School Days (2007; anime)

School Days (2007; anime)

a.k.a Sukûru deizu

Director: Keitaro Motonaga

Plot Synopsis

Makoto Itou (Daisuke Hirakawa) has a crush on Kotonoha Katsura (Tae Okajima), who rides the same train as him daily. Following urban legend, he sets her photo as his phone wallpaper - a love charm. When classmate Sekai Saionji (Shiho Kawaragi) notices, it seems his luck really does change.

Male Deaths

• Daisuke Hirakawa [Makoto Itou]

Female Deaths

• Shiho Kawaragi [Sekai Saionji]

Trivia

1. School Days, the animated series, is based on a H-game (adult computer game) where the player can work towards different relationships with the different female characters and attain multiple endings to the same story.
2. The visual novel on which the series is based has 12 possible endings the player can get, with one in particular being the "worst ending" that can happen if the player is consistently unfaithful to several romantic partners, to the point that it results in murderous violence among several of the characters. The exceptionally dark second half of the series follows the events that lead up to this ending.
3. The opening theme song, "Innocent Blue" was performed by DeviceHigh and released in Japan as a single along with the song, "Dancin' JOKER" and the instrumental versions of both.
4. Makoto Ito is credited as a producer in the credits. There is an actual anime producer, Makoto Itô, who has no involvement with the anime at all; he joked about the confusion in an interview.
5. All the main characters and some secondary ones share their surnames with those of previous Japanese Prime Ministers and Imperial Court Members.
6. There is an OVA episode that is a parody of magical girl anime. It stars Kotonoha's younger sister, Kokoro, as a magical girl named Magical Heart. Kokoro also means 'heart' in Japanese.
7. The phrase "Nice boat" that often shows up in marketing for the series does not refer to anything in the actual show. The phrase originated from an Internet meme that spread when the final episode of the series was delayed due to its extremely violent content being considered too similar to a homicide that had happened the day before in Japan. When the decision was made to not air the episode when it was originally scheduled, there was no time to prepare replacement material, so stock footage of a boat on a river was used. No announcement was made ahead of time, so anyone who tuned in to watch the final episode were confused. A user took a screenshot of the footage and added the words "Nice boat" superimposed on it. The meme was so popular that it was used in official marketing for the DVD release of the series.
8. An official English dub has never been released, but there is an English fandub on YouTube of every episode.

Gallery

Daisuke Hirakawa

Shiho Kawaragi