School Days~

Started by PyronIkari, July 11, 2007, 01:54:09 AM

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PyronIkari

I've been anticipating this for a long time ever since I played the game... nearly... 2 years ago.

Summary: School Days is an eroge that became extremely popular not only because it's 100% animated, but because of the very controversial endings the game had. The story revolves around the main chara Itou Makoto becoming interested with a girl he saw everyday on the train(Kotonoha). In class he sits next to a girl who he knew, but wasn't very closed to named Sekai. Sekai sees his celphone which contains a picture of Kotonoha, and she puts it together and she decides to get them together. A love triangle forms and the story goes from there.

Now, I haven't gotten all of the endings of the game, but I got the three most controversial ones, as well as both "good" endings(they're not really good endings).

To put this into perspective, the game starts off very sweet and innocent looking... but by half way through you realize it's anything but. The game is full of hardcore manipulation, and very psychotic tendencies. IIRC there's 32 endings, a character dies in about 22 or so of them, only 3 endings all the characters end up happy.

The pacing of the first episode was good until the end. The game is split up into "days". A day represents a chapter and at the end of the chapter it ends and a sequence is played. They added an extra scene after where the first day ended in the game by showing the first scene over again, with a little more emphasis on the side characters that will be introduced in the future.

So far the path, based on what I remember of the text, is following first day Kotonoha path. Oh I should explain. In the game you have a meter which displays Sekai and Kotonoha and according to your answers the meter will grow or decrease for each girl. It's rather important in that, some paths won't be opened unless the meter was high enough for certain girls. So even if you hit the neccessary choice flags to reach a scene, certain choices won't be pickable unless the meter points for girls were at a certain limit as well.

The big big big big thing I'm wondering is what ending path they're going to choose for the ending of the cartoon, as well how they're going to do the numerous sex scenes. Implied sex... won't cut it. Because very specific things happen in some of the sex things that I think are rather unavoidable if you don't show. One of the most important is the video scene at the school festival(if you have played the game).

Overall the pacing is good minus the ending sequence. They made some minor cuts but nothing so major as of yet. I REALLY wish they would have shown the last train scene in more detail. It's obvious what happened, but with the game it had more of an impact.

The most important thing to remember if you're going to watch this show, is that it isn't what it seems. It's a lot more than a simple love triangle story, as many factors will play in. Rape, blackmail, manipulation, death as well as a number of other things will play huge roles in the story. It's really not an easy-going show, and has very very complicated points and themes. The main focal points is to understand each time something happens that triggers a character to move towards the edge of insanity, and why each even leads to the other. Episode 1's is obvious, which is the very last train scene. Episode 2, will probably follow Sekai's path. For the cartoon to really be interesting, it has to lead into one of the worst endings, which will lead me to believe that most of the audience(knowing how most anime fans are) to despise Makoto. I ask the audience(if any of you really get interested) to remember that Makoto is realistically a background character that reacts to the world around him. Decisions he makes are led based on how the two girls want him to act(which is a good lesson to most men... to not be retarded pussies and let women chose how you act).

The other thing about the cartoon that I'm sorta interested is how they're up-playing Setsuna's part. Setsuna, although she had a strong presence, didn't have much influence in the original story, it seems like they're going to give her more of a roll int he cartoon.

I'll post more when I find time to watch episode 2, another trip this weekend -_-.

Makou

Hmm. A very informative and persuasive post, Ikari. If I hadn't read this, I might have ditched School Days after seeing Makoto's stuttered response to Kotonoha. Being an eroge, I wonder how they are going to go about the H scenes. Something tells me that black rectangles won't be doing much. Anyway, I look forward to the next episode.

P.S.
Ikari, whom do you prefer more: Kotonoha or Sekai?

Edited ^^;;

PyronIkari

Eh... I like both for very different reasons. But I'd be spoiling quite a bit if I explained in detail. Both of the characters are extremely intriguing based on how they respond to things. My favorite character is actually Setsuna, but she doesn't have that large of a part in School Days. I shoulda watched episode 2 today but instead decided to pack... what a bad choice.

PS Eroge=Erotic game so the "game" you added was redundant ^^.

PyronIkari

Finally caught up to EP5

The anime is rather faithful to the game up to this point minus the extra parts they add in for the side characters, which is actually quite charming in its own ways. The subtlety of the side characters that foreshadow what kind of characters they really are is quite amazing, but unappreciable if you don't know about the different paths of the game.

The path may follow my favorite ending of the game(and one of the most famous ones) which will be amazing if they pull it off correctly. Again, my issue is how they're going to do 2 of the sex scenes that are coming up. It's rather important to show certain things during them, and I'm very disappointed in the ending of episode 4. They purposely mislead you, which I think is kinda messed up. How far they go in each sex scene, and the specifics done is semi important, especially with the upcoming school festival scene. The school festival is one of the major branching points of the game, so I'm deathly curious with how it'll work out.

They did well in the end of Ep.5 with showing exactly what kind of character Kotonoha is, though it is extremely subtle. They also do well with displaying the kind of character Sekai is, though it's not as subtle. Makoto continues to be the easilly influenced tool of a male(or rather... a typical high school boy...) in such a situation. It's kinda funny, because based on personality types, and what I've witnessed, he seems similar to quite a few people on these forums. </snideremarks>

Ep 6 will be the focus on how Makoto and Sekai handle the past events and how they will treat Kotonoha. This is where lines begin to break and we see where "lying to protect someone" usually results in hurting them more, and questionings of how to approach situations. I love the series because they really show the specific actions in people that cause consequences to happen. The specific decisions that Makoto makes, the things he says, that break down the mentallity of Sekai and Kotonoha. It's quite funny, because as stupid and pathetic as Makoto is, he has an amazing way with words and timing. It's just that they work in the disfavor of the others.

