The Essentials
Name: School Days
Genre: Drama, Romance
Episodes: 12 + 2 OVAs
Released: July 3, 2007 - September 27, 2007
Based On: School Days dating sim by Overflow
Director: Keitaro Motonaga
Produced By: TNK
US Distribution By: N/A
Major Japanese Cast
Makoto Ito: Daisuke Hirakawa
Sekai Saionji: Shiho Kawaragi
Kotonoha Katsura: Tae Okajima
Setsuna Kiyoura: Keiko Imoto
Hikari Kuroda: Ryouko Tanaka
Taisuke Sawanaga: Yoshiaki Matsumoto
Otome Kato: Haruka Nagami
Nanami Kanroji: Chiaki Takahashi
Kokoro Katsura: Megu Ashiro
Major English Cast
N/A
Scores
Animation: 8/10 (x 4 = 32 pts)
Story: 8/10 (x 4 = 32 pts)
Music: 9/10 (x 4 = 36 pts)
Coherence/Story Arc: 9/10 (x 2 = 18 pts)
English Dubs: N/A
Gut Score: 9/10 (x 5 = 45 pts)
Total: 163/190 (85.8%)
Review
School Days is about three students – Makoto Itou, Kotonoha Katsura, and Sekai Saionji – and the results of the love triangle that forms between the three of them.
The show starts off when Makoto takes a picture of Kotonoha on his cell phone because of a fad going around the school that your love will come to fruition if you have a picture of your crush on your cell for 3 weeks without anyone noticing. However, Sekai, who sits next to Makoto in class, finds it on the first day, and decides to help set up Makoto and Kotonoha together as a way to apologize about messing up the charm.
However, Sekai herself soon finds herself having feelings for Makoto and starts to have a relationship with him under the guise of “training” to help Makoto with his relationship with Kotonoha. This leads to a mess which ultimately gets two of Sekai’s friends, Hikari and Setsuna, and Makoto’s childhood friend Otome (who has a crush on Makoto) involved. While things seem to go swimmingly for Makoto to begin with his harem, his arrogance and ignorance eventually come back to haunt him.
While School Days may start off like a run-of-the-mill harem show, it quickly shows itself to be quite different from the norm. The first difference is that it largely feels like its name to start with – just a trio of people attending school who are involved in a love triangle. There isn’t anything “extra” thrown in and I think tends to side with realistic drama instead of over-the-top humor or gimmicks, at least until the end.
Second, the show is more about Makoto getting some than finding the girl of his dreams, which makes him a much less sympathetic – and in a weird way a better – main character than normal.
Third, this almost ends up being an anti-harem show as Makoto ends up being worse off in the end because of his selfishness and incompetence and in the end very much doesn’t get the girl.
The main problem with this series is that Makoto himself doesn’t necessarily appear all that appealing, and thus how he is able to get all the girls may be questioned. However, this is sort of explained in several ways, depending on the girl. First, Otome still sees Makoto as he was in middle school, which is different from how he is now, while Setsuna seems to responding to how Makoto was nice to her at the entrance ceremony, while Sekai explains that he seems to be popular with the girls in general (most of which don’t know what he’s like in person).
Some might complain about the amount of sexual content in the series, given how much Makoto scores, but that just highlights even more Makoto’s weaknesses through the course of the series.
As far as technical aspects, both animation and music appears to be pretty good, but neither are particularly outstanding either.
School Days is probably for anyone who wants a harem with a twist, or who wants to see the guy (and everyone for that matter) lose, for once. Then again, with such a legendary ending, perhaps it’s one that everyone should check out just to see it.
First Watched: July - September 2007
Do I Own: No
Do I Recommend: Yes
One Comment
joshy-boy is right for recommending this anime. also, the game version of this is much HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. :)
NICE BOAT forever! :)