School Days is not the worst anime ever

[Michael Goff]

I have heard/read that it is, and watched it. I've realized that it isn't.

For those of you who haven't watched it yet, I'll wait. It's about 6 or so hours long.

*waits*

Alright.

You're probably disgusted at the show if you've just finished watching it.

Spoiler

I mean the cast is mostly filled with horrible people. The main character constantly cheats on his girlfriend, sending her into a depression. He then cheats on his second girlfriend, after breaking up with the first. There isn't a single person who does the right thing during the entire show, not for long anyway. And then there's the gratuitous rape scene. A tragedy filled with horrible characters. Then there's the final scenes, with the deaths.

Now, I'm going to explain why I don't see disgust over this anime as a bad thing, but a good thing. A lot of shows give you a protagonist that you're supposed to like, or relate to, and things that happen to them to make them sympathetic. This show doesn't do that. It gives you bad people, bad actions, and bad consequences. So much bad is fit into such a short show, the idea being that you're supposed to feel a certain way.

You're supposed to hate Makoto.

Spoiler

Likely to the point where you smile at his death via scissors

What makes a bad anime or a bad show? That is something that people need to decide on their own, but I have ideas of my own. The biggest sin a show can do is waste my time. If the ending completely makes the entire journey worthless, and nothing came of it, then it wasted everybody's time. Even Samurai Champloo didn't waste my time, though it came close. Everybody grew as human beings, even if

Spoiler

the end goal ended up being a fail because the Sunflower Samurai kind of died

.

Big O, on the other hand, does.

Spoiler

Everything is reset at the end, making it a loop. Nobody has any memories, and they're going to repeat everything over again.

There are more examples, but that one is the first one to come to mind.

What do you guys think? Do my thoughts make any sense, or am I rambling?

 

[Michael Goff]

I take it nobody has any thoughts on the subject.

 

[MattL1979]

I liked School Days, it didn't waste my time. It made me feel happy, sad, angry and intrigued, and feelings were what I was looking for.

Spoiler

I didn’t know that the anime was going to degenerate into the kind of show it became, but the “genre degeneration” was the reason that made this anime worthy for me. It started like a fairly normal romantic anime, and I rooted for a relationship between Makoto and Kotonoha.

The chapter where the characters were swimming in a pool and then ends with Makoto and Sekai kissing and crying under the rain was really harsh for me, in a good way. I didn’t know how to feel. I was angry with Makoto, but could somehow could relate to the feeling of not knowing who you want to have by your side (Kotonoha or Sekai). However, I couldn’t approve cheating. I stopped rooting for Makoto and really feel sorry for Kotonoha. I liked Kotonoha, I wanted her to be happy. But (to that point in the show) I also liked Sekai and wanted her to be happy too. The show became more like "real life" at that point. The violence and tragedy after that were then more like an extreme case of what can happen to "normal" (but certainly not good) persons if they make bad decisions and break their own limits (if they have any). With "normal" I mean the kind of people you usually see "every day", with problems, wishes and doubts.

Maybe you and I could say that we wouldn’t do anything like that under any circumstance, but maybe the nice guy or girl that you see every day at Starbucks or wherever couldn’t say that. That got me thinking about the importance of the decisions you make.