Foreward

When the anime School Days first came out in 2007, I was a 16 year old high school student who had just "graduated" from watching "mainstream", Americanized anime- Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Naruto, etc. Some of the first anime series' that I watched outside of this "mainstream" category was Full Metal Panic! and its spinoff, Fumoffu!- to this day these series', as well as Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid, remains one of my favorites.

I first heard about School Days on the then still somewhat obscure internet forum - I was an avid reader of the /a/ ("anime") and /c/ ("cute anime") boards, and an occasional contributer. I stumbled upon a thread talking about the "nice boat"- a video that was played on Japanese television in lieu of the final episode of School Days. Apparently, someone in real life was killed in a similar vein as the main character in the anime, so the last episode was censored on its initial play. So instead of the last episode, Japanese TV played a video of a nice looking yacht floating down a pretty river with classical music playing in the background for the entire 30 minutes that the episode was supposed to air.

At the time, I had never heard of an anime, or any other TV show for that matter, that was censored so bluntly- usually when a television or cinema showing is censored, they cut certain scenes out, or dub over the characters to make it seem like something else is happening instead. In the United States, this censorship happened to Japanese anime back in the 1980s and 1990s with frightening regularity, from little things such as the "donuts" in Pokemon that were actually rice patties, to cutting the hell out of the showing and dubbing over everything to completely change the topic and purpose of it, as what happened to several Studio Ghibli films when they showed in the United States in the 1980s; all of this in the name of making anime appeal to a "mainstream" audience.

This blatant censorship enamored me, and shortly after reading through the 4chan thread regarding the "nice boat", I endeavored to find this anime and immerse myself in all of its glory; for, how can such a heavily censored anime possibly be bad? Obviously, they pissed somebody off so much that it got censored- somebody really didn't want it showed on television, and the thought of that excited me- as if I was watching something that I wasn't supposed to see. Something that most people will never be able to get to see in their lifetime. But me? I'm one of the lucky ones- I have the opportunity- no, the privilege- of staring censorship right in the face and telling it "fuck you!".

Well, those feelings didn't last very long- I later learned that the final episode of School Days wasn't necessarily censored- it was just delayed. I also had other priorities over watching some anime- namely, a joint and a pint or two at a friends house. Or three. Or four. I don't remember.

Other things were happening too, of course- I was delving deeper in to the rabbit hole of the internet, moderating 4chans "/c/" forum for a short time, then moderating other, similar forums on other websites of varying lewdness, as well as calling random places and asking for Battletoads; however, I still found ways to keep up on some of the latest anime- the rise of Lucky Star, the epic guitar playing in K-On, and who can forget about the bad-assiness that is... Moe-tan...? Yes, the phenomenon known as "moe" had taken the anime world by storm, and unfortunately, I wouldn't see its demise until about 2012 or 2013. I've never been a big fan of moe- actually, I'm probably being too nice by saying it that way. Anyways, the closest equivalent that appeals to me would be "pre-moe moe" anime such as Minami-ke and Azumanga Daioh. Only thing is, those anime are actually funny, in a funny way, instead of funny in a... not funny way (As an aside, I personally think that my kids are going to end up exactly like the Minami sisters- my wife simply shakes her head at that assumption).

Anyways, I had completely forgot about School Days until 2009, when I was a senior in high school. I was getting ready to wipe my computer clean and install a fresh copy of the then brand new Windows 7- Windows Vista was a total disaster that I didn't want on my PC, so I was still running Windows XP. While going through some old files and browser history on my computer, I found some old searches pertaining to School Days. I decided to sit through a few episodes and see how things work out. Good thing I decided to do this on the weekend, because by the time I was finished, it was already 5 in the morning! I had burned through all 12 episodes in one sitting, something I had never done with any other anime before. School Days had turned me in to something that I never dreamed of being- an honest to god anime otaku.

Ever since the blossoming of my otaku spirit, I have always recommended School Days (as well as another excellent anime known as Boku No Pico- if you're an anime newbie, I highly recommend it) to others as a kind of rite of passage- if you can stand to watch this, in my eyes at least, you are an honest to god otaku.

It is, to me at least, School Days is the perfect example of a parody of the "harem" genre of anime. To those of you who don't know, the "harem" genre generally consists of one completely useless and utterly stupid male who, for some ungodly reason, attracts multiple, attractive women, with each one generally representing one of the many personality stereotypes that exist in anime. For example, there's always a "tsundere"- someone who pretends to dislike, or even hate, the person that he or she actually loves in secret. Think Helga from Hey Arnold!. Then there's the polar opposite- a "yandere"- someone who's completely and utterly obsessed with the main character, sometimes to the point of kidnapping or even harming the main character in order to prevent others from getting him/her. Then there are others that are usually somewhere in the middle, including the classic "best friends since elementary school", the "true ending girl", the "jock", et-cetera et-cetera.

Anime of the "harem" genre have a tendency to be really crappy romantic comedies, although there are some pretty good ones out there such as Bakemonogatari (a combination of harem and black comedy) and Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun (a pretty funny "reverse harem", where the main character is a clueless girl, and she attracts guys). The main reason for this is what I like to call the "Golden Rule of Harems"- the main character never gets with, much less has sex with, any of the characters. Ever. If they did, then it couldn't get broadcast on primetime television- despite what many people in the United States think, Japan is still very conservative when it comes to public displays of affection- so much so that an anime could lose its primetime TV running over two characters kissing and holding hands. Thus, the producers of these anime choose to make them in to crappy, repetitive, generic romantic comedies. As far as I know, there is only one anime that breaks this Golden Rule of harems, and that is School Days.

For an anime that dared to break the rules, however, School Days isn't nearly as ground-breaking as it could have been. School Days is missing many key components of what makes a good story great- character development chief among them. For a long time, I yearned to see an expanded version of School Days, one with proper character development, better artwork and, yes, a darker, bleaker outlook towards the end. Darker than what the original anime did. I wanted something that started off as a Seth Rogan movie and ended like Clannad After Story. I was excited when the english translation of the School Days PC game came out, but was disappointed after finding out that the game has the same story problems as the anime. That's not to discount the game, of course- each ending is just as epic as the last- but the game disappointed me on a fundamental level. The manga was a little bit better, but still not long enough, not deep enough, not dark enough and not funny enough.

After procrastinating about for over a year, I have finally decided to sit down and re-work School Days from scratch. I think about it this way- what if HBO, or Showtime, or AMC (okay, probably not AMC) decided to do a live action version of School Days? What if, instead of in Japan, the story took place in the United States? What if the main characters were college students instead of high school students? What if... well, if I say any more, I'll spoil it.

If you read all of that, thanks. If you didn't, well, at least you're here right? Just don't ask me when the next chapter will come out- it'll come out whenever I'm done typing it up. Now if you'll excuse me, 3/4 of the airbags on my semi-trailer just blew up on the freeway, my brakes are locked up, my tires are smoking up and I'm in the middle of nowhere in freaking Kansas. Why doesn't this shit ever happen near civilization? Seriously, if I'm going to be stuck somewhere for several days waiting on repairs, I'd like to have some freaking LTE!

9/27/14