School Days (TV)

Information of Anime

Makoto Ito is starting the second school semester.  Riding the train to school, he sees a beautiful girl who goes to the same school as him.  Her name is Kotonoha Katsura.  With the help of his friend, Sekai Saionji, she introduces Katsura to him & start their relationship.  Little does Makoto know that Sekai is secretly in love with him as well.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

When Katsura & Matoko talk to each other for the first time, Katsura admits that she fell for Makoto to Sekai.  Apparently, the two had their sights on each other for a long time.  However, Katsura is very shy & doesn't interact with others & Makoto doesn't understand girls.  Whenever they go out, Makoto would think about himself as he thinks that Katsura is ok with it.  Sekai would act as Makoto mentor on dating & understanding girls.  She would scold him for doing something wrong & tells him how to correct it.  However, Katsura & Makoto don't act out like a real couple as they don't call each other by their first names.  Matoko is very clueless in this relationship & Katsura has been very patient with him.  One night, Makoto would call Sekai to let her know that he's getting tired of dating with Katsura as he's starts getting closer to Katsura's family.

Things continue as it is as Makoto is getting bored with Katsura.  However, Katsura starts to make bold moves on him; thinking that's what he wants as most guys are interested in her breasts.  Sekai is frustrated on how their relationship isn't going anywhere because of Makoto's performance & decides to run a dating simulation for one day.  This training would make Makoto realized that he likes Sekai instead & finally goes for her which would have them physically love each other.  Although Sekai tells him that he has Katsura, she decides to accept Makoto since she does have a crush on him.  It goes as far as Makoto cheating on Katsura as he doesn't tell her about this & doesn't break up with her immediately. Instead, the secret relationship keeps going until Katsura finds out.

Although Katsura finds out about the affair between Makoto & Sekai, she still considers herself to be Makoto's girlfriend & thinks all the faults lies in her weakness.  This causes her downfall in her image as she is viewed as a bad person & bullied by some of her classmates.  In order to keep Makoto as Sekai's boyfriend, Setsuna Kiyoura goes to extreme measures to get Katsura after from Makoto.  Makoto tries to settle this by telling Katsura that he'll break up with her & stay with Sekai.  However, he becomes weak as he can't say no to her direct aggressive approach which delays the breakup.

Although Makoto still doesn't have an answer as to who really is his girlfriend, Katsura still doesn't admit the breakup.  Reality hits her when she discovered that Makoto took Sekai to the folk dance at the end of the school festival instead of her when she asked him to dance with her.  It was only the next day after the festival that Makoto finally states the breakup directly to Katsura.  In the process, Setsuna kisses Makoto to tell Katsura it's over. However, this & the incident with Kato during the school festival lounge would create problems for Makoto as Sekai starts to learn of these things & tries to get Makoto.  In the meantime, Katsura start to lose it.

With Sekai in despair, Makoto starts to hit on every girl he sees.  He doesn't resolve the situation with Sekai even though she found out what he did at the festival.  To make matters worse, she is pregnant & shocks Makoto.  However, he doesn't take responsibility for it & says it's Sekai's fault.  This results to all the female characters that know him to distance themselves from him due to his negative behaviour.  Feeling depressed & desperate for sex, Makoto starts to hate what he had done.  While in the city, Katsura who still lost her mind spots him & tells him the same things about how she will be a better girl to him as he's her boyfriend.  She comes to her senses when Makoto hugs her & apologizes to her.

The apology puts Makoto in another position where he becomes Katsura's girlfriend again.  Sekai, on the other hand, thinks Makoto is her boyfriend with the baby inside her.  She would soon discover that Katsura is with Makoto again & things take a fall when Katsura starts bad mouthing her about how Sekai tried to keep Makoto away from her.  In response, Makoto kisses Katsura in front of Sekai.  This would later create something horrible.

