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Despite the friendly appearance, School Days not a slice-of-life anime, but rather a drama showcasing the psychological effects of cheating. The main character, Makoto Itou, is a stereotypical high school boy. He is somewhat awkward, airheaded, and... horny. The plot follows Makoto's journey through the sensation of falling in love, albeit there is a thin line between love and lust.

He, as well as a handful of other notable characters, make a lot of mistakes without even realizing it. Numerous times, the characters are left confused, frustrated, or both and only trying to find an answer but to no avail. The thing is those who caused ... the problems are not even fully aware of the situation at hand and refuse to take any blame. The climax of the series is incredibly shocking and unexpected. Karma catches up to everyone in a beautifully, terrifying way. While the situation toward the end is dire, justice is ultimately served when it comes to the general morality of the main characters.

Overall, School Days is worth a watch if you're looking for a short anime to kill time. However, it can be subjectively unenjoyable due to the frustrating and erotic nature of the show.

Shaman King is a very peculiar topic. So many things were done well while others felt severely underwhelming.

To start, the plot and overall story is very run-of-the-mill. The first half has a clear and solid goal, but it's just so boring! Things are uneventful for the most part and there's only a few moments that are memorable. It almost seemed like there wasn't anything going on in the first place. As the series goes on, the plot takes a complete 180 and it does end up getting more interesting with more action, but the "end-goal" completely falls apart. The story just gets more and more ... convoluted and random as time goes on, but at least there's actually stuff happening that can capture attention. If you piece together your own interpretation, it's honestly not that bad.

It's extremely worth mentioning that the one thing that kept me coming back and not dropping this series as a whole were the characters! They were all so investing, and easily the best aspect of the anime. Each of the main characters feels fleshed out and developed well enough to really get to know them. Watching their development is great, especially seeing how their morality changes. Additionally, the dynamics and interactions between different characters are extremely entertaining, most notably Ren and Horohoro. The dynamic between the Asakura brothers was very unique, too. At the end of the day, if it weren't for these characters, I most likely wouldn't have finished this show.

As for the other elements of Shaman King, they do well for themselves. Simple, watchable art and animation, good soundtrack, and an understandable combat system. Overall, if you're looking for something new to watch, Shaman King is worth considering, but not completely worth prioritizing if you have a pre-existing watch list.

A couple spoilers ahead:

I was very excited to watch Future Diary after rediscovering it in 2021. The first time I watched this was when I was quite young and couldn't necessary follow everything that was going on. To be honest, I wish I never watched it again and instead remembered this anime from the memory I had of it.

I will give credit where it's due and mention how the art and soundtrack is good. It's nothing groundbreaking, but it's nothing appalling, either. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about the rest. The concept of a survival game with each participant having a unique diary that ... predicts the future is brilliant, but the execution was not there. As far as the story goes, it felt like a lot of rinse and repeat at the beginning. They only parts that really stand out to me was the backstories of the Sixth users and when Ninth became a god. As far as Yuno's story goes, the whole timeline thing was yet another good idea, but made little sense and was extremely unrealistic. That brings me to the characters. Most of the characters were severely underdeveloped and used as a plot device. Beyond that, this could've just been me, but I absolutely could not stand Yuno. She's not the type of character that I hate as an antagonist, but rather everything about her just completely ruined the show for me. I was practically rooting for the "bad guy" every time just because I was anticipating her downfall. As far as my overall entertainment goes, it felt like I was pushing through this to the end. There were only a couple good episodes, but I told myself to keep going due to its short length. One of the worst elements in my opinion is the abundance of fan service. Almost all of it is completely unnecessary, and sometimes just disgusting (specifically, the sex scene toward the end; no one asked for that.)

Overall, I hate to say that I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. It's a story filled with convoluted points and plot holes, and beyond that, the human psychology is way too unrealistic.