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[Dodgy]

Just finished watching School Days...
...shit's fucked up.

[TheBeau]

LOL

[LtMama]

Just finished watching School Days...
...shit's fucked up.

Welcome to the club

[discordance]

I bought bacanno! based on someone mentioning it here. was good. Just it clearly needs a second series, I understand they left it open but come on! The manga goes much further as far as i can tell

[Dodgy]

The more I think about School Days the more I like it.

From what I'd heard of it beforehand I expected it to pull a From Dusk till Dawn, but it really didn't. The change of tone happens gradually rather than all of a sudden. Even what happens in the last episode I felt had been built up to pretty well. The last few episodes are excruciating to watch at points, (intentionally so,) then there's a massive release of tension at the end. It's a great example of how to do pacing right.

Would definitely recommend it, well worth a watch.

[TheBeau]

Anyone recommend Full Metal Alchemist? Trying to get it wonder if it's worth it or not.

[discordance]

its pretty good, i feel it suffers like all anime with loooong unplanned seasons though, can be filler and shit episodes. i've not seen the remake brotherhood though? I think mama might have seen both?

[Dodgy]

I haven't seen it Beau but I've heard from others that if you're going to watch Full Metal Alchemist you might as well watch Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood instead, as it's better and stays closer to the manga. I haven't seen either myself so I can't really judge, but that's what I've heard.

[TheBeau]

Hmm thanks.

My bro can lend me the first series of the original, think I'll have a gander and see if I like it. Man, I need to watch more anime!

[Captain Valentine]

if you're gonna watch brotherhood I can recommend that based on the quality of the manga.

[Finaldeath]

Baccano! ended okay in my opinion because I recommended it. Short story stylee rather then huge-long series, although I too wish for a second series it'd be very much like Black Lagoon, a set of short stories rather then one long one.

I hated School Days, it epitomises everything that I feel is wrong with misogynistic dating-game based anime series which pander to sex and violence in a high school setting (although most don't mix the two so wholeheartedly and with such sheer glee), with utterly pathetic 1 dimensional characters and a plot that only is coherent because every character just wants to hurt every another character for no gain to move the plot (or "series of unfortunate events") along, or have sex with the lead character (who just meanders along being a true anti-protagonist), or goes insane because they're in love.

Tepid writing (excruciatingly so; it's every high school thing done before yet with more CRAZZYYYY later on, wait, even Higurashi got there first and more coherently...), unbelievable situations (filming a sex room at a culture festival is one of many; even if you claim people can go insane from love that sure doesn't make a lick of sense, and the lack of adults in a adult-orientated themed anime is just bizarre), and average music and animation don't help.

On the subject of pacing: To me, it does pacing horribly once the half way point is reached (before then nothing at all really happens very slowly - so the pacing there is really poor); you already can see the end of the tunnel ("this ain't going to end well"), but man is it a long way off concluding anything (instead you get what seems essentially filler as the main plot progresses at the steady rate of nothing; one main character is basically ignored for 3 episodes! and this is a short anime series).

It's an utterly fascinating series to me because I know that some people (including a friend who recommended it to me) actually thought it was good; he of course disagrees with me wholeheartedly on all points because it is enjoyable: thus, I put down that all I can do is put down my thoughts and disagree with Dodgy; nothing personal here, honest.

Along with Air, it has put me off anything that has ever gone near a dating game. Beware to those who watch it; there be dragons.

[Leftism]

anti-protagonist

The word's "Antagonist".

[Dodgy]

I agree about Baccano, great series. I don't think it really had much of a short story style though. Different parts of the story were told using different characters but it was all still part of a single over-arching plot.

I enjoyed Black Lagoon as well, although I kept getting a really strong vibe from it that a certain character was going to die at some point. And when they never did I felt kinda disappointed (even though I liked the character). It almost felt like the writers chickened out.

About School Days, I see where you're coming from on some points but I feel you're being a bit unfair to it.

I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to with the misogynistic comment, if you mean the way that all the females inexplicably want to have sex with the douche bag protagonist then I'll agree; that trope is probably the most annoying in all of anime. However, in this context it's used as a plot device to deconstruct the trope rather than to approve of it. By the end of the show almost none of the characters want anything to do with the protagonist and it's clear that we're meant to feel nothing but disgust at his actions.

As for it pandering to sex and violence, I don't see how this is a criticism. The whole theme of the show is sex and how if you're an idiot or a jerk about sex there can be bad consequences. It's like criticizing The Walking Dead for having too many zombies. With the violence I think you're exaggerating, there's less than one minute of violence combined in the entire show. I'd hardly call that pandering.

I'll agree that most of the minor characters are pretty one dimensional but the three main characters aren't (although Kotonoha could have been fleshed out a bit more). And she didn't go insane just because she was in love, she was callously cast aside by someone she loved and wasn't able to accept it. I don't think that's too bad characterization.

I don't usually watch a lot of high school anime and I can't speak to how original or cliche it is (I haven't seen Higurashi for example) so I can't really answer that criticism. Did you really think that the 'rest area' thing was so unbelievable though? Teenagers can be very cruel. It was unlikely perhaps but not unbelievable. And I'd hardly label it an 'adult-orientated' show, it's obviously a coming of age show (even if it is darker than most) so it makes sense that 90% of the characters are teenagers.

