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| The "heroines" of School Days: on the left, the unfortunate Kotonoha, and on the right, the even more unfortunate Sekai. |
Let's talk about School Days. School Days was a 2007 12-episode anime produced by animation studio TNK, who are known for this anime and precious little else, unless you count Itsudatte My Santa and Hand Maid May as works of considerable note. School Days was adapted from a visual novel of the same name, that was developed by Overflow and was available for the PlayStation 2 and the PSP(PlayStation Portable). Now, I want to tell you guys that this is not a review of School Days; more of an analysis of the themes of the series, but I will be pretty much be giving my full opinion on it here, so a review is either not going to happen or is going to be way down the line. Also, guys if you haven't seen the anime yet, for the love of Madoka stop now. I'll be spoiling almost the entire series here, so yeah, close this browser and go watch the show as soon as possible. Not because it's good, mind you, in fact, if you find yourself being filled untapped rage as you watch the show, and an urge to repeatedly stab the main character with a rusty carving knife, that's too completely understandable. But trust me, watch the very end, and then come back here, whether you feel like School Days is a blatant hell-spawn of an anime which must be burned at the stake, or a clear masterpiece that must be seen by absolutely everyone. Confused? Go watch the anime. Spoilers begin now.
School Days is of the harem genre, technically, and if you don't quite know what I mean, let me clue you in. A harem anime revolves one male character(sometimes, but not often female), usually in high-school, as three or more beautiful girls pursue him as a love interest. Harems are usually extremely light-hearted shows, full of comedy and quirky characters, probably because of the cartoonish nature of their entire premise. Generally in harems, we follow the day-to-day life of the characters, and they get up to daily shenanigans, and that's pretty much it. All the girls are usually made up of one singular personality trait that completely defines their character, as they all go after this one guy, a guy who is almost always completely oblivious to the fact that all these girls like him, as he permanently "friend-zones" all of them. I know I'm doing a bad job of explaining this, but examples of harems include Love Hina, Nisekoi, and Rosario + Vampire. If you've seen any of these shows, I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about, and if you haven't seen any harem anime, you probably should. Not because harems are good, in fact, they're almost always quite content being completely mediocre shows, good for mindless entertainment, but School Days isn't a typical harem, and you kind of need to be already familiar with the genre to fully understand the points School Days tries to make. So yeah, if you're also not familiar with the harem genre and its typical tropes, please stop now, since I'm now going to be going forward from here with the assumption that you do. Sorry for all these requirements, but I really need to make sure we're on the same page before I continue.
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| A lot. This is Makoto by the way. |
The story of School Days follows Makoto Itou, a typical high-school student, who, wouldn't you know, has a crush on a girl who has no idea he exists: her name being Kotonoha Katsura. However after Makoto's classmate Sakai Saionji, finds out about his crush, she decides to do a little match-making to get the two of them together, while secretly harboring feelings for Makoto herself. Hey, a love triangle, and since this is a harem, you know there's going to be tons of other girls jumping in to win this guys heart. At least, that's how a typical harem would go down, but here's where School Days separates itself from the typical formula. Sekai's tactics actually work, and Makoto finds himself dating Kotonoha. Happily ever after right? Well, it seems that Makoto wasn't as interested in Kotonoha herself, so much as her great body and huge breasts. After Makoto learns that Kotonoha is a very shy girl, and doesn't have any interest in having any sex with him, he instead goes off to sleep with Sekai, who's more than willing to let Makoto get what he wants from her. He does this, of course, while still technically not having broken up with Kotonoha, since I suppose he wants to keep that option open or something. This continues for a few episodes down the line, as Kotonoha who's being completely neglected by Makoto, is being repeatedly bullied by her classmates who have already assumed the obvious thing that she and Makoto have broken up. By the end of the series, Makato is sleeping with Sekai's best friend, his childhood friend, and three girls that apparently have no other reason to sleep with him other than his increasing sexual reputation. Personally, the first time I watched School Days, I was so mad at both the series and the characters that I felt like embedding a cleaver in my computer screen. Luckily, the anime seemed to hear my plea. At the end of the anime, Kotonoha is basically an mentally unstable mess due to the harassment of her classmates and Makoto finally breaking up with her(since I guess now she likes him). Sekai meanwhile, after she finds out she's pregnant, and learning that Makoto has no intention of taking responsibility for it, and locks herself in her room for a couple days. After Sekai learns everything that Makoto has done over the anime, she calls him over, and promptly stabs him to death in a fit of fury and grief, much to the satisfaction of me and many a viewer. After Kotonoha finds Makoto's dead body, and basically snaps, she uses Makoto's phone to lure Sekai up to the school roof at the dead of night, and after a short confrontation, stabs Sekai to death. As if this weren't enough, the final scene of the anime is Kotonoha cuddling Makoto's severed head, in the middle of some lake or ocean on a random boat, saying how now they can be together forever. Then the anime just ends, leaving pretty much everyone who's been watching completely stunned. Yeah......
