Hey guys, it’s Justin and welcome to the Otaku Mind where in honor of Ani-ween I’m taking a look back at one of my previous Ani-ween reviews and asking a serious question, is School Days a masterpiece? Hell no! It’s a God-awful anime and anyone who likes it should seek help! Sorry, lost my temper there a little bit. School Days, for the most part, is one of those animes that many consider to be one of the worst animes of all time yet there are some people who have come to defend this anime. Like I said, for every anime I hate there’s someone out there who comes to defend it. So, for this Otaku Mind I’m going to be taking a look at some of the defenses people say about the anime.
It’s an anime that shines a realistic spotlight on forming a harem
Normally I would agree with this except for two reasons. First off, that wasn’t the intention of the anime. At its core, School Days is a series about how the selfish actions of one person can affect the people around them and the consequences of those actions. Second, when was it announced that Makoto was forming a harem? Not once in the series does Makoto say or hint that he’s trying to form a harem, he’s just sleeping around with any girl he can get his hands on and who’s stupid enough to sleep with him. Also, in order for a harem to be made it requires characters to actually have feelings for each other and only 2 of the girls (probably 3) have feelings for Makoto and by the end only 1 of them was still in love with him. Makoto on the other hand loves no one, he just simply lusts for the girls. Honestly, if you want to see a realistic take on forming a harem I think you’d be better off looking at To Love-Ru. Despite its comedy and ecchi moments we actually do see the characters struggle and have doubts about forming the harem as well as trying to get everyone on the same page and being honest with their feelings.
Kotonoha is such a relatable and tragic character
Tragic yes, but relatable, no. What happened to Kotonoha in the anime was terrible and something I hope no male or female has to go through ever but as far as a relatable character goes I don’t see it. Like I said in my review a lot of the things happening are Makoto’s fault but Kotonoha also shares some of the blame as well. She should have picked up what was happening, the signs were all there and everything yet she does nothing and just lets everything slide. Yes, she kind of had that mental shutdown and convinced herself that everything between her and Makoto was fine but come on, wake up. What pisses me off the most is that she takes Makoto back. No. No, self-respecting woman would ever take someone like Makoto back. This is what makes her such an unrelatable character, her actions and demeanor are something no woman would ever do. On top of that she’s a flat character in the grand scheme of things. Which speaking of.
The characters are well established and developed
No. Not even in the slightest. All these characters are flat, there is nothing remotely interesting or developed about them. Every character in this anime is stupid and their actions serve to show us just how stupid and undeveloped they are as characters. Nobody has a motive or reasoning behind their actions. I will give the visual novel some credit, we actually get to explore their inner thoughts which give us a little insight into why he’s doing what he’s doing and what thoughts are going through his head while he’s doing it. In the anime, we never get that and as a result all of his actions come off stupid and inconsiderate, and that of an asshole. The same can be said about the girls, all their actions come across as desperate and slutty. Hell, I still can’t figure out why Hikari slept with Makoto when she liked someone else. Every action that these characters just serves to piss us off and make us hate them to some degree.
It leads to a satisfying ending
True, but was it worth sitting through 11 episodes of boring bullshit where you hate just about every character in the anime? I don’t know about you guys but the last person I should hate in an anime is the main character. The main character is the central figure of your series, you can hate everyone else and even dislike some of the attributes of the main character but when you flat out hate the guy and want to see him die in the end, you know you messed up from a character perspective. While School Days led to a satisfying end where Makoto finally got the punishment he deserved, the road to get there was boring, uninteresting, only served to piss you off, and left you with feeling nothing at the conclusion. In the end you just feel exhausted after watching the anime and unable to connect to the symbolism and metaphors the anime was trying to say.
Makoto as a detestable character is better than a bland character
Yes, Makoto being the most detestable male lead ever in anime history is better than making him bland and forgetable but just because he’s detestable doesn’t mean he’s a good character. His detestable behavior only serves to help amplify the ending of seeing him die but what about everything else? The anime never gives us insight into why he does the things he does and if you say it’s because he’s a teenage boy and all boys want to be in his position than you need to get your heads out of your asses. Yes, I’m not gonna lie guys at that age want to have sex with girls but not all of us just sleep with every girl we see. Even if we did wind up in Makoto’s position we would either feel some hint of guilt for what we were doing and we wouldn’t be able to get away with it for as long as he did. Like I said a majority of the actions in this anime make no sense. Just because Makoto is detestable doesn’t mean he’s an interesting character, he’s still a boring character with the only thing keeping you interested in him is the fact that he’s the main character so we have no choice but to follow him and because you want to see him die in the end. If he had been a side character we wouldn’t have given him the time of day.
So is School Days a masterpiece
Hell no! The anime is one of the worst animes I’ve ever had the displeasure of watching and in my subjective opinion it’s an anime you be better off not watching at all. Instead, see if you can find the visual novel. The visual novel is actually okay and like I said before gives us more insight into the thoughts and actions of not only Makoto but everyone else that makes them all more interesting as characters. If you like the anime to some extent, cool but I personally hated it. It’s boring all the way until the final moments and even then one could argue that the ending was still unsatisfying. Let me know what you guys thought about School Days. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
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