Josh’s Anime Blog

We’re getting mighty near the end, as this is the next to last episode in the series. Makoto increases his harem once again, only to have mass disembarkments from the HMS Makoto. Will Kotonoha-in-a-daze + knife result in any blood? And Sekai finds out that she has been afflicted with a common side affect of unsafe sex.

This episode starts with us learning that Makoto has worked his magic and now has added Hikari to his ranks of “friends with benefits.” After doing the deed, Hikari remarks that she now seems to be entangled in Makoto’s mess. She notes that it’s odd that Makoto is bedding her instead of comforting Sekai, who hasn’t been coming to school after getting the double-hit of learning that Makoto cheated on her and that Setsuna left, and chides Makoto for apparently not realizing what he’s done to Sekai. Hikari also tries to get Makoto to go see Sekai, but Makoto no longer seems interested.

At her house, Sekai remembers back on her first encounter with Makoto, on the roof, after the events of the last episode. Sekai is, understandably, upset. Makoto tries to say that he didn’t do anything, but Sekai obviously knows that he is lying, and yells at him, asking why he did it and whether she isn’t good enough for him. Sekai breaks down, saying that now that Setsuna has left, he’s all she has left.

Hikari then swings by Sekai’s place. Sekai just cracks the door open to listen to Hikari tell her that she couldn’t get Makoto to come over since his little sister came over to visit. Hikari tries to cheer up Sekai and tries to convince her to come back to school, saying that if Makoto is left alone for too long, he might cheat on her. However, this remark causes Sekai to slam the door on Hikari.

At school that afternoon, we see Otome trying to get into contact with Makoto, but isn’t able to. She laments that she can’t find him and demands her three friends to help her look for him, but they decline, saying it’s not their problem. Otome storms off to find Makoto and the trio of girls remarks that she’s been irritable since the video showing. Then one of the girls, Natsumi, remarks that they shouldn’t miss out on the fun, since everyone seems to be enjoying Makoto.

We then go into an unused science room, where Makoto and Hikari are finishing up again, and Hikari complaining about Makoto choosing to sleep with her there. Once again, Hikari lambasts Makoto for ignoring Sekai, saying that if he has time to play with her, then he has time to visit Sekai, but Makoto once again shows disinterest in the idea. Then, upon leaving the room and going down some stairs, he runs into Otome’s trio of friends. Then, over at his apartment, Makoto invites Natsumi in, with her other two friends having already arrived. Natsumi seems to have second thoughts, but Makoto presses, remarking that “it” was her idea to begin with.

We then see that Kotonoha, in her lifeless state, has been text messaging Makoto, despite the fact that the messages aren’t going through, and are holding conversations with Makoto on her cell phone, but no one is on the other end of the line.

Meanwhile, in her room, Sekai is looking at all the past messages she’s gotten from Makoto and Setsuna and becomes even more depressed, but then suddenly gets sick. She then realizes that something isn’t quite right…

Sekai then comes to school for the first time in a long time. Makoto isn’t very excited to see her, but she insists that she has something she needs to talk to him about. Sekai tells Makoto that she’s missed her period. Makoto realizes that Sekai is telling him and accuses Sekai of lying. Sekai gets angry at him, telling him that she couldn’t possibly lie about something like that. She tells Makoto that she’s only been with him, so there is no question that he is the father. Makoto still tries to deny that it’s his and asks if there is anyway to “make it not happen.” Sekai says that’s why she wanted to talk to him about, but Makoto just tells her that he has no idea what to do. Sekai then stands up and screams at him (in front of the entire class) that it’s his child and that he needs to take responsibility. Sekai gets sick again and is taken to the school infirmary. There, she’s still angry at Makoto, but is somehow comforted that it is his child.

News of Sekai’s pregnancy spreads through the school like wildfire. Otome’s friends talk about it, remarking that they should be OK since they did it “properly,” but also that they probably shouldn’t hook up with him again. That afternoon, Makoto is talking about it with Hikari, and Hikari just tells him that he has reap what he sowed, and tells Makoto that he needs to take responsibility. Makoto once again asks what he can do, but Hikari just starts to leave. Makoto asks where she’s going, since they haven’t started doing their business yet, and Hikari just tells him that, even though they’re doing it “propertly,” if she continues doing it with him, the same fate may meet her.

That evening, Makoto is reading some sort of books (I can’t tell if it’s porn or more “love manuals”) and complains about everyone demanding that he do something. Suddenly Otome calls and asks if she can come over, and Makoto cheerily agrees. She comes over and wants to ask about whether the rumors about Sekai are true, but Makoto just gets angry and says that it’s not his fault what happened to Sekai. Otome is rather shocked about Makoto’s brushing off of Sekai and remarks that he used to be a much nicer person in middle school, and also breaks things off with Makoto.

