School Days (Review)
There will be blood.
One day, people will be able to write about School Days on the internet or wherever without having to address its infamy. That day won’t be until it reaches these North American shores, gets dubbed, and is viewed by people who have no connection to the Internet anime culture whatsoever (the fansubbers, bloggers, blog readers, and dating-sim players who took it on last fall).
School Days was infamous from the start, thanks to starting as a less than traditional dating-sim. And those non-traditional aspects carried over — it was even more infamous after airing, thanks to the “Nice Boat” incident where the final episode was replaced by 4 out of 5 TV stations with nature scenery. But I’m trying not to spoil too much, in case someone genuinely wants to hear a real review. I did write down my impressions episode by episode, but another recap of this show is not what the internet needs.
Story and Characters
Remember, cute things only belie horrible tragedy later.
This is first and foremost a love triangle. It’s not a slice of life, it’s definitely a love triangle. Cute Sekai sits next to Makoto in class, and finds a picture of a hot girl on the train on his cellphone. She helps him get the girl, the ditzy Kotonoha, but in the process they actually fall in love. That’s a fairly typical storyline — though it’s well done here — and it’s very warm and fuzzy, rainbow-fart stuff, but what a lot of anime dramas fail to do is show the realistically fucked up things that can happen when you introduce sex into the picture. Sex messes with the minds of kids who are not only new to it, but written as stilted and shy anime characters.
Makoto goes from typical harem-show doormat to a guy who actually seems to realize he’s in a harem show, turning the love triangle into a sex tetrahedron that you absolutely have to see to believe. And of course, all that sex has consequences.
He’s not the only detestable human being, though: “Morally loose” is pretty good for these characters, downright cruel is more the norm. And really, no one at all is innocent. Sort of like real high school students.
Realism, at least in some form, is a great boon to School Days. Sex, peer pressure, Carrie-level humiliation, lack of morals, cheating, (date)rape, abortion, mental instability, the cruelty of teenage girls, even a fucking foursome yes you heard me — they’re all here, side by side with the biggest holy shit of all, the Nice Boat. Only hard drugs and boozing escape this one. The moe problems of Clannad characters suddenly seem even more quaint.
Welcome… to the Thunderdome! Two girls enter, then so does another one! Did I mention morally loose?
The basic gist of the ending will come to you with no problem, but as its inevitability spirals faster and faster toward you, you will be amazed. And you’re not ready.
Animation and Design
If anyone asks you why Pani Poni dash is funny, show them this.
I probably could have enjoyed this thing far more if it hadn’t been drawn by Gelfling fetishists. The profiles especially are just horrible. Animation is typical high-school-show fare, don’t get spoiled by Clannad or anything. School uniforms appear to mandate thigh-highs, and some episodes (the obligatory water park episode comes to mind) are so harsh with the fanservice that even the most balls-out otaku might not really feel “served.” No nudity though, in spite of all the sex. The OP, of all things, does have some nipply shapes. Kinda weird and gross.
There are a few interesting details that I like. Oddly, shoes come to mind. I feel like I have a better idea of Sekai’s character, just because of the sneakers she wears.
Loli Alert Level Orange: Sex and or swimsuits may occur, but icky feeling minimal, will pass.
Make it a learning experience
School Days, in spite of its poor execution much of the time, raises some great points, like: how far is too far to go for your own happiness? Halfway through the show, you may be thinking “well, they’re going about this all wrong, but they’re following their hearts at least!” But in the end, the story’s whole situation parallels and mirrors that moment, and it’s unambiguously terrible. I’m sure it’s also no accident. There are so many interconnects in the story that I wouldn’t take anything for granted.
Poor Sekai. She’s pretty sick in this scene, but this is the end of a pan up from a crotch shot. I’m not making that up. And if you're wondering... blue and white stripes.
Maybe more importantly, School Days takes a common format, the harem genre, and asks its viewers to look at it in a new light. It turns anime love triangles around to their dark side in unabashed horror. It adds incredible complexity to a genre that is basically pretty simplistic though it purports to deal with human emotions. And for that I can’t fault it at all. Just as an example: in a dating-sim or harem I would assume that a four-on-one would constitute a pretty desirable outcome, but when it appears in the show, it’s a jaw-dropping tap-dance of cruelty.
Some people say that, even with all that, the ending was still too disturbing.
I don’t.
But I watch Takashi Miike movies with some regularity, so you’re gonna have to get pretty rough to bother me. Anyway, I think it needed its harshness.
Flaws?
Two things: first and foremost, pretty uninspiring animation.
Secondly, there’s a pretty long setup for a show whose action all happens in the last few episodes. I didn’t want to talk about the end at all, but I am afraid that someone coming blindly to this thing will give up before things really get set into motion, so don’t give up. Some setup is necessary in hindsight.
But — it’s not a huge flaw given that School Days is only 12 episodes. And once it gets going it is one sociopathic cruelty after another, with only small breaks for hysteric despair. I don’t count that in itself as a problem, though I can see why some would. If you don’t do dark, don’t watch. Period.
No arguments.
In the end (Nice Boat)
Few movies or shows will change the way you look at anime. Evangelion (and RahXephon) forever made other giant robots less interesting, and Haruhi makes me laugh every time an animated camera pans to the sky. School Days, if you’re not careful, will cast a pall over the harem genre, from Love Hina to Clannad.
I don’t want to sound too over-analytical because the main thrill here is visceral, and it rattled me. The reason I put it in such bold company as Haruhi or Eva is because just maybe it belongs there.
- otou-san out!
