"nice boat" syndrome

[TJR]

An annoying meme.

[OverFunk]

The impact of School Days was so big, that in the next season everyone was seeing death flags everywhere in Myself;Yourself...

[MidnightViper88]

Originally Posted by Eater of All

Looks like School Days has broken quite a number of people.

Speaking of broken, is School Days really all that's cracked up to be? I mean, really really? I'm a man of violence, and I have a hard time believing such a premise can be a legit backdrop for violence and controversy, though maybe the cynic of me isn't giving the anime community enough credit...

"I'm afraid that ship has sailed in the morning"

[TJR]

Originally Posted by MidnightViper88

Speaking of broken, is School Days really all that's cracked up to be? I mean, really really? I'm a man of violence, and I have a hard time believing such a premise can be a legit backdrop for violence and controversy, though maybe the cynic of me isn't giving the anime community enough credit...

"I'm afraid that ship has sailed in the morning"

The violence is nothing you haven't seen in a million movies and video games. School Days only got attention because the anime community didn't expect to see it in a high school romance.

[MidnightViper88]

Originally Posted by TJR

The violence is nothing you haven't seen in a million movies and video games. School Days only got attention because the anime community didn't expect to see it in a high school romance.

Really now? I hate high school romance cliches...

The cynic side of me feels redeemed

[willyvereb]

Well, for me it wasn't shocking for various reasons:
1.) Watching how Kotonoha drowns in insanity. I expected something yandere-ish. The only things could surprise me that the other girl did it and because it was successfull. But it wasn't all of surprising because:
2.) The second half of the anime was depressing and full of conflicts. Makoto could save the whole thing many times, but he didn't do that. If he had only an inch more backbone...(well, that's why I felt it a bit artifically created, because there's no way the real world has so indecisive, dumb guy whom so much girl falls for. Maybe he inherited his harem powers from his father...as the relationships tree suggests)
3.)I was spoiled about the ending. I watched it a year or more after the show's aired.

And I don't know why people're expecting "nice boat" everywhere. It was School Days' uniqueness. I think we have to wait for decades to watch an anime with an ending like this.

[ATP]

Mandatory Youtube link.

[x512dev]

On a serious note, I enjoyed School Days.

Depending on how you look at it it's either completely ridiculous and implausible for a high school/romance scenario, or a scarily realistic analysis of what happens when you push people over the edge and act rashly without thinking of the consequences.

Not that that many high school breakups/pregnancies end in brutal stabbings, but you know, the psychological aspect of it I guess has some realism.

OT: My favorite character was actually Otome =/

-512

[Somnium]

Even though School Days was depressing I actually like it.It brings to mind the saying "Hell hath no Fury like a woman scorned".

[Megidolaon]

I'll raise your mandatory Youtube link by even better Youtube Link

[kk2extreme]

I wonder if I could use it in a conversation...

friend: wow, what a hot chick
me: ya, but if you are hooking up with her, be careful of her nice boat.
friend: she has a boat???
me: nvm

[KholdStare]

School Days is something that I don't regret seeing, even if I might not love it. I believe that it's special enough that everyone should watch it, and then formulate their own opinions on it.

[Greenish Growth]

Well...I've always enjoyed seeing bad story endings in adult anime and erogames (where a lot of bad endings from adult anime come from). There's just something liberating and fun about these types of endings (at least for me). It's fun seeing how screwed up relationships can get in very bad story endings. Bad Endings counter the Good story Endings.

The School Days game made me think about them more because those endings were pretty memorable. The Shuffle anime writers seem to have been influenced by the SD game since they added much more psycho-ness to the anime storyline. The Higurashi anime came out after that. Then Gift which also seems to have had SD influence on the anime screenplay writer (adding things that weren't in the game).

Finally the School Days anime came out to top it all off. But...I was thinking about these things way before that.

I thought the most unusual thing about the School Days anime was that it showcased a truly bad story gaming ending even though it came from a TV series. We see "bad" story relationship endings in adult anime all the time, but rarely in TV series.

[x512dev]

I tried playing the School Days game, however, with me knowing no Japanese and the English translation patch progressing at a pitifully slow rate, I got frustrated and stopped.

