A School Days Rant

[Longbowwing]

Originally Posted by Jules

I don't know what any of you are talking about...this just makes me want to see it more.

To feel such real disdain for a FICTIONAL character means the writers must be doing something right with him...This is even more true if you're SUPPOSED to hate him.

Wish I could say more, but until I watch school days myself (and I may just marathon it over the weekend), I'll just leave it at that.

go play the game, it is much better, also you can play the sequel without worry the anime ending

[Zalis_]

Sure, this anime was completely sordid, scandalous, and just plain wrong. But it was also a huge breath of fresh air in the "based on visual novel" genre. See, I watch a lot of shows like this, ranging from the supernatural ones like Air/Kanon/Clannad to the ordinary/slice-of-life ones like Lamune/To Heart/Final Approach. After seeing all these shows where the guy has multiple girls interested in him or throwing themselves at him, it was incredibly refreshing to see MANkoto in School Days actually taking advantage of the situation. And what's wrong with fanservice shots for the otaku? Just who do they think will be watching this show? That "Absolute Area" but had me pausing the show to recover from laughter.

So yeah, there's a lot of reasons to hate the characters in School Days, but they didn't make me hate the show.

[Project]

Originally Posted by Jules

I don't know what any of you are talking about...this just makes me want to see it more.

To feel such real disdain for a FICTIONAL character means the writers must be doing something right with him...This is even more true if you're SUPPOSED to hate him.

Wish I could say more, but until I watch school days myself (and I may just marathon it over the weekend), I'll just leave it at that.

Instead of hating one character I started to hate the whole thing which I do, lol, it was terrible. I do think one thing was nice, the guy stayed indecisive until the end which never, ever, happens in romance/game animes lol.

I'd wished that the girl who took his head would have died too, that would have been a nicer ending but whatever. Sekai was my favourite character in it.

[Sarah's Knight]

Yeah, but, really, what does it matter who died and who stayed alive? They were all CRETINS, every last one of them.

I even came upon this video somewhere (on youtube.com, I think) the other day which looked to be an alternate ending or something to the series - or it could have been an animated scene in the game, I don't know - in which (*spoiler alert again, as if anyone should care*) Kotonoha just walked right up to Sekai in the middle of public and cut open the major artery in her throat with a butcher knife.

Now, as if that in and of itself isn't messed up enough, ... but ... all the while, Makoto just stood there right next to Sekai's flailing body and calmly asked (what I think he might have said; it was in Japanese, and there were no subtitles) what Kotonoha thought she was doing, with the vacant look of a total idiot. Excuse me, but, how DOES THIS EVER HAPPEN?! Who just stands there like that and doesn't even look shocked when someone is bleeding to death two feet away from them?! Wouldn't he and everyone else around be either trying to see if Sekai is okay, rushing to grab the knife out of Kotonoha's hand in case she decides to take a swing at someone else, or running away in utter panic for their lives? ... Or at least screaming in fear? None of this just makes any sense at all.

Now I only hate School Days in general even more. It almost ranks right up there with La Blue Girl in terms of flat senselessness, just in a different way.

[Longbowwing]

so anyone of you consider playing the sequels - Summer Days and Cross Days??

[Rabi en Rose]

I completely missed your point. It would be far quicker to watch the anime again than read your narration.

I'll agree that the beginning and end of the anime are worlds apart. It starts out very cute and innocently and winds up very twisted. I also have to admit the only reason I watched it was because someone recommended it to me with a label saying "very disturbing".

However I think it was brilliant. The first 10 episodes or so are a sequence of dull character development stages but teh end was very worth it. I especially liked the scene where ...(what's his name?) the maid guy dies. That was just perfect, the way Sekai used her phone and the whistling of the kettle building up tension. That scene really moved me. Also the scene where Katsura proves Sekai's pregnancy with a little DIY surgery, I couldn't believe that happened.

Anyway I think the point of the seris wasn't that the characters were outright "evil". It was that (the main guy [sorry I have trouble with guy's names]) got addicted to sex and was too weak to stand up and say "Katsura, it's over. I'm with Sekai now" or vice versa. Katsura descended into insanity with all the bullying at school and how everyone told her that (what's his name) wasn't her boyfriend, but he was!...right? And then Sekai's jealousy spiralled out of control since (what's his name) wouldn't stand up and say "Katsura, it's over..." Then Sekai finally snapped when she was pregnant (or pretending to be pregnant?) and (what's his name) turned her away.

It was the vicious situation that they were all in, and the loss of sanity in Katsura's case, that caused such an atrocious end.

[pnp]

Now I've only watched the anime, so my opinion is based solely on it and I watched it a year and a half ago so my memories are a bit distant. I didn't like it. Well that doesn't explain anything about it now does it. So I had a recommendation of 'yeah its alright' from a friend, he didn't tell me a damn thing in other words. So I thought it was just another harem movie from the start, and in my typically wrong assumptions was not that. So, I watched out of curiosity for the rest of the series.

Naive is cute for about two minutes in a dramatic piece, then its idiocy. Kotonoha the fool. There's a nice William Blake quote I like referring to, 'if the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.' There seems to be, emotional character development, reactionary at best but there is no learning involved with these characters which is essential to a decent character, and was my main frustration.

...I started to rant on about what was wrong with each character, but I'll save you all that, its pretty obvious. It's just that yet again I see another anime with weak female characters, not to say the male characters were any better, just irks me because I'd really like to see more depth.