You're so right Drasticc. This was a lesson alright. :) And a good one! No cute forgiving in the end, just punishment! hehe... But you can't help feeling sorry for the girls here who's heart was broken over and over by an idiot who never understood anything.
One thing, I think they rushed the whole plot development. They could have let things build up more.
School Days was good. It could've been much better if they hadn't decide half way through the plot to go with the "bad" end. I can almost imagine their brainstorm meeting:
Guy 1: "So, Makoto, huh? What to do with him?"
Guy 2: "Let's be mean! Kill him!"
Guy 1: "But won't that make fangirls angry?"
Guy 3: "Dumbass, why do you think we made him sleep with all the cast? The fangirls hate him! MWAHAHAHAHAH"
Guy 1: "I guess you're right...So we're killing him?"
Guy 2: "Yeah. Makoto, come here a sec...."
All joke aside, I liked School Days. Rushed or no, that anime managed to go beyond simple harem romance; the characters seemed to have depth, be it a cruel pervert who doesn't care about anyone or just a powerfull first love driven to madness. I think that's the main selling point of this anime: character depth. Or more specifically, character realness. They felt real.
Well it seems we all agree that the plot was a bit rushed and the anime showed that there are consequences, and the obvious first love always prevails. The harem was very unpredictable and didn't go the usual "Boy meets Girl" route.
I personally thought it was great, but a bit over-the-top. The story did seem rushed, and I did find it hard to believe everything happened over what appears to be a school year.
Besides Makoto being well-hated, the girls "clique" (my best description without adding spoilers) wasn't much better in their treatment of others.
This stems from EP7(?) the "lounge", the festival and its aftermath.
I feel it is a more extreme version of "The Secret Life of the American Teenager."
My only problem is I now have "School Days Syndrome", and when an Anime begins combining "those" elements, and heading "that" direction, I start to cringe. I still like a good harem though. -- John
This was my first anime, I found it on the net when I was 14 knowing nothing about it, and got really into it. Haha I got a bit freaked. Rewatched it to see how my 16 year old self liked it, and it was still as good. I think no one can really say it's a bad show, it does develop it's plot/characters quite well, it stinks how it's ranked so low.
I really don't think Makoto deserved to die though. Sure he got carried away, but oh well. KotonohaXMakoto all the way woo...
Meh School Days is mostly just a slightly below average show with a great ending. All of the characters are awful and impossible to feel sorry for. The first half of the show is down right boring generic rom-com garbage and when the show starts to get interesting the characters aren't really all that believable. I mean the loli
decides fucking Makoto is the best way to get him to be faithful to her friend.
How the fuck does that make any kind of sense? So while the second half of the show is an improvement it's still not spectacular other than it just gave me this morbid fascination to see how bad things could get. Then the ending which was the best part wasn't built up enough and kind of comes out of nowhere so while I admit it was a good or even great ending it could have been done much better. School Days would have been much better off starting with the dark tone and then maintaining it throughout then I think the show would have fit together much better.
Damn, that anime was just weird. I swear it made me paranoid forever :P
I mean, that girl was fucked up enough to chop off her dead "boyfriends" head and go all lovey dovey about it. I feel sorry for the girls, though. To have such a perverted love...
Meh School Days is mostly just a slightly below average show with a great ending. All of the characters are awful and impossible to feel sorry for. The first half of the show is down right boring generic rom-com garbage and when the show starts to get interesting the characters aren't really all that believable. I mean the loli
decides fucking Makoto is the best way to get him to be faithful to her friend.
How the fuck does that make any kind of sense? So while the second half of the show is an improvement it's still not spectacular other than it just gave me this morbid fascination to see how bad things could get. Then the ending which was the best part wasn't built up enough and kind of comes out of nowhere so while I admit it was a good or even great ending it could have been done much better. School Days would have been much better off starting with the dark tone and then maintaining it throughout then I think the show would have fit together much better.
You make a lot of valid points, yet I disagree with some of your reasoning, but you should really try Shigofumi. It sounds like something you'd be interested in.
SN- This anime helped me get into the whole "harem" genre in general. All of the scandalous moments and the rom/com beginning that turned tragic was amazing. It broke all of the usual trends set be-forth.
^ Yeah I watched Shigofumi a few months ago and enjoyed it. That show was definitely at it's best when it was being dark and twisted. There were a few of episodes that were just fantastic in that regard. It had it's lighter elements as well but even those episodes were enjoyable. I think out of everything the best moments for Shigofumi came in episode 6 when which focused on bullying, it had one of the best buildups and climaxes I've seen. The rest of the episodes were also good but that is the one episode I think exceeded everything else the show was able to do.
this was by far the most depressing WTF am I watching anime to date. Even though i saw this anime take the turn toward Heart Break Ridge i couldn't stop watching. By episode ten i knew it was going to end bad, but i kept hoping for that happy ending. As i am typing this i am extremely pissed off at Ito he could have avoided all of this by being straight forward with kotonoha and just dumped her in the begining she wouldn't have gone all crazy and been treated like garbage. In the end this anime pissed me off while also pulling on my emotions making me unmanly.
Now i've watched some animes that make me sad...not ones that outright give me depression, everything from the fact that the main character is a chick magnet, This must have just been a ploy to twist and crush the viewers emotions, because im feeling like my emotions are just sadness, this was worse that when I watched future diary well safe to say 9/10 would recommend it, the reason it lacks a point is because im sad af, now if you dont mind Im going to curl up in a ball and die thanks for your time.
It's one of those first few anime where you thought it was just some love triangle at first, and you get all tingly in the first episode and all of a sudden, shit hits the fan on the later episodes... especially the last one... I'm never going to watch it again... EVER.