The next day, Sekai text messages Makoto about talking to him at his place.  However, she would murder him in a psychological way with constant stabbings.  Katsura finds a dead Makoto in his house & responds to it by meeting Sekai on the school rooftop using Makoto's cell to text her.  From there, Katsura brings Makoto in a carrying bag & wants to see if Sekai is lying or not about carrying Makoto's baby by cutting her open.  Katsura says that she doesn't see anyone inside Sekai as she suspected.

The story ends with Katsura hugging Makoto's head to her chest as they sail away in a sailing boat alone together. After the credit roll, we heard Makoto's voice & the same speech he made at the beginning of the show about how he meet met Katsura on the train.  During this narration, we see the students in the school carrying on with their lives happily as if the killing incidents were never heard of.

My Personal Review

School Days is a bit of an average anime show at the start.  Although it's based on the popular ero-game of the same name, I'm a bit iffy on it.  Nevertheless, I decided to watch it for the story really.  But, I got more than I bargained for.

Animation

The character designs have that plain look.  The girls are pretty much the same.  I sometimes actually had problems telling who was Katsura & Sekai which was pretty weird for me.  Technically, it should be easy to tell them apart, but I actually problems with it for some reason.  As for the fashion, it's plain as well.  Not much style, but still pretty good.

The backgrounds are okay.  Not a lot of details & it does have it's dull side at times.

The colours are dull.  I don't know what it is, but a lot of anime these days are getting dull colours now.  I'm thinking this is a standard or a trend now.

In terms of the animation movement, it's more on the natural realistic side.  There are some silly ones, but it's rarely found in this show.  The flow is quite smooth with some strange cycles such as walking & running.  It looks choppy at times.

Sound

The sound effects are realistic side.  The sounds are projected nicely & the clarity is good.

The seiyuus here are average.  I don't like Matoko's voice much as it seems to be whiny.  As for the girls, it's not very powerful performances.  They don't provide a lot of punch to their characters even though they do have some life to them.  Sekai is probably the best of the bunch, even though her performance isn't that great.

The music is mainly on the ballad side.  However, they don't really grab my attention very well.  It's kind of dry & dull.

Story

It's a typical-now-overused love triangle story.  Boy loves girl A, girl B helps boy get girl A, girl B is actually in love with boy.  Despite her love for Matoko, Sekai steps down peacefully & lets Katsura have him.  What makes the show interesting in its show is how Matoko & Katsura actually fell in love at first sight.  However, Katsura runs away from him & Matoko constantly seeks advice from Sekai.  What makes it more interesting is how Matoko is tired of dating with Katsura later on & goes after Sekai that goes beyond his relationship with Katsura.  This typical theme is made more interesting because of this problem.  It makes the viewers wonder if Matoko will stay with Katsura at the end or go for Sekai at the end.  It may actually be predictable since this kind of theme seems to end up girl B being the winner.  But, it got to the point that I didn't think would happen. 

The result was horror & gore.  I really didn't expect this to happen.  As a result, character development is key to this show's success.  Although I personally think the three characters were insane, these situations do occur in real life.  Tells you how love can be really seriously dangerous.  The buildup on the characters is great as they all feel pain of being rejected & alone.

For the ending, it felt empty.  After all that love triangle being resolved, I couldn't believe how the students in the school acted as if nothing happened.  I want to see what they felt about the incident or wondered what happened to Katsura, Sekai, & Makoto.  No references or indications were given.  This is probably explained in the game.  Nevertheless, it felt like the show was using the game's bad ending.  Don't know if that's right or not since I never played the game.

Overall Conclusion

School Days is an interesting anime show with potential.  It's got your typical love triangle plot, but with an twist. However, the show is a bit dry with its uninteresting characters.  If you are looking for a love triangle drama with some light comedy, you might want to give this one a try.  Be warned though that the anime isn't what it really looks like at the start of the show.

School Days gets a seven out of ten. The story is interesting & has an interesting & yet disturbing storyline.  But the characters in this seem dry & can be some annoyance, especially Makoto's brainless acts.  But these negative characteristics would lead to a powerful ending that can be a bit hard to chew.

Last updated on April 17, 2008