I stand by what I said before about the pacing. The change of tone from the beginning to the end is very stark, but it happens gradually rather than abruptly at any discrete point. That's difficult to pull off, especially in a short series like this. You may know in some general sense around the mid point that things aren't going to end well, but there's no way you could see what happens coming. As the show goes on the protagonist gets more and more dickish and apathetic, the plot doesn't stop progressing, that is the plot. Character development in a show entirely based on the characters isn't 'filler'. And I don't know who you mean when you say a main character is ignored for three episodes, who are you talking about?

I'm not saying it's the best show in the world, there are definitely some instances of bad writing; like how they ret-con the green-haired one in as a love interest with a 30 second flashback. And some of my praise of its pacing may be due to the fact that the last show I watched beforehand was Code Geass, and that has insane pacing. There are more plot twists in one episode of that than in an entire season of 24 (or an average Metal Gear Solid game). But School Days was still enjoyable for me (or at least enjoyable in the same kind of uncomfortable way that playing Silent Hill is enjoyable).


tldr; Baccano! is good, Black Lagoon is good, School Days has its faults but is worth watching (it's short anyway).

[Finaldeath]

It is meant to be a deconstruction of the type of harem show I don't enjoy watching anyway; I of course when starting to watch it didn't know it was a harem show anyway.

The main character ignored was the one who is ignored by the protagonist. You see her briefly going crazy talking to herself doing exactly nothing until some plot contrivance sets her up to meet the protagonist. Like most harem "game mechanics" basically the writing gets down to "if we need something to happen no organisation will take place, the characters simply bump into each other by coincidence". The only time it doesn't happen like this is the station scenes since that is a well travelled location. Things pretty much arbitrarily just happen; the protagonist doesn't do actually anything at all after the first few episodes, and barely reacts to things put up in his way later on. The violent ending doesn't come from no where; anime has overused "crazy silent girl" and "doomed love triangle thing" a lot, and notably of course I've seen Higurashi (which is one of a few of those types). Once it had been set in motion something was a bit off, violence seemed an easy enough guess - as to how and what violence, did I mention it seems excessive?

The "one minute" of violence you mention must mean you're not watching the same show I did! There are on and off screen pretty copious scenes of brutality in the last episode. Just because it is one episode of 12 doesn't mean it isn't a lot; because it contrasts what has happened. You don't need a death every episode to have some girl cutting open another girls womb to call "that is a bit much" on it.

The criticism of it having too much sex (or however I phrased it); with a cast so large you simply don't care by the end of it how much is going on; it turns it into a game mechanic rather then something important, making the effect of someone going crazy because of it much more muted - why should there be only two crazy people? why not more? If it affects two people so much, surely it'd affect others right? but no, they're all just trophies or passing fancies; the fact one or two want him "more" is set against him having dozens of relationships. None of the other girls are affected (why don't the crazy ones attack them to possess him? why don't more go crazy? what makes his first sexual partners any more important then the others?). It's pretty barmy.

As for it being misogynistic; of course it is a sex-based series, amounting to off screen stuff, if the women, you know, weren't there to have sex there wouldn't be much point would there? You can't honestly say this gives a fair and accurate portrayal of the fairer sex and keep a straight face: they are there purely for the self-satisfaction of the protagonist (and fanservice for the onlookers) and make no attempt to do anything other then have him for such inane reasons as "it might be fun to have a three/foursome", or "I heard he is good in bed", even barring them already having boyfriends who they already have sex with. They almost all appear opportunistic, weak or needy (or a mix), having to have the protagonist with no thought to anything else. They find no attraction in any other characters (apart from one case: where one girl wants the single other male in the series, yet still has sex with the protagonist!). It's a wish-fulfilment fantasy world for men who want girls to just want them and them alone to have constant sex with. The repercussion of "oops they went crazy and killed me" is just a silly and extravagant moral deconstruction to me - revelling in the violence (which needn't be so much) after so much fan pandering to the girls in the first place. It actually almost started well with some dating involved and some social things other then discussing or having sex.

Sorry for basically going on about this one show (in such a negative way), but I do hope this isn't offensive to you personally Dodgy! I concede you do put some fair points in that some of the plot isn't just done in a shoddy 24 style (which it could easily have been), but instead does, for lack of a better word, still "progress" even later on and that showing the protagonist being more of a dick essentially is all the plot you can have in this. The show might not be "adult" as you might think it, but "coming of age" to me doesn't include this but that's just a difference of genre views. Also some (or many it seems!) enjoy the uncomfortable feelings from it - like they might enjoy Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, which I'd classify on the same kind of fucked up level as this. I guess you might enjoy that film even if I didn't

I am wholly enjoying writing this though but I guess it's probably the last one on this series I hope this is not taken as a troll or flame post, it is not my intention in the slightest and feel free to delete this nonsense if needed! I was tempted to put this on my own site but without some points to somewhat take apart (or my own to prop up as is the case here) it is pretty hard to write something critical.

[discordance]

i was going to say you are deameaning the phrase game mechanics with your usage. But turns out school days was a game thing