School Days (2007)

 

Director: Keitaro Motonaga

Screenplay: Makoto Uezu

Based on the adult visual novel videogame by 0verflow

(Voice) Cast: Daisuke Hirakawa as Makoto Ito; Shiho Kawaragi as Sekai Saionji; Tae Okajima as Kotonoha Katsura; Chiaki Takahashi as Nanami Kanroji; Haruka Nagami as Otome Kato; Keiko Imoto as Setsuna Kiyoura; Megu Ashiro as Kokoro Katsura; Ryouko Tanaka as Hikari Kuroda; Yoshiaki Matsumoto as Taisuke Sawanaga

Ephemeral Waves

 

[FULL SPOILERS throughout; whilst a warning will be added to where significant plot reveals are shown, this is an immediate warning as this review has to talk about the full details of the plot in general, which may ruin a great deal of the experience for others.]

 

On the surface, School Days presents the stereotype of an anime, for anime fans and for outsiders to the media; in high school, Makoto Ito is encouraged by his female friend Sekai Saionji to start dating Kotonoha Katsura, a timid girl in another class. Sekai however has feelings for him herself, and at first, even as a fan of this notorious 2007 series, it shows the hallmarks of a stereotypical high school melodrama, including the hijinks of the early dates between Kotonoha and Makoto which are played fully as comedy, such as the decision of what film one should take a girl to or his ill advised decision to get guidance from a men's romantic advise magazine. The show also cannot be disguised from its origins, that this was based on an erotic game, something which may raise the eyebrows considerably especially in mind to the setting, as that means the original work was pornographic with explicit sex scenes (barring Japanese censorship laws). A multimedia franchise, this does follow a lot of the clichés of the seemingly charismatic but bland male lead, who manages to have a lot of girls suddenly develop romantic feelings for him, and the trope of the group of girls he could be with, as this is based on a visual novel, a video game genre narrative driven and based on choosing choices that determine the story ending you get. Add things from the cheesecake moments of slight eroticism to the token male friend whose desperateness for the opposite sex is played fully for comedy, and there are plenty of shows which likely exist which have these aspects and are forgotten. Thing is, there is a clear signal, in the first episode when the show's title appears and broken glass is heard, that something is amiss even if it could be missed. Makoto is not going to be your usual male anime protagonist, especially as three episodes into a light comedy about his awkward romance with Kotonoha, he too eager for her in wanting to be physical as a couple, he starts getting bored with courting her.

School Days was notorious for a good reason, though the appearance for this anime series can be deceptive. The visual novel, published in 2005, like others in this genre is an interactive novel that offers the aforementioned multiple narrative paths and endings, and like a choose-your-own-adventure story from the West, you can have good and bad endings. This presents an issue with adapting these to anime in how to tell them, let alone with manga, with only a few playing to their origins. Higurashi When They Cry, a 2002 visual novel by Ryukishi07, founder of the dōjin (fan made) circle 07th Expansion, plays to a Groundhog Day repeating cycle eventually explicit to its horror mystery story, which is something few of these titles have the ability to work with. Others either adapt the tale in one way, and others are more creative, such as how Amagami SS (2010), the first series specifically, is your stereotypical (if likable) high school romance which just envisions what happens if the male lead was dating a different female peer in a different time line, a few episode chapters devoted to each of these possibilities. School Days, after its initial light and cheery tone in the first three episodes, changes into a dark chimera eventually of interest, especially as when considering the source, which could have incredibly nasty endings, the production team of studio TNK decided to make this the really bad ending in anime form. I should have probably not been surprised as, when I first saw this series, I learnt the director was Keitaro Motonaga, who helmed Malice@Doll (2000), a work that I hold in high regard, though with the caveat that it is an odd creation as an early computer animated body horror sci-fi work which is truly peculiar. Obviously, that enough cannot explain in the influences behind the show, be it the production design recreating the visual novel characters, the source material itself, or screenwriter and series compositor Makoto Uezu, but it was apt that a man behind that particular piece of surreal nightmare fuel was here. Within a career that varies from porn (House of 100 Tongues (2003) for example) up to helming the 2010s Digimon Adventure tri. films, Motonaga's presence here with a show which gain a notoriety entirely because of unfortunate scheduling on Japanese television feels like a perverse cherry to how this production turned out.

The premise itself could have easily descended in something bad on just the synopsis though, just a de-eroticised melodrama if you never heard of the game. School Days, with its conventional (stereotypical) TV look of bright colours and conventional characters designs are matched by a stereotypically bland male protagonist and the close-ups of female characters' figures, far more lurid and questionable in terms of a problematic male gaze, and because these characters are still in school. Kotonoha, the girl he is initially pushed into dating by his tomboy female friend Sekai, is depicted as a voluptuous big eyed girl who is quiet and shy around men, all whilst Sekai herself spends her time arguing with him through exchanged notes in class, the tomboy who, as the cliché goes, has a crush on him too. So far, it is a stereotype of anime plotting that also is part of the "harem" sub-genre. Harem, originally a term from ancient Muslim culture of a separate part of a household for wives, concubines, and female servants, as well as eventually turning into a completely sexual term for a group of women with one male lover, is its own anime/manga sub-genre which usually denotes one male surrounded by multiple female suitors; there is the "reverse harem", one woman and multiple male suitors, and LGBT variations, but harem stories that are the most famous (and divisive) include the Love Hina franchise where it is one male, and many potential female suitors. The potential gender issues around this, which are right to rise with concern, are dashed in this particular anime as this is a melodrama where things get bleaker and sour.

