real use of gratuitous nudity and most of the scenes are handled with great taste and restraint. It still deals with mild sexual content but you never get to see a full view of it as it’s mostly suggestive.

School Days comes from an eponymous “eroge” made by 0verflow. The game contained a variety of scenarios and routes that could lead to a potential 21 endings (which were expanded to 25 for the PS2 port) some of them being great, some completely disastrous. Again, those that aren’t fans of the most perverted parts of anime won’t have to look away in disgust (well eventually they might have, but for another reason) since most of the hot and heavy scenes take place behind fade to blacks or awkward camera angles.

The show starts off us with Makoto Ito, an average guy who has a crush on Kotonoha Katsura who is a cute girl he sees on the train on his way to school. Sadly for him, he’s a spineless coward and lacks the nerve to really do something about it until his childhood friend Sekai Saionji edges him forward to man up and take a stand, all while harboring a secret crush on him (you see where this is going). After a while Sekai manages to get the two lovebirds together. They share awkward yet relaxed afternoons of idle chatter and promises of love until the very force that drew them together gets in between.

Sekai starts abusing her position as a “counselor” and exploits Makoto’s backed up lust by enthralling him with “practice exercises” meant to help him with Kotonoha. Naturally, this serves to confuse his feelings towards the girls even further and all hell breaks loose as he realizes his popularity with the girls and becomes a raging…well, somewhat unreasonable and crazed horn dog.

School Days has a somewhat simple romantic plot which introduces us to the first half of the show where the characters are so overtly adorable and friendly that you would expect rainbows to shoot out if they got cut (you’ll be saying “WHY COULDN’T IT BE RAINBOWS!?” later on) but this is only a charade. A build up towards the crude reality of the show and what lead many to see it in a light of infamy and add it up as one of the most disturbing and dark animes they have ever seen.

Spoilers are ahead so beware.

School’s Out Forever!

Once you pick up the show and get used to the amazingly ironic intro, the quirky comedy relief and cute characters, you’ll be more than ready to get surprised. As it turns out, a girl who has been a socially awkward shut in, a guy who has just discovered he can get a cute girl to treat him nicely and another one to treat him nicer, and a girl with conflicted feelings and a disposition to do anything for the guy she loves, are all a bad mix.

Makoto turns into a mayor playboy, realizing that Kotonoha isn’t the only girl and that he can have all he wanted. He turns cold and cynical, abandoning the love struck Kotonoha who has to cope with the rest of the school bullying her for no longer having a boyfriend and losing what little happiness she had found. Sekai, on the other hand, doesn’t do too well, becoming an slave of Makoto’s body and wishes but not his heart; she slowly starts to break down. In a way, the whole cast slowly degenerates into a twisted version of their former selves, showing how fragile or horrible their real personality was.

Sekai goes from a strong willed and happy girl to become a sad wretch that attempts to win Makoto’s affection with lust but ends up as another notch on his bed post. Kotonoha is left completely alone, betrayed by who she thought her best friend and abandoned by her “one true love” and so she turns to denial in a way that turns her from a shy awkward girl into what could be best described as a doll.

School Days is infamous for its ending sequence. I won’t spoil it and those who read this far more than likely now feel the urge to go take a look at the ending shouldn’t do that either. The ending of School Days serves as a climax to a play full of emotion and despair that delivers is shock not from the visuals but from the actions that take place. The anime, however, deserves praise for its visuals as well. Those that like to call themselves observant will notice that the colors and the lighting used in the show will grow darker as the plot reaches its end. The design of the cast is nothing out of the ordinary but they manage to become individuals that would feel at home inside a newspaper story.

School Days takes the simple formula of the romance anime and adds an element of such psychological and emotional horror that it could be best achieved by throwing Elfen Lied and Clannad in a blender.

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