School Days

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The basis for School Days if you haven't read/seen/played it, it's pretty much about the main leads. Makoto, Kotonoha, and Sekai. Makoto likes Kotonoha. the basis of the manga revolves around them. but, Sekai likes Makoto! the basis is really will Makoto end up with Kotonoha, or Sekai? I'm not going to spoil the ending, but the ending is dark. this is not your everyday shoujo.

i saw the anime first, and the art changes between the anime and the manga. the anime has ecchi-type animation to it. the manga however, the characters don't have this ecchiness to them, and i prefer the art ... over the anime. it makes the anime look like a harem (BUT IT ISN'T!)

the characters in the anime are absolutely terrible. the only character i can actually handle is Kotonoha, but in the manga, the characters are totally different! if you've seen the anime for School Days, you know Makoto is a selfish prick , but in the manga, he has more feeling towards the main girls than in the manga. i like all the characters in the manga except for sekai. why that is, it would spoil the manga for you.

i really enjoyed the manga for School Days. If you haven't seen it and you're into romantic psychological themes, this is totally for you! i would recommend the manga over the anime, but if you don't like reading, the anime is still good.

Sigh...

I was really really pumped up to read this manga, considering I loved the School Days anime. Thus I was expecting an emotional drama filled with several memorable moments. Instead I got two memorable quotes. Which were in the final two chapters. The rest? FLUFF!

School Days the manga is based off of a visual novel that also has a rather infamous anime adaption. For those of you who are unaware, it tells the story of a boy named Makoto. The girl who sits by him in class, Sekai, finds out he likes a girl called Kotonoha and helps Makoto become Kotonoha's boyfriend. But Sekai happens ... to have a crush on Makoto. Lame premise, I know, but the anime was able to take it and make it work really well.

The anime however, had these three episodes of fluff at the beginning. It was needed to set up the characters and help the emotional impact in the later scenes. Not to mention it was entertaining fluff. School Days the manga has eight, arguably nine chapters of pointless romantic fluff however, that isn't funny or cute. It's just fluff. Romantic, shoujo-like romantic fluff, and there are few things in the world that I find more annoying than shoujo romantic fluff. These chapters are pointless. Anyone familiar with School Days could just skip to chapter eight with little problem. So School Days, for the most part, is a straight up romantic comedy instead of a drama, which makes the ending laughable.

Don't worry, anime fans! School Days also has that kind of ending to it, and it is the best part of the manga by far. However, it feels very tacked on. I mean, you've been reading comedic fluff for however long it takes you to read the early chapters, and then suddenly a knife gets pulled out. It's not scary, it's not dramatic, it is hilarious. You can't just pull out a knife out of fuckin' nowhere, you need build-up, which the anime had. And the manga had zero of.

The characters also took a step down too. Makoto lost most of his lovable idiocy that makes him one of my favorite of the male romance protagonist types (yes, I liked him in the anime a lot, I have strange tastes, okay?) and is now just a, well, just another dull male romance protagonist. Yippee! Sekai also takes a step down in this, pushing herself way too much on Makoto. And Kotonoha is still Kotonoha, whiny and too shy. (I never really liked her...) And both girls suddenly go crazy at the end for little reason. Shock factor barely redeems it, but still. All of the other characters are merely turned into side characters, most of them don't even get their names dropped. Which is good and bad. All of the forgettable ones are gone but the memorable ones are also gone.

The art is very cutesy, but doesn't really work out. It looks very messy and at times it's tough to tell Sekai and Kotonoha apart. While everyone suddenly looking a lot more moe compared to the character designs in the anime (which were as generic as generic can be) threw me off for a bit, in a way it does fit the more light-hearted tone for the manga.

If you like romantic fluff, sudden twist endings, and can't get enough of anime like Myself Yourself and H2O Footprints in the Sand, then this is the perfect manga for you. School Days fans like me will be disappointed. I don't recommend this manga. Watch the anime instead, it's really good.

If you are a big horror manga fan like me, prepare to be highly disappointed. The story isn't very smart nor is it interesting. The art is okay, it's your average anime style. The characters are so stereotypical it makes me want to cry. There's the boy that has no personality, his wacky best friend, and the shy moe-ish girl that the boy likes. Of course since it's a horror manga you know what's going to happen at the end. But was it violent, frightening, or disturbing? Maybe to some people who thought it was a shojo manga, but to the people who read ... the genre saying "horror"? Not at all. This person just tried to make something like Higurashi (a true horror manga, with violent, bloody, and disturbing images) and epicly failed.