School Days

High school student Makoto Itou first notices Kotonoha Katsura at the start of his second semester, freshman year. Immediately, he becomes entranced by her beauty, but his bashfulness doesn't allow him to approach her, even though they ride the same train every day. Instead, he snaps a photo of her in secret and sets it as his cell phone's wallpaper: a charm that, if kept under wraps, would supposedly help you realize your love. However, classmate Sekai Saionji spots the picture, but instead of ratting him out, she offers to help set him up with Kotonoha—going so far as befriending her just for him. Thus, the trio begins a rather impromptu friendship.

School Days follows the lives of these three teenagers as they traverse the joys and hardships that come with being a high schooler. In a story alive and brimming with romance and melancholy, the tale of these three students will linger in memory long after the momentous conclusion.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Katsura, Kotonoha Main

Okajima, Tae Japanese

Itou, Makoto Main

Hirakawa, Daisuke Japanese

Saionji, Sekai Main

Kawaragi, Shiho Japanese

Kiyoura, Setsuna Supporting

Imoto, Kei Japanese

Katsura, Kokoro Supporting

Ashiro, Megu Japanese

Kato, Otome Supporting

Nagami, Haruka Japanese

Kanroji, Nanami Supporting

Takahashi, Chiaki Japanese

Sawanaga, Taisuke Supporting

Matsumoto, Yoshirou Japanese

Kuroda, Hikari Supporting

Tanaka, Ryouko Japanese

Obuchi, Minami Supporting

Kuribayashi, Minami Japanese

Itou, Makoto Producer

Koike, Katsumi Producer

Nakagawa, Shinobu Producer

Gotou, Masanori Producer

Reviews

Oct 24, 2025

WeAreBlank20

Recommended

Watching this anime, half way through I knew that this was either going to be a 10/10 or a 1/10.

I haven’t watched the final season of AOT for the very reason I feel after having finished this anime, that I ‘don’t know what to feel’, so I would be very disappointed with myself as I am now if I didn’t know how to feel after watching something that mentally I consider to be so important.

I watched this constantly rooting for the most bloody end to the scum of an MC, chanting as if the spirit of the French Revolution possessed me, but after it was ... over, I feel empty.

It’s a 1/10 for me, but without a doubt for a girl as perfect but made ultimate victim as Kotonoha Katsura, she deserves so much better. Despite my lack of doubting of that fact, I think that if I were to see something as undeniably sad in the real world, I would be too much of a pathetic excuse of a human being to be the hero she deserves, but any hero is better than none, so even if I don’t feel the way I should, I still have to do what’s important regardless of plan or desire.

This anime has made me not only consider, but DECIDE to go to therapy to fix whatever the hell is wrong with me, so the next time I watch this, I hope to rate it a 10/10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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Sep 22, 2025

Scanerior

Mixed Feelings

School Days starts as a nice romantic light-hearted series, but it quickly starts to "go bad". There is a brutal difference in the portrayal of the characters at the beginning and the end of the series, or rather, it is mainly about the main character Makoto, who is introduced as a normal boy, but in a few episodes he turns out to be an extreme pervert. The series knows what it is slowly heading towards and that is probably a surprise (I had a more or less spoiler-filled ending - but that was also the reason why I started watching the series), but the plot ... is so "annoying" and revolves in one place. The whole transformation simply seemed terribly rushed and ill-conceived to me and in the end I don't really know what to think about this episode.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Oct 29, 2025

Impala

Not Recommended

You’ve probably heard things about School Days. Maybe a friend smirked and said, “Oh, you’ll love the ending,” or you’ve seen it mentioned in some dark corner of the internet with words like “traumatic” and “nice boat” floating around. You’re curious. Is it really that deep? That shocking?

Let’s cut the crap: School Days is what happens when a boring romance anime gets bitten by a radioactive soap opera and decides to take itself way too seriously. It’s not so much a story as it is a 12-episode-long sigh of disappointment.

