School Days 08
August 22nd, 2007 by Shirukii
Zettai Ryouki vs Imouto. Heaven or Hell, let’s rock!
What a weird episode of school days this was. Aside from the regularly scheduled melodrama between Makoto, Katsura and Sekai, there was some more direct interference from Setsuna and the whole filler-esque school festival deal. There were times that I laughed out loud (zettai ryouki scene) only to be thrown back into heavy drama minutes later. Truly a roller coaster of emotion.
Episode Rating: 9/10
Following her encounter with Katsura outside Makoto’s apartment, Sekai calls Setsuna out to talk and this time gives her the whole truth. She tells her that despite what’s going on with her and Makoto, he has not yet broken up with Katsura, they’re still technically dating. Setsuna can’t stand to see Sekai like this and promises to uncover Makoto’s true feelings.
The next day at school, Makoto is a little worried that Sekai doesn’t show up, but his brooding is interrupted by Taisuke who asks him about the situation between him and Katsura, whether they had broken up yet or not.
Meanwhile, Sekai is at home lamenting over what happened last night. After Katsura slapped her, with tears in her eyes Katsura asked Sekai, who she thought was her friend, why she would do such things with Makoto, her boyfriend. She begged her to stop and reaffirmed that she is still Makoto’s girlfriend.
That day, after school, Katsura tries to talk to Makoto again after the class rep meeting, asking if he wants to go home together after they’re finished. Despite initially agreeing, Makoto is stopped by Setsuna who says that their work will take too long and there’s no point waiting for him. When Makoto argues, Setsuna asks him bluntly if going home with Katsura is more important than their duties for the school festival, when Makoto can’t say anything in return, Katsura says to forget about it and runs off after apologizing.
Afterwards, in the classroom, Makoto tells Setsuna that she was too hard on Katsura. Setsuna quickly changes the topic to his relationships with Sekai and Katsura, he tries to dodge the topic by saying it has nothing to do with Setsuna, but she says that since she’s Sekai’s friend, it is her business as well. She asks him very directly, which one he likes, Sekai or Katsura. Makoto says that initially he liked Katsura, but admits that he feels a lot more comfortable when he’s around Sekai. Setsuna takes it that he chooses Sekai and tells him that she’ll finish the work so he can go visit Sekai.
Setsuna sends Sekai an e-mail telling her that Makoto is on his way to her apartment, and sure enough, just when she goes to check the door, Makoto is there about to ring the doorbell. Sekai brings some tea and the two start talking. Makoto asks why she was absent from school, she tells him that she was feeling sick. He then brings up the issue with Katsura, Sekai tells him about their meeting that night outside Makoto’s apartment and how she probably knows about them. Sekai asks what they should do now and that she feels now more than ever that what they are doing is wrong. Makoto doesn’t think that they’re wrong and leans over the table to kiss her, spilling the tea as he goes to ease her onto the floor. Sekai goes to clean up the mess but Makoto tells her it can wait, in the end she pushes him off and cleans up anyways.
Later that night, Setsuna comes over to assess the situation. Her questions about whether things have been cleared up are half-heartedly answered by Sekai, who is remembering a desperate Katsura begging her to stay away from her boyfriend instead. When Setsuna leaves, Sekai stands under the moonlight, staring at the e-mail Makoto sent her before, saying that he chooses her over Katsura.
The next day, Sekai comes to class trying to be her usual cheery self, but putting on an obviously fake smile.
That afternoon, Makoto goes home with Katsura, who clings onto him the whole train ride. She shyly tells him that they can finally get some alone time together at her house, without Kokoro even. Then she asks him again if they can dance together at the folk dance following the school festival, Makoto is entranced by Katsura breasts but manages a weak “yeah”.