[MAJOR Spoiler Warnings here]

And by sour, as in our male protagonist, eventually turning out to be a chronic womanizer with an ease in cheating on multiple girls, is murdered by one character, whilst another is disembowel. The diagram for the beginning to the ending, from the initial romance with light comedy at the beginning to where his head is severed and kept as a possession for a heartbroken suitor, is as jarring a tonal shift without a lot of context to how this happened, yet the show manages to make this work for all its faults.

[MAJOR Spoilers End]

Watching School Days again, the story for all its clichés does have virtues in how it makes the experience over twelve episodes, eventually like going through the meat grinder for a prolonged season, more tragic in how the circumstances come. An inspired decision to make a show the worst type of ending from the source material, on purpose or with unintentionally greater weight, turned this property into an anti-harem story and an even more tragic one due to how the characters act in circumstances. In a school shown to be full of cruel and sexually confused students, the mistakes at the worst time are dramatically more loaded as a result. Makoto is a true stereotype of the ineffective and bland male lead in a lot of these shows who eventually, in others, became a cliché anime were burdened with, as this trope was clearly seen to allow emotional investment to an audience. Here, he is horny and awkward like a teenager would be, too trigger happy with girls if dating to rush in to kiss as he had never been with someone before, and eventually, when he finds himself crossing the line with having physical relationships, coldness instead comes after instead of growth and maturity. He becomes instead of a calculated person who takes physically from girls, as he womanises and sleeps with multiple people, and hates the responsibilities that go with this. Sekai is tragically the friend who always loved him, made the mistake to confess her love to him when already dating Kotonoha, who she introduced him to, and is stuck with the anchor of this love even when he wishes to be with her, especially when he starts cheating on her too. Kotonoha is the tragic figure who placed all her emotional investment in Makoto, and will eventually suffer a nervous breakdown, and other characters find themselves stuck in this increasing awful web, such as Setsuna, Sekai's own diminutive female friend who wishes Sekai's happiness to be with Makoto but also has a crush on him. Even Makoto's horn dog but wholesome male friend Taisuke eventually does something in a later episode which is horrifying, least in terms of when someone is at the moment of an emotional breakdown he inadvertently takes advantage of without likely realising what he ever did.

The worst thing, and why for how ridiculous and way too cruel the story can be School Days actually succeeds, is that it is not morally black and white, but with everyone including Makoto himself being confused hormone driven teenagers. Extremer tales have been told of romantic tragedy and death, and it was a curious experience first watching the show on the streaming service Crunchyroll and looking at their comments section at how people were not comfortable with the story progression, whether it was good writing or not, having to watch a show where the male lead is clearly not a good person. It was a curious tale in itself of viewers wanting to kill Makoto, slap everyone else and vile anguish whilst those in the know, who already saw the series, teased the horrifying climax of it all. I myself was aware of the ending, that Makoto would eventually be shown as a womanizer, and that the comeuppance was a nasty one, but not only did I not know the full extent of said ending, but my knowledge did not ruin the show but arguably improved it. This also sooths over the first three episodes, knowing where the story went bringing a sense of tragic finality to the proceedings; it added to the idea that a character like Makoto is not explicitly evil, even when near the end of the series he has a foursome with three female classmates when he is already sleeping around and betraying multiple girlfriends, but something worse in his banality. Far more disturbing, even if exaggerated, is that he is just an apathetic and dumb young man who thinks with his smaller head, and has little wisdom of emotions, more honest as a moral ground for the series to take as a result even if it is more agonising for a viewer to experience. Considering this cliché of the blandly likable hero is a common one in anime, it feels subversive, even if School Days came from a franchise which placated to the clichés too, that probably felt more uncomfortable for some viewers when usually these leads are meant to be sympathetic.

And whilst their all stereotypes, that helps because of this attitude; Sekai, complicating things as she still helps him to date Kotonoha, has a strange relationship including practice foreplay sessions which are just as problematic as they should be to a viewer, naturally leading to complications. Setsuna, Sekai's friend, has a crush on Makoto too, as does Otome, another female peer, all whilst the other girls in the school can be vindictive and backstabbing, all feeling less like sexist depictions but like many teenagers misguided behaviour. It is an attempt at least at complexity in spite of itself, even a character like Kotonoha in that her hesitance in a physical relationship, pushing Makoto away, is due to having been teased for her figure at a young age alongside the fact that she is an innocence, her ideal of romance taken from stories of being swept up by a man riding on horseback and being romanced, the fictionalised take of love stories. Taking up knitting and devoted to her younger sister, the character is meant for a viewer's perspective to have been a meek figure, the shy girl you cheer when she does muster a bravery to be bolder in her romance, only for Makoto to be an oblivious cheater who dithers, making her a really tragic figure. Add to this that her female peers in her class bully her, a mean streak made worse when they will even film other female students secretly in a "break room" at the school festival to humiliate them publically, and Kotonoha's turn in the end to madness, glazed look looking at her phone on the street, is the real tragedy of it all. Even if it is taken to an extreme, in the video game and this anime, her fate is the real gut punch returning to the series as with the first viewing.

