School Days

Synopsis:

Every day that Makato Ito takes the train to school he admires a girl named Kotonoha Katsura, who rides the same train, from afar. After taking her picture with his cell phone, Sekai Saionji, notices him admiring her picture during class and starts teasing him and asking questions about her and if Makoto likes Kotonoha. Makoto admits he does have a crush on her but is reluctant to pursue his emotions so Sekai decides to make it her duty to help Makoto and Kotonaha get together. With some name dropping and coy word play she manages to get Kotonaha to agree to a date with Makoto. Though Makoto is extremely grateful to Sekai for her help she tells him that he is going to owe her, big time, but before she boards the train home Sekai then steals a kiss from Makoto and tells him that this will do and his debt has now been paid in full.


Reviewer: Endosanity
Number of episodes watched: 12 (OVAs were unrelated to the overall story so I didn't include them.)


Review:

I can honestly say that School Days is unlike any anime I've come across. This anime takes a simplistic plot of high school romance and it adds all the things that you don't want to watch twisting it into a gut-wrenching drama that will have a terrible outcome but the thing is, the viewer already knows this but will continue to watch regardless.

School Days does something that most anime don't in that it makes you despise the main character Makoto and therefore hate the series overall, not because of bad animation, not because of a poorly scripted plot, but because of characters that are truly despicable and it does nothing to hide this fact, if a girl shows interest in Makoto he doesn't get all timid and embarrassed about it but instead leaps at any chance that he gets and to make things worse, every girl easily accepts this ruse and it will sometimes genuinely piss you off. You may be fooled by it's innocent exterior but School Days will take you by the hand and lead you down a an unlit staircase that delves into despair, hatred, depression, irrational outcomes, but the worst part of it is you won't be able to stop watching as you're always hoping to see the light at the end of the tunnel that you may realize... is a fleeting desire.

The animation is about the average fair, the plot is a trap, but the characterization is of the type you can't stand and the sad thing is... that's the whole point of the show. You may not like the this series at all but ask yourself this... are you hating School Days because it just plain sucks or are you hating it because it wants you to? Although it's hard for me to recommend School Days I am still gonna say, watch it at least once because there really is no other anime like it.

School Days (opening)

Recommendation: |Above Average|

Online viewing: Available at Crunchyroll -

School Days (English subtitles)
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Media type: Crunchyroll free internet streaming
From: Crunchyroll
Spoken languages: Japanese
Subtitles: English

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