Goshujin-sama~
Finally the first day of the school festival arrives. However, things aren’t going too well, Class 1 and 2’s imouto and zombie cafes are outdoing their relatively plain meido cafe. Setsuna rallies the class, dressing a fair bit of them in her mascot costumes and launches an advertising campaign. They face off head to head against the other two classes and pulls out Unlimited Zettai Ryouki works to win over the crowd. The whole thing ends up causing a stampede, which turns into a human tsunami when a banana peel is added to the mix. The day ends in failure, with the costumes laid out like a corpse ridden battlefield.
Meanwhile, Katsura is getting all the worked pushed on her yet again, forced to tend to the haunted house entrance for the entire day thanks to Otome’s gang.
After the day is over, while Makoto and Setsuna are on cleaning duty together, Setsuna reminds him once again to look out for Sekai. She tells him that if something goes wrong, she’ll lock herself up in her room for days, and that he needs to be there for her during those times, to put even more pressure on him, Setsuna tells him that she’ll be going to France soon, so she’s entrusting Sekai completely to him. This brings back a memory of Setsuna’s early high school days when Makoto cheered her up and even encouraged her to run for class president.
Katsura Thought Bubble: WTF!? Now the loli is in on this?
After they finish cleaning, Makoto falls asleep in the classroom. Taking the chance to give him one final farewell, Setsuna kisses him, much to the surprise and horror of Katsura, who had also stayed late to clean up and happened to walk in on the two.
Thoughts
Oh God Katsura is getting screwed (figuratively, lol) so badly in this series. Her ability to be in the wrong place at the wrong time is amazing. Although, that kiss came out of nowhere, I don’t see the motive behind it. Setsuna had the whole blushing deal going on, but I refuse to believe that she has an interest in Makoto as well (but apparently you can bed her in Summer Days). Even if she did, Setsuna knows damn well that Sekai likes him and what going on with Katsura, I doubt she’s such a hypocrite that she’d jump in at this point.
EDIT WAIT! It all makes sense now. Setsuna has liked him all along! The irony of it is almost beautiful. Setsuna likes Makoto but finds out Sekai likes him so she steps down to support her, then Sekai finds out Katsura likes him and steps down to support her. Oh God the ironing. But this also means that there’s yet another girl who fell for Makoto…seriously, what the hell. I know School Days is pseudo harem erogame conversion, but my ability to suspend belief that girls would actually like someone like Makoto is really wearing thin.
As for the main love triangle, I haven’t gotten a winner picked out just yet. Even though Makoto says that he feels more at ease with Sekai, he is showing a renewed interest in Katsura, and with Sekai not -AS- willing to do the horizontal tango these days, maybe he’ll jump ship again?
I can’t say I have much sympathy for Sekai at this point, because her inability to take things into her own hands and make the situation clear to Katsura is what put her in the position she’s in it’s still largely her fault, despite her weakness against Makoto’s uh…”charm”. But she is being put through the same feelings that Katsura had to deal with, which is never fun, but hey, karma’s a bitch.
As for Katsura, she’s putting a lot of effort into changing herself. She’s throwing herself at Makoto much more, trying her best not to be shy about it, even inviting him over to her house to spend some alone time. Though that scene made her look really horny, which ended up making me laugh instead. I commend her progression, but wonder what will happen now that she’s seen Setsuna of all people kissing Makoto. I really want to see her break down and throw herself entirely at Makoto, a la Kaede, hopefully with just equally little clothing.
Makoto is still an ass and still deserves to die in a fire, nothing will change that, but at least he knows it! His “I’m the worst” at the train stop made my jaw drop, and here I thought he was completely oblivious to the pain and suffering he’s causing. I’m not sure if this makes him worse for realizing what he’s doing is wrong yet still continuing, or better for showing at least the slightest bit of guilt and regret. I don’t think there’s much hope for him taking it upon himself to face his mistakes and resolve things, nor would I be satisfied with any sort of redemption for him, but who knows, after all, realizing you have a problem is the first step to fixing it. That’s probably giving him too much credit though, the man is completely under the control of his raging hormones and the desire to J-J-JAM IT IN to anything with two legs and a pulse.