The effect of this tragedy, the ending itself, gained School Days its notoriety as, tragically, it had the poor timing for the final episode to be about to be aired just when a real life murder took place. On September 18th 2007, a sixteen year old murdered her father, a 45-year-old police sergeant in the traffic division at Minami Police Station in Kyoto Prefecture, with an axe¹. Another series, part of the aforementioned Higurashi: When They Cry franchise², was also affected by this in terms of its screening on television, where the episode of School Days was delayed and even altered for multiples channels before finally being broadcast¹, but how TV Kanagawa dealt with School Days transferred from a legitimate tragedy, in terms of any murder ever taking place and the gristly nature of this particular one, to an accidental internet meme. Instead of the episode, they showed half an hour of scenery, including a lake with a Norwegian ferry on it, showed with Air on a G String playing over the images. "Nice Boat", as the meme came to be, was from a 4chan user commenting on the replacement material, and it became popular in Japan^3&3b. The meme even found its way into the Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan, a straight-to-net spin-off of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya franchise, when the Kadokawa Pictures's YouTube channel uploaded a short montage of sailboats instead of the previously scheduled premiere of that ONA⁴.

Even without this real life censorship, its infamy does not detract the results; built up to over painful eleven episodes of miscommunication, cheating and broken emotions, the ending no matter how over-the-top it ends up, actually ending up on a sailboat in some perverse irony in the final shot, does have a weight to it from the tragic circumstances that lead to it. In fact, the idea that it is both an antidote to the problematic show trope of the harem anime as well as another example proves an advantage. The look of the show helps with this, the stereotypical character designs with big eyes emphasising the darker moments in vast contrast, and the leering fan service thankfully giving way to frankness about sex even in the dialogue. The series does, to lighten the tone and offer levity, have humour, reaching its crescendo as a last gasp of happiness before the ending at the school festival, where the mascots of the classes jostle for crowds; once it goes, so does the series manage to get even darker than before when the gloves come off completely.

The sense that the show does come from questionable production really comes when you see the bonus episode, for DVD release, School Days: Magical Heart Kokoro-chan (2008), a magical girl parody with the characters in this world. Seemingly banal, but the "fan service" of leering of the female cast naked is more apparent, legitimately uncomfortable as Kokoro is Kotonoha's little sister, which is evident that, truthfully, School Days came as much out of the clichés, even the problematic ones, which sell well to an audience of sexy school girls. Studio TNK for a lot of its existence makes shows about sexy young female characters to gaze at, such as the High School DxD franchise, so their bread and butter was in this aspect which creeps in with School Days but really makes itself more apparent with this bonus episode. The bonus episode even if some of the jokes land, like the magical maid cafe members stuck with a giant vacuum cleaner as their secret weapon, is not good in the slightest, but thankfully it is a one off curiosity, alongside a bonus Valentine's Day episode, School Days: Valentine Days (2008), which also qualifies as the hot springs episode (i.e. the episode at the hot springs resort in anime, designed to show the female cast naked and bathing even if the episode never shows anything explicit). The original series by itself, due to how it tells its story, is too powerful in its aura and what it actually succeeds in for a Magical Heart Kokoro-chan to make it seem as distasteful.

In fact, the entire aesthetic is perfect - "School Days" a perfect title that sounds innocuous, but develops a weight when it is the last episode title. The light pop songs used suit, and even the fact the end credits are centred on a mobile phone is absolutely appropriate, the latter an object which plays such an important part in the drama as a catalyst for drama (such as blocking someone off one or secretly conversing to others with). The result, aware of how it bruised and batted me around through the twelve episodes, was unique, like a necessary poison and incredible idiosyncratic in lieu of what was purposeful or accidental creative.

 

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1) Last School Days Episode Preempted by Real-Life Crime, written by Egan Loo and published for Anime News Network on 19th September 2007

2) Higurashi Kai Preempted "Due to Various Circumstances" (Update 2), written by Egan Loo and published for Anime News Network on 20th September 2007.

3) School Days "Nice Boat" Meme Has Been Sailing on for 12 Years, written by Kara Dennison and published for Crunchyroll on September 18th 2019.

3b) Nice Boat, taken from the Know Your Memes webpage on the meme written on April 15th 2009.

4) That's it, I give up: First episode of Haruhi-chan not finished, viewers get half-decent boat instead. written for Japanator on 13th February 2009.