The setup is almost aggressively simple. You’ve got Makoto, your standard-issue shy anime guy who develops ... a crush on Kotonoha, a quiet, pretty girl he sees on the train. Then you have Sekai, the peppy friend who decides to play matchmaker. It’s all very sweet, very generic. You settle in for some light drama, maybe a love triangle, and probably an underwhelming but harmless ending.

This is the show’s first trick. It lures you in with the promise of something mundane and comfortable. For the first few episodes, you’re just watching a slightly poorly animated, kinda boring high school romance. You keep waiting for the hook, for the thing that makes it famous.

And then… the tone starts to shift. Slowly. Like a stain spreading on the ceiling.

Let’s talk about the people we’re stuck with for this ride.

Our “hero,” Makoto, starts as a blank slate. The problem is, he doesn’t develop into anything interesting. Instead of growing a personality, he just… acquires flaws. He’s like a video game character whose only stats are “Poor Decision Making” and “Astonishing Lack of Self-Awareness.” You don’t root for him; you just watch him stumble from one situation to the next with the moral compass of a concussed pigeon.

Kotonoha, the love interest, is so passive it becomes an art form. Her character traits are: being pretty, being sad, and being really, really bad at communicating. She’s less a person and more a beautifully drawn victim waiting to happen.

And Sekai, the friend? Oh, she’s the worst. She starts off all cheerful and helpful, but it quickly becomes clear that her “helpfulness” is just a thin layer of paint over a mess of neediness and manipulation. She’s the kind of friend who gives you advice that just happens to benefit her the most.

The thing is, unlikeable characters can be great. But these characters aren’t fascinatingly flawed; they’re just tiresome. You don’t watch their drama unfold with dread or excitement; you watch it with a growing sense of “Oh my god, could you all just please get a grip?”

As the show goes on, the plot doesn’t build so much as it just decays. The conflict doesn’t come from smart writing or real human emotion. It comes from people refusing to have a simple two-minute conversation. It comes from eavesdropping at the most convenient (or inconvenient) times. It’s the kind of drama that makes you yell at your screen, “JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER, YOU MORONS!”

And then we get to the finale. The Big One. The reason this anime is still remembered.

Look, I won’t spoil it. But I will say this: a shocking ending is only as good as the journey that leads to it. If you spend 11 episodes making me roll my eyes at your characters and their idiotic choices, your big, dramatic, bloody finale doesn’t feel like a tragic masterpiece. It feels like a cheap shot. It feels like the writers looked at the boring mess they’d created and said, “You know what this needs? A meme.”

It’s the narrative equivalent of someone shouting “Boo!” after a long, rambling, and pointless story. You jump, not because it was clever, but because it was loud and sudden.

So, should you watch School Days? If you’re morbidly curious about a cultural artifact, the anime equivalent of a train wreck you can’t look away from, then sure. Go for it. You’ll have something to talk about with your weeb friends.

But if you’re looking for a smart “deconstruction” of the romance genre, or a well-written tragedy with complex characters? Look elsewhere. School Days thinks that being miserable and shocking is the same thing as being deep. It’s not. It’s just a cynical, plodding, and often laughably bad anime that lucked into a memorable final five minutes.

Its real legacy is its capacity to make you say, “Wait, that’s it? That’s what the fuss was about?”

And the answer is, yeah. That’s it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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	Poll: School Days Episode 10 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) cyruz - Sep 5, 2007	212 replies	by godzilla9637 »» Oct 27, 8:22 PM
	Poll: School Days Episode 9 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) DeleteMe3409 - Aug 29, 2007	179 replies	by godzilla9637 »» Oct 27, 7:44 PM
	Poll: School Days Episode 6 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) MistaNight - Aug 8, 2007	204 replies	by godzilla9637 »» Oct 27, 6:14 PM
	Poll: School Days Episode 4 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) jobocan - Jul 27, 2007	152 replies	by godzilla9637 »» Oct 27, 5:43 PM
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