As for Taisuke…I swear if he raeps Katsura I will cross the fourth wall and push him into the bonfire.
On that note, what the hell was up with the sex loft that Katsura’s class had set up behind their haunted house. That can’t have been faculty approved, lol.
And so, another week of melodrama passes us by. If I had to pick where we’re heading, I still have a gut feeling that Katsura suiciding off the roof is the likely outcome. But what I’m hoping for is the Makoto getting stabbed by Sekai bad end, doesn’t look like it though. I’d settle for Katsura going Rena and killing Sekai though. I just want Katsura to survive and not get defiled, is that too much to ask ;_;?
~ Shirukii ~
19 Responses to “School Days 08”
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Speaking of Kaede…
http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/7351/4e7841c103c3f4b264ab843dr8.jpg
:D
Let’s hope that at the end we don’t need to understand fractals in order to interpret the emerging triangles in this series.
wow that is some major irony and i agree the suicide thing is looking more likely now also i just found out the ending theme CD comes out today awsome im gonna take a guess at the ending theme for next weeks episode ” let me love you” is my guess im sure everyone knows what that song will mean
I would also like to use this opportunity to comment on the new Claymore episode.
Show ▼
@xXMikotoNakadaiXx
Which anime was that in the first panels?
Anyways,
I agree with “Random Curiosity” that
”
The knee-jerk reaction I initially had was that Setsuna was getting thrown into the mix, but it really doesn’t appear to be that way since Setsuna just wanted to make a memory before going to France. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have feelings for him, however I think it’s pretty unlikely that she’ll compete for him like Sekai and Kotonoha have. The (probably) bigger implication is that Kotonoha saw her, and it’s going to be hard for Setsuna to explain this away considering how much she had tried to keep Makoto and Kotonoha apart.”.
There wasn’t that much drama in this episode though.
It’s just that:
Sekai isn’t doing much to help or ease the love complications.
Makato is being his horny self.
Katsura is being a 2-cent slut and spineless as usual.
Sestuna is still trying to be the loyal, supporting friend but might as well have become a Higuarshi trigger for Katsura.
What WAS with the sex loft? o__o
I’m just glad it wasn’t for the whole Katsura/ Taisuke thing.
I have come to a theory that producers purposely make the male protagonists in harem animes, unresponsible, and full of faults. It’s so the male viewer can step in and say ” I could do so much better then that in his situation”.
So, in turn, they play the h-game, and twist it to what they would have wanted it to be like.
Something like that~
“After Evening Festival” is the next episode, cant wait! >w
Makoto + bonfire = good end.
I had a feeling Setsuna had feelings for Makoto based on how she constantly looked after him in the earlier episodes, this episode just confirmed it. Seriously, Katsura has either the best timing or worst time (in terms of being there when twists happens), poor girl. Makoto…die, though the way Katsura acted in letting him “Go down there when Kokoro is gone” is proof that his brains in his pants is no wonder he didn’t break up with her yet. We will probably see a lot of confrontation when the bonfire dance comes, but something that always confused me is “Why a bon dance?” when just a regular dance around the fire would be better, in my opinion.
My impression of anime was at its peak after Scrapped Princess (first introduced 3 months ago by my roommate’s boyfriend who…suprise!!! is coincidently Japanese). Now its at the bottom with School Days. School Days if viewed and judged by any other type of audience or standards, other than insulated Japanese/Animation fans ( Of course I don’t mean the sweet people who visit this site), is ridiculous, unrealistic, offensive, and worst of all ……sexist. All of these traits, of course not by design either. Quite an accomplishment.
I know its my choice to start watching this in the first place, but this is reinforcing all the negative stereotypes of anime that kept me and countless others from being a viewer in the first place. This has left a bad taste in my mouth. School days is now dead to me, I don’t like having my blood pressure go up every time I see makoto. Even the girls are pissing me off now, which i thought was impossible but they managed to do it with this episode.