'Course, then I just went and found a RAR of all the H scenes from the game though :-P

-512

[Nosauz]

school day's anime ending really made me sick, I mean it was a painful tale that almost matched the angst of the true end of Heart de Roommate, and if any of you have played that eroge, you'll know what I'm talking about. I mean I watched bastard, gantz, ninja scroll, battle royale, and really am not afraid of guro genere in general but it was the story, the unrequited love, the remorse and regret, and these complex emotions culminating into this volcano of passion, much like Heart de Roommate was just painful. Except heart had this crazy painful afterburn that School days did not.

[Deathkillz]

I personally loved School days and regard it as a romance masterpiece where it doesn't end well (unlike countless others where the lucky male protagonist still gets the girl after being swarmed by a group). It can easily be said the only romance series I've seen where it featured a BAD END and oh boy, did I love it

Not to mention the fact of a harsh reality of what will happen if you decide to fuck about with love, being a manwhore pimp. "Kill one to warn a million" as they say.

Oh and the fact that the melodrama played out so well is also a plus. Makoto is a character you love to hate and in doing so you just end up loving how much you hate him which gives a great excuse to bash him even more! It's a vicious, endless cycle of love and hate and School Days delivered the good stuff, and the proper end. I would have hated the series if it ended on a happy note for Makoto while the rest of the girls are left in emotional pieces.

[Echoes]

Originally Posted by Deathkillz

I personally loved School days and regard it as a romance masterpiece where it doesn't end well (unlike countless others where the lucky male protagonist still gets the girl after being swarmed by a group). It can easily be said the only romance series I've seen where it featured a BAD END and oh boy, did I love it

Makoto is a character you love to hate and in doing so you just end up loving how much you hate him which gives a great excuse to bash him even more!

I liked School Days too. I wouldn't go so far as to say I loved it, but I enjoyed it a lot when it aired, and boy did I get emotionally involved. As for Makoto, he didn't fall into the "love to hate" category for me. I hated to hate him, but it sure provoked me to discuss every episode of the show and overall made it a memorable experience, so it wasn't all for naught!

I really would have liked to give him a punch straight in the soul, but as everyone knows by now; he ultimately got his comeuppance from elsewhere.

[Jze0]

School days' unique disgusting end makes it a win for me. Never have I seen anything like it before and possibly ever again. Some people might regret watching it but I definitely don't, in fact I'm glad. So glad that I want to now play the eroge to get the full experience but sadly theres no patch out yet so the wait continues.

[MidnightViper88]

I have to give this thread some serious credit; I sat through 4 hours of the most tormenting genre of anime I could not possibly tolerate for one of the best endings I think I've seen in all of anime, or at the very least, the best ending for anything that ever had "romance" in it's genre label...This is a genre I shun to the deepest levels of Hell, so when I heard of all this alleged controversy, I had to see for myself, especially given what many people were saying...

And all I have to say is that end was just fucking hilarious...

I mean, I have to admit in a way I feel bad for Sekai having got gut like that after failing miserably in a counter-initiative in an armed confrontation, but all-in-all, the entire cast of characters had moral ethics that would raise eyebrows in the court of Caligula...At least this time around, the male lead, Makoto, bit the bullet where many other male leads have undeservedly lived to see the end of the series...I mean, really; Sekai knifing Makoto to death like that is something that would probably garner applause from Alfred Hitchcock and Kotonoha overall is a case study into psychopathy...That entire school could practically be bombed and society would suffer little to no losses...

Cynical, no longer am I; Sadistic, I have now become...

Ironic thing is that while watching the damn thing, to keep my attention awake, I was playing with my Smith & Wesson knives...Like, whoa

Excuse me while I go sit in my cousin's fishing boat and ponder new meanings to life...

[edit]It's a shame all three of them didn't off each other; It would've been an even better ending, and it would've saved us from another stupid 4chan meme...[/edit]

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by KholdStare

I believe that it's special enough that everyone should watch it, and then formulate their own opinions on it.

Really? As far as I'm concerned, there is more than enough external information out there for me to formulate the key impact of the series without ever having to watch it. Namely, that it starts out like a generic school romance, plays out like an exceptionally bad and callous harem school romance, and when the audience is sufficiently driven to rage, exploit the backlash by giving them blood and "justice served."

While it certainly sounds like a twist and an assault on ordinary eroge clichés, it does not appear to be much more. For someone who is barely interested about the genre it deconstructs in the first place, why should I even care?