Now, this was my first experience with School Days, and yeah, I totally hated it. The cast was one of the most dis-likable I had ever seen, the girls motivation for sleeping with Makoto seemed completely irrational or simply thrown in there at the last minute, and Makoto is easily one of my most hated characters ever. I mean, he never takes responsibility for what he's done, shows no respect for Kotonoha's and Sekai's feeling at all, and by the end is a just an ass. There's only like, one scene in the entire anime(and to its credit it was extremely well done and powerful) where you feel like the guilt and weight of what he's done dawn on him, but even that is quickly shoved to the side. Click here for the final scenes of School Days.
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| Well this could have ended better. |
Now as I perused "The Wired" for reviews and opinions, and I started to finally calm down, and the more I thought about the show, it occurred to me that this show may not be in fact a nonsensical mess. In fact, as I digged deeper, I began to realize that School Days was in fact a lot more to it than first appears. Yeah, beyond this complete mess, there might be something interesting worth talking about.
Picture a typical harem protagonist: the blandest person you could possibly imagine, who seems to somehow not notice(or in some cases pretend to not notice) that all these girls are obviously into him. Of course, most harem main characters are like this because they're not so much of a character as much as a skin for the viewer to put on. You don't just see this in harem anime, or even the anime in general. These characters are scattered throughout media. Neo from "The Matrix" or if you've ever played a Valve game like Half-Life or Portal; these characters are either silent or boring because their purpose is for the viewer/player to project themselves onto them, as a form of wish-fulfillment, so the less they differ from the person's actual personality, the better.
Obviously, Makoto isn't like this. He takes complete advantage of the fact that all these girls like him and gets what he wants from them, and I honestly don't think he really realized how his actions would hurt the people around him. He seems like the kind of person who thinks really in the short-term, and when things start to turn against him towards the end of the series, he seems confused, not realizing it was the impulsiveness of his actions that brought him here, at least, not until a few minutes before he's stabbed to death. Yeah. Thinks in the short-term, impulsive, and extremely horny. Makoto is a typical highschool jackass, put into the setting of an anime high-school harem. Of course once suddenly a bunch of girls become interested in him, he would sleep around without a care, because a number of men in real life would do the exact same thing if put in his situation. Now I'm not saying all men, but there's no point trying to kid ourselves, there are people like that out there, who would do the exact same things he did. Maybe not at this level of obliviousness and frequency, but Makoto(and everything else in the show) are exaggerated in their personalities to make this point. It just doesn't happen in real life because, of course, not all woman want to sleep with one guy. I'm not going to lie, this is a very interesting idea that is almost unique in anime terms, and School Days could have been a deconstruction or even a satire of the genre if it had played its cards right. But it didn't. (By the way, to make sure we're thinking of the same "deconstruction", make sure you check out this page, which explains it wonderfully. Pop by the anime section if you have time.)
Yes, Makoto might be an uncomfortably realistic portrayal of a man put suddenly into a highscool harem, but almost nothing else about the show could be considered realistic. Everything in School Days is perfectly designed for the story's sake alone, which leads to idiotic, unrealistic by the characters in our eyes. In other words, School Days follows its own logic, not placed in realistic world as a proper deconstruction of a genre would(see Madoka Magica), and rather is set in a world where everything is constructed to make a point and lead to the gory finale. I touched on this slightly in my last 'Footnotes', but when you put an idea above the actual narrative, both can only suffer. Since everything in School Days needs to lead to this worst-case-scenario ending, the decisions Makoto and the characters make seem downright silly and only there to increase the drama, thus making the writing for the show look absolute crap. I mean, the ending is the perfect example. Cheating on your partner happens all the time in real life, but seriously, how many of the betrayed side of the relationship decide to pick up a kitchen knife and stab their partner to death?! Or how about Kotonoha? Her sudden complete devotion to Makoto after he goes out to sleep with Sekai is only there so after he breaks up with her, she will go completely crazy, thus leading to the finale of the series. Even the girls being attracted to Makoto is only there for the sake of it, and if School Days really wanted to be realistic, they can't take this fact and overlook it like all other harems. But then again, I guess they only had 12 episodes.
This isn't to say School Days won't just throw in melodrama for the sake of it. I mean Makoto's best friend, is heavily implied to have raped Kotonoha during that bonfire scene, which goes against everything they had been setting up his character to be: that is the comic-relief perverted best friend. Where on earth did that come from? Also the fan-service the anime has doesn't exactly help its image, and let's be honest, the writing for the most part is extremely mediocre.
School Days, is not in fact, a waste of time, and something I think everyone should try to watch at least once, if just for seeing Makoto get stabbed to death; which I promise you will easily be the best part of the show. School Days has some really good ideas, but ultimately fails to execute them properly, and end up backfiring on itself, making the story and the characters seem unlikable and kind of stupid. Really, they needed to give this idea of a "realistic harem protagonist" the attention and care it deserved, because what you get at the end of the day is a mess of ideas and focus, which blows up quite spectacularly. But here's the reason I can't completely rant about how bad School Days is, like I can with some shows that actually have better writing and characters. Too many shows and studios are happy with "bathing" in their own mediocrity, happy to dish out the same tropes and brainless entertainment season after season. School Days was brave enough to take a chance and break the norm, a chance which it squandered, yes, but at least it tried. Tried to be different. Tried to be something more. And for that, TNK, I tip my hat ever so slightly to you. Just don't mess up like this again. And for the record...
Final Verdict on School Days: 4/10
Goodbye for now guys...
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