However, it has provided an pretty good excuse to have interesting, candid and even heated discussions about the dynamics of men and women and even culture for the three of us watching together. We also think its fun to read the responses on this blog. Hugs to you all, especially Kaelyn for her last post.
xXMikotoNakadaiXx: =O Awesome comparison, Kirino’s doesn’t fit as well though.
@ ItAintEazy: Fractals are relatively easy to understand, geometric fractals are just the replication and expansion of the original shape, subdivided into smaller parts. =P
Though I got your point, I agree, way too many branching off relationships.
@ kody-san: You know…I’ve never watched the ED for School Days, not a single one lol.
@ Kaelyn: Anime was Gift ~eternal rainbow~
Interesting point on the reason why male harem leads are portrayed as dense. Though, I argue that many of us guys wouldn’t do so great in similar circumstance either. It’s easy to be a nice guy when there’s one girl that loves you, but if multiple girls were to go after you and you couldn’t decide which you liked the most, a lot of guys would dance around in indecision as well.
As for the Setsuna ordeal, I don’t think she has any intention of jumping into the game at this point, but I do think she harbors feelings for Makoto. Again, it’ll be interesting to see how Katsura reacts to this.
@ Totali: Agree’d. Let’s throw in Taisuke too, just for the lulz.
@ AS: What do you mean by bon dance? The dance they usually do is a traditional folk dance, it’s extremely lame and hilarious.
@ Crystals: I think I’m desensitized to the whole dense male lead and often equally stubborn female leads in anime due to the vast amount of harem anime I’ve gone through these past 10 years of anime watching. If you hate School Days, stay away from the harem/romance drama genres all together. They may not be as maddening as School Days, but they’re certainly similar.
It’s great to get some feedback from the opposite sex when it comes to anime like this. The fanservice and character insertion (placing ourselves in the place of the lead) often distracts guys from how ridiculous certain shows are in the character dynamics, I’m not entirely innocent of this.
By the way, what other anime have you watched, and what is your preferred genre thus far?
OH ho, so everything is getting to start now? And finally they started to make a move for every characters? Last ep is Taisuke and this ep is Setsuna and who is for the next ep? I guess all we can do now is to pray for a best bad-ending for Makoto.
@Crystals: i dont disagreed with u at all. I only watch only watch 5 eps of School days(1,2,3,4 and 7) so far not because i dont like it or the slow sub but it just that i couldn’t stand watching Makoto hurting my Katsura every week but at least i come here to read the summary of Shirukii so i can understand what is going on and enjoyed everyone’s comment. But i will marathon it when it hit ep 11.
@Shirukii: Yeah I was told there are a lot of similar shows like this, and I will avoid them in the future. School days has turned into a running joke with the three of us. Saying someone pulled a makoto when someone messed up real bad.
Anyways, school days was really an accident I only watched because they were watching it and it has turned into a social event(they would tell me, Hey we have the new school days and we would sit around the computer and watch then discuss). He gave me these other titles to watch saying that they were easier to digest.
Cowboy Bebop- which he tolded was kinda like they Odyssey and that I didn’t need a lot of Japanese cultural understanding to appreciate( I am a classics Major). I watched up to episode 15, I can kinda see that if you stretch out your imagination a bit. I do like it though. I am not used to the length of the series though, its very long. I was thinking of marathoning it soon though. It gots a lot of atmosphere though, which i like.
Whisper of the Heart- Uh yeah, movie. Short and concise, which is good. I haven’t watched it yet, but was told it was one of the best.
Kenshin Reminiscence- I was told to watch this after I watched the other two stuff. He said it would be a cultural shock and transition to watch other stuff. He said it was popular and somewhat short which is a plus, so I assume you guys know what it is.
If you guys can list stuff I should watch I will go ask him if he has it, it would be good for me.
@Siva: you aren’t missing out.
@Shirukii: My bad, I got the two confused…lame and hilarious huh…I think its just lame and incredible, incredible because every high school seems to do it…talk about conformity.