I need to install Summer Days.

PyronIkari

YAY, I'm almost 100% certain now that it's going through one of the worst paths in the game. Kotonoha finding out about Sekai and Makoto are the least of her problems now \o/. Otome and Nanami prepare for the advance of the school festival, as Otome finds out about Kotonoha being "Makoto's girlfriend". Ah...

Time for one of the best scenes in the game, outside of my favorite ending(which looks like it's going to take place based on this episode).

What really drives me to love this series sooooooooooooooo much is how realistic it is, and most people seem to not want to accept that(especially here in the states). The next couple episodes are going to focus on the destruction of Kotonoha at the hands of "her peers". Otome calls favors upon Nanami, as Nanami and Otome are considered the leaders of the female student body(not in the literal sense but in the social sense). Japanese bullying, is nothing like American bullying. American bullying is about making the bully feel superior to the person that is being bullied. Japanese bullying is about making the person feel worthless. To literally drive them into suicide or something similar.

It's scary how the events that are about to happen... aren't as bad as the real life stories I've heard from friends, about themselves and people they know. I find this fits in here more than usual, when I talk about this game, because I clearly recall that people on this forum stated that their actions at Fanime are justified, because it is a release from the real world, where they are bullied, and patronized for being who they are. Frankly, suck it up, it's not nearly as bad as you think. When a bully gets your 12 year old sister gang raped by a group of 20 yr. olds, your dad beat up, and your house robbed... then you might have some room to bitch about how horrible your life is due to bullying. Not that I'm saying their actions are justified, but chances are, you haven't been through that much.

The depiction of what happens to Kotonoha in the next few episodes is so realistic, that I've heard so many stories that are extremely close in detail happening to people I know.

I'm having a conversation about the game right now with my friend actually about our stances on the characters. All of the characters are real representitives of people. Makoto isn't that much different than your average high school kid. He's naive, and works on emotion and feeling. He doesn't think about what he's doing or why he's doing, he just knows how he feels at the moment, and acts on that. Sekai is a fake. She wants to be something, but she isn't. And so she half asses all her actions and gives in, yet at the same time is such a bitch and so manipulative. Kotonoha is a fragile ignorant little girl. She doesn't know shit, and she refuses to accept things in the world, so she allows so much to hurt her.

I like Sekai, because of her morals, but she is a fucking stupid. I like Kotonoha... because she's fucking crazy.

Crazy_Saiko

auu~

how can I get myself a copy of School Days?
<br />Please, PM me if you\'re curious.

Jun-Watarase

You could probably find a better price, but the actual game shouldn't be too difficult.

http://www.himeyashop.com/product_info.php/products_id/3381

Or you could just download the game... It's like 10 GB though. Fuck. (Well, either way, it's around that size.)

http://dl.torrentreactor.net/download.php?id=1097005&name=School+Days+%5BAll+videos+from+game%5D

The save files are pretty easy to find, if you're interested. I'm sure there are seeders. Same with the ENG patch I think. Mikey actually bought a copy. =O~

He was showing me over webcam, but just the face so I'm liek "No way... Shitajiki?" then he turned it to the side and it had demension.

Email me at [email protected] if you want to be a maid! Sign ups close in March! Hurry!
FanimaidCafe.com

aznmagic2015

There's an english patch out!?!? ....sigh I knew I should've waited for it rather than trudging past the dialogue with a dictionary in hand...

Crazy_Saiko

umm i don't think so..
i think it's still in JP
<br />Please, PM me if you\'re curious.

PyronIkari

No English patch, but you can use an autotranslator, it's like babelfishing the text in the game as it happens, it's not the best, but it helps out to understand the basic understandings? There's not too much complication outside of special terms they use, which happens a lot once the conflict beings between Sekai and Kotonoha. For the most part, it's not too hard to figure out I believe.

Jun-Watarase

I played full in JP, but I've heard of people playing in ENG. Is that an autotranslator?

Email me at [email protected] if you want to be a maid! Sign ups close in March! Hurry!
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PyronIkari

Ya, I don't know where to get it, or how it works exactly, but from what I heard... It's like a text program. You need a text grabber, and this other software. The textgrabber takes all the spoken text that is displayed as a subtitle, and copypa to a text programmer that then autotranslates it. It's quality is supposedly like Babel-fish or so.

Crazy_Saiko

~uwa~ dwnlding the torrent
is like..
waiting to win the lottery T_T
<br />Please, PM me if you\'re curious.

aznmagic2015

Man...that's alot of trouble for babelfish quality translation...I'll just wait until PeachPrincess releases in english or something

Crazy_Saiko

well it's been two days... and i have only dwnlded abour 20% of the game T_T
<br />Please, PM me if you\'re curious.

PyronIkari

If you download the game, don't forget to download the patch for the game as well. Overflow seems to like releasing buggy games, and then patching them months later...

If you go to the Overflow site, there's a patch/download secition, make sure you get the latest patch for School Days. ^^


QuoteMan...that's alot of trouble for babelfish quality translation...I'll just wait until PeachPrincess releases in english or something

HAHAHHA not going to happen.

aznmagic2015

Lol Wishful thinking...