School Days

• Genre: Romance(?), drama, harem, school
• Episodes: 12
• Studio: TNK

Makoto is an ordinary high school student with an ordinary high school student crush on the hot girl he sees on the bus, Kotonoha. Like most ordinary high school boys he clumsily attempts to get to know her and maybe even get her to like him, and like most ordinary high school boys he eventually loses interest and moves on to the next girl. But how does Kotonoha deal with all this.

For those of you not in the know, School Days has garnered quite a bit of infamy due to the “nice boat” incident and subsequent memes. The final episode of School Days in Japan, was replaced it with a half hour of unrelated scenery with “Air on a G String” playing in the background at the last minute due to the graphic nature of the final twist. At the time, a random 4chan user commented “Nice Boat”, referring to the Norwegian ferry shown in the replacement footage. This became a relatively well known meme that made the show much more popular than it would have been otherwise.

Now, if you haven’t seen/played/heard of school days before, you may be wracking your brain while sorting through all the tentacle porn and ultraviolence (aimed at children) that has been allowed to air and wondering just how shocking this episode had to be to get censored. I know I was.

You may have guessed from the word “play” up there that School Days is based on a visual novel. This in itself doesn’t mean much as Japan has been adapting games, especially VNs, successfully for years. Unlike the North American counterparts, based on a video game is not a synonym for atrociously bad. In this case the visuals are decent and match closely the aesthetic of the game. Nothing remarkable in any way really. The designs are your basic cast of school kids. I must say I wasn’t really taken by the voice acting here. There was something a little perfunctory in the performances. By and large this did have the feel of an adaptation/commercial tie-in rather than a work meant to stand on its own. Every technical element was serviceable but routine.

The story follows protagonist Makoto as he becomes increasingly unpleasant and unrelatable. I have known my share of jerks but I just couldn’t recognize Makoto as a person that exists. The show’s meticulous character assassination turned him into a caricature without giving us any viable reason for the change and it made the whole thing difficult to watch. And why exactly is this guy a stud? I really don’t understand why anyone would want to have a conversation with him, let alone jump his bones but apparently every girl in school wants a ride. Like wut? Beyond that, most characters were not exactly pleasant and none were interesting. For 11 of the 12 episodes I drudged through this melodramatic high school non-romance desperately waiting for that famed twist. I was pretty disgusted with everyone apart from Sekai and I was hoping for something like a volcanic eruption of flesh eating ants shaped like genitalia (again – why would it get censored, right???)

****SPOILER*** No kidding I’m just going to spell out the twist and it loses absolutely all impact if you know what it is.

Although it was pretty sweet to see Sekai snap and give Makoto some well-deserved, if a little extreme, comeuppance, it was totally out of character for her. The show was setting us up to believe Kotonoha would be the one to lose it, as she was clearly spinning out of control there so the fact that it was Sekai drawing first blood was a genuine surprise to me but then when you consider that she’s carrying Makoto’s kid, the whole thing just felt yucky. It’s not even a particularly impressive murder scene. Let’s be clear, I’m not saying Kotonoha is sane… By the time I got to the final muderaganza and post mortem abortion (you read that right), I just couldn’t be bothered anymore.

To be honest, I really only watched this show to find out what all the hubbub was about and that’s the only thing I got out of it. I haven’t played the game at all so it may be a decent Visual Novel. The anime though is a boring, slightly below average show with an unsatisfying gimmicky twist.

Favorite character: Sekai

What this anime taught me: I need to work on my cooking skills cause I ain’t letting others do it….

The first glass is for myself, the second for my friends, the third for good humor, and the fourth for my enemies.

Suggested drink: Schooner (extra points if you get the reference)

• Every time you want to hug Sekai – Drink!
• Every time you want to shake Kotonoha – Drink!
• Every time you want to slap Makoto – Drink!
• Every time you want to give a girl a speech about self-respect – Drink!
• Every time you wonder if that uniform would suite you – Drink!
• Every time you realize it’s a new end theme – Dance!
• Every time you wonder where the adults are – Watch more anime 
• Every time you think that’s an unhealthy family dynamic – Drink!
• Every time you wonder why you’re still watching – Drink more