The pacing was kind of weird going from super drama to slice of life and back again…..but still…..great episode :)…..
I like how the writers are keeping the audience guessing as to which bad end is in store……..
While I think Katsura has a very good chance of being the one to tweak out, we also got a glimpse of an emo Sekai this week…. it should be fun to watch the triangle unfold :)
@ Kaylen:
“Katsura is being a 2-cent slut and spineless as usual.”
it’s nice to know I’m not the only one who thinks Katsura is selling herself short by inviting Makoto to touch “down there” when her mom isn’t home…….. :P
Everyone in the blogosphere seems to be routing for Katusura and–while I feel her pain– I just don’t buy that someone would go that far for someone like Makoto…….who just needs to die :P
Great point on the h-game to anime adaptions as well :)….
@ Crystals:
I don’t blame you for dropping School Days :P…..
Even though I like the harem genre, the indecision of the characters in this series is very frustrating…..the only thing that’s keeping me hooked is to see which bad end will come :)…..
If a good ending occurs, School Days will go down as one of the biggest wastes of time in recent memory :P
@ Siva: Indeed, onwards to the ending!
@ Crystals: Really depends on what genres you’re interested in, there’s simply too many series to even begin recommending unless you narrow it down a bit. I have a gut feeling you’d like AIR though, an anime by Kyoto Animation, it’s truly a great series.
@ AS: Japan loves standardization, they even have a test to determine ones proficiency as an anime otaku if I recall correctly.
@ Kanon_fan82: Maybe I’m just a bit biased, but am I the only one who doesn’t really think Katsura is a slut. I mean…in the world of eroge, most girls give it up like nothing, but Katsura wasn’t so easy to be swayed into bed, unlike a certain Sekai.
To be fair I will say that Sekai has annoyed me too of late….I mean really…..if I were a girl, I would slap Makoto upside the head when he spilt the tea and was getting all gropey….
but she’s still the lesser of all evils in this series ;)……..
Mya, Poor Katsura-chan…*desperately hopes Katsura doesn’t get raped at all.* The triangle continues and no idea which ending will happen. Part of me wants a Tomino “Everybody Dies” ending yet I also hope Makoto dies horribly and alone and both (well yeah Otome too) girls find a better person to love them. -_- Hopelessly Hopeful me….
I think that, if we get a death ending, it will be different from one of the ones in the game. That’s just my feeling. Like Katonoha offing Matoko after getting sick of him or something, or I think the all three die scenario is also possible.
However, I seem to be in the minority when I think that Sekai is the one getting the shortest stick. Yes, she can, and probably should have told Katonoha about them by now, but then again, I kind of put that responsibility on Matoko, and his inability to break things off with Katonoha is hurting both girls.
Meanwhile, Katonoha, as I expected, is willing to do things she’s not comfortable with in order to get back Matoko who, it should be obvious to everyone including her, isn’t interested in her anymore. Of course, he doesn’t help matters by agreeing to go sleep with her either. If I’m rooting for Katonoha, I’m rooting for her to rub two brain cells together and end it, because there is no way there is a happy Matoko/Katonoha ending in my opinion.
Of course, Sekai probably would be better off without him either, but I at least get the feeling that Matoko is genuinely interested in her.
Josh- I think there is an absurd level of immaturity and ignorance concerning realistic human dynamics in this animation. I know different people differently, but when you make the script so bad and devoid of reality that it offends some of your viewers its just ……. I think that is reflective of the screen writers who probably either have the same attitudes or are just ignorant about real people and relationships. I would also be really surprised if the screenplay was written by a female because no girl would write or by choice approve crap like this.
If the purpose of this animation is to play to infantile male fantasy about unrealistically double dealing 2 attractive girls when the guy has no game or charm(..Makoto) then it does it quite well. Everything else is just stupid This series is so ridiculous and unrealistic that to apply psychology or analysis is for naught.