We then see a series of shots, including Kotonoha calling nobody but pretending to agree to meet Makoto in front of the big Christmas tree in town, where they can become ” a real couple,” and Otome throwing away and old middle school picture of her and Makoto. Meanwhile, Makoto is out walking around the town and gets a sudden urge get it on with someone. However, he tries calling a multitude of people including Hikari and Otome, but can reach anyone. Makoto gets angry at no one being around, remarking how everything was so great, and wondering why his harem is collapsing around him.

He then goes through his phone and runs into several pictures of Kotonoha when suddenly the real Kotonoha shows up in front of him. Kotonoha starts talking nonsense about non-existant conversations with Sekai and Makoto and Makoto sees the condition Kotonoha is in and realizes what he has done to her. However, Kotonoha says that she loves him, and Makoto asks her why and begs Kotonoha to forgive him. Makoto appears to whisper something in Kotonoha’s ear and Kotonoha’s eyes relight…

This was kind of an odd, yet interesting episode. First off, parts of this episode were the least coherent of any of the episodes so far in the series, I thought. For example, why was Hikari sleeping with Makoto. She seemed disgusted that Makoto was sleeping with her instead of being with Sekai, yet there she was (also, if Hikari is mad that Makoto is sleeping with her instead of seeing Sekai, there is one easy way to end at least one half of that equation…). Hikari had liked Taisuke (who was nowhere to be found in this episode) and no motive for her sleeping with Makoto is made apparent, other than apparently the show’s goal of having Makoto sleep with as many characters as possible.

In the game, she slept with him while in despair for Taisuke basically choosing Kotonoha over her, and perhaps in the background that is the reason, but if it was, it surely wasn’t made clear.

Second, the reason why Otome’s three friends decided to have a reverse gang-bang with Makoto seems pretty weak: essentially wanting to see “what being with Makoto is like,” though one could possibly attribute it to Makoto’s sleeping around becoming so famous that girls are now “trying him out” to see what the fuss is about, which would hold a certain amount of irony to it if that is indeed the case.

On the other hand, we have major developments for both of the lead girls. Obviously the biggest is Sekai’s pregnancy, and the other is Kotonoha coming out of her lifeless state that she went into after Makoto broke up with her. Also, while Makoto increases his harem to 7 total girls (and 6 current members, with Setsuna having left), once news of Sekai’s pregnancy gets around, Makoto’s harem pretty much completely disappears as all the other girls realize that they don’t want the same thing to happen to them too.

Meanwhile, Makoto, who I actually believed had some legitimate feelings for Sekai despite sleeping around, is now completely ignoring her now that she’s yelled at him for sleeping around, and just gets angry at Sekai even more for being asked to actually take responsibility for getting her pregnant. Otome, meanwhile, drops Makoto because she sees that, if he’s willing to ditch his supposed girlfriend because she got pregnant, then there is no way that he’ll care for the friend on the side. She’s also disappointed in Makoto, because she didn’t believe that he used to be this way in the past.

So, Makoto’s official harem is now officially down to 1 - Sekai - though his meeting with Kotonoha at the end of the episode may suggest that she may soon join the ranks.

Some wanting for a berserk-Kotonoha ending will obviously be disappointed in her recovery, especially after being lead on by her apparently carrying around large sharp weapons.

However, we are now led on again on two fronts for which many people were probably led on and then shown wrong in this episode. People, such as myself, may have really believed that Makoto actually had some feelings for Sekai. That’s obviously borne out to be false, but are his apparent newly re-expressed feelings for Kotonoha true, or are they just a desperate attempt to get laid since no one else is willing to sleep with him anymore. My thinking is that it is the latter.

Second, we are once again led on to the possibility of violence, this time by panning on a knife in Sekai’s kitchen. We saw this hinted with Kotonoha, and it looks like it won’t come to anything. Will it come to anything in Sekai’s case, however?

It’s possible. Even though all my predictions in the past have usually been horrendously wrong, I can very well see the following scenario: Makoto takes Kotonoha over to his place, and they get it on. Meanwhile, Sekai goes over to Makoto’s apartment to give him the gift she bought him and hears or otherwise catches Makoto and Kotonoha having sex. This enrages Sekai and she at some point administers holy retribution via a large knife on Makoto. This ending would pretty much mimic the Sekai-kills-Makoto ending in the game. Unfortunately I’ve said all along I didn’t think we’d see an ending like one in the game, but now this is the most likely ending we’ll see if any blood is to be spilt.

It’s possible that Makoto could choose Sekai as well, though I tend to think that this will be a happy ending as Kotonoha has now recovered, and it would seem kind of cheap to have her go crazy, recover, and then go crazy again, though I suppose it’s possible.

Then there a multitude of “left field” possible endings as well, such as Sekai killing herself or some combination of double-killings or murder-suicides.

In any case, we’ll finally find out next Tuesday when the 12th and final episode of School Days airs.