School Days - Episode 1
School Days is a 2005 AVG from Overflow that featured fully voiced and animated gameplay. Thanks partly to its infamous blood-soaked “bad ends”, the game achieve cult status in otakudom and can be said to be the first and, thus far, only hit for the obscure studio. A sequel starring Setsuna Kiyoura, the most popular sub-heroine in the original game, called SummerDays was thrown together in less time than it takes for snow to melt in an August afternoon, and the result wasn’t very good. At all.
Anyway, the first episode of School Days 2007 aired this morning and I managed to obtain a copy via Bittor… Haitian black voodoo magic. The first episode is pretty much a blow-by-blow remake of the first chapter of the game with a few minute changes. So, how does it compare? Continue reading for my expert fanboy opinions.
Despite the royal screw-up that is SummerDays, the original School Days is still popular enough to warrant an anime adaptation. Being a huge SD fan (I own both games and even attended a pre-launch SummerDays event in Akihabara), I feel conflicted about an anime adaptation. On one hand I am happy about having more Sekai and Setsuna, but on the other hand lies uncertainties and doubts. The original SD, especially the first chapter, had a certain magic that caught my attention when it was first released as a 22-minute WMV demo, something that SummerDays and the other SD spin-offs failed utterly at recreating. I am almost certain that the anime will suffer the same fate… It’s still too early to tell, though. Anyway, moving along…
Basically the story is about a love triangle (or square or pentagon or hexagon) between a bunch of carefree high school students. It’s a little bit more complicated than that but that shall suffice for the purpose of this post. The main character is Makoto Itou and the two main heroines are Sekai Saionji (yay) and Kotonoha Katsura (boo).
Taking a page from my own “advice“, here’s a whole bunch of screenshots from the first episode! As they say, a picture speaks a thousand words. Or was it, JPEGs are a lazy blogger’s best friend. Anyway, here goes 26,000+ words…
WARNING: No (real) spoilers but lots of fanboy jokes!
“Why did I enroll in a school of faceless monsters?”
Glad to see the story still takes place in the same setting.
Split-screen face-closeups faithfully ported from the game.
PANTSU DASSHU!
I am cute, innocent, pure and I don’t carry knives with me. *eyes sparkle*
Do Not Disturb. Professional stalker at work.
Makoto has bigger eyes now.
SEKAI 4EVA!
Character designs are pretty close to the original.
“Wanna make out on the rooftop after school?”
“Ok, but only if Kotonoha can join us too. She is pretty hawt for a fellow girl.”
“Note to self: this guy will stab me in the back one day.”
“Don’t mind me, please continue with your hawt yaoi sechs.”
Sekai’s trademarked 120-degree head turn!
“I have nekkid pics of Kotonoha, you want?”
“Hand them over!”
Best 3 seconds of the entire episode.
“You lied… those were Paris Hilton pics. I had to pour acid into my eyes.”
“I am just an innocent girl. No knives at all. No siree.”
I like this expression.
“Look at me laugh innocently. I am such an angel. *sparkle*”
Yes, the awesome train station scene is in this episode. Rejoice!
Emo…
The ending is just not the same without “Still I Love You” by KIRIKO. :(
And that concludes my 26,000+ words… now for a few more.
The first episode tries to take the safe path by remaining generally faithful to the original and taking very little risks in terms of new content. Although the original game was billed as fully animated, the reality was that only crucial scenes were properly animated in the normal anime series while a good potion of the regular dialogues was done using mouth overlays and a combination of facial close-ups from various angles. This saves a lot of money and effort by greatly reducing the amount of actual animation in the game. That of course does not work very well for a real anime which is why the anime only uses split-screen close-ups for the occasional dramatic effect. So, I guess it’s an improvement over the psuedo animations of the original… right?
Paradoxically, I actually prefer the original. I admit that it’s cheapskate and mostly a cost-cutting decision, but it actually helps to make the emotional scenes stand out more. I thought that the climax scene in the first episode didn’t work nearly as well in the anime because of this (and because of the lack of the awesome game theme song). But maybe it’s all just the irrational fanboy in me speaking.
Moving on… It’s great that the cast is the same because I like it with the exception of Makoto. Sekai Banzai! Setsuna Banzai!
And did I mention that I really, really miss the theme song from the original game, “Still I Love You ~Mitsumeru Yori wa Shiawase~“? I mean rino has a great voice and all but the new ED just doesn’t do it for me. BTW the anime ED theme is Usotsuki (Liar) by CooRie (aka rino).
All in all, the anime was better than I had expected, but not quite the “ZOMG I MUST STOP EATING TO PREORDER THIS GAME NOW” level of pure goodness that was the original episode one.
By the way, I’ve uploaded the legendary Paikia-Fansubs translation of the original 22-minute promo video in all its crappy-editing galore to YouTube. I would’ve re-encoded a new version with better translation but the original soft script has been lost in the labyrinth of time. FLV quality FTL. And yes I do realize that the subs are pretty much unreadable… blame it on YouTube and the typesetter. I do have a copy of the untimed and unedited translations if it helps.
P.S. In case I haven’t already made it crystal clear: SEKAI & SETSUNA ROX MY SEKAI! :)
July 6th, 2007 at 12:42 am
Just to clarify, it isn’t exactly “odex-licensed” per say, as said by dark mirage. The point being that the list refers to the anime series licensed by odex AND anime series produced by studious associated with odex, which odex represents .
July 6th, 2007 at 12:43 am
oops sorry for the double post.
July 6th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Thanks for the upload will put this into my watchlist
July 7th, 2007 at 3:35 am
Hey Dark, this was a very informative first episode write-up of the TV adaption, but I have something interesting that I’m trying to get some info on.
I just finished downloading the entire School Days video collection from the game[?]. The story episodes are real media vb files and the h scenes and endings are .wmv.
I can play it just fine in Media Player Classic with the Real Alternative codec (Don’t try any other player, cause the sound gets janky), but what I wanna know is if there was ever a translation project done for the game in the past, and if it’s possible to retrieve it from somewhere.
A real noob question for sure, but my understanding of Japanese is poor, and I really want to say that I was able to appreciate the unadapted story. Anything you can tell me would be a trememdous help.
July 12th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
What happened to episode 2? i waited since last year… I looked through many places but i cant find ep2 does anyone know where i can find or download ep2? If download i want direct download not bit torrents please.
July 13th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
LOL..lMeteorl ….that episode one was from the game not the anime…..this one’s the anime. Anyway episode 2 was just out….darkmirage gonna blog on it?
July 14th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
And I’ve just attained the School Days game via b… Red Indian White Magic.
July 20th, 2007 at 4:01 am
wah…i juz started the anime too and got interested in the game. where did you get the b… i mean, Red Indian White magic spell for the game?
July 31st, 2007 at 1:01 am
Regard the list of licensed anime of odex, i have see it on wikipedia, try searching for “odex” the list should be on the front page. (list as at June 1st)
July 31st, 2007 at 1:07 am
As of the licensing issue, I dont think we can make any guess untill TV Tokyo or Odex themselves publish the clauses of their agreement on licensing issues impacting the region of licensing involved.
Seriously, in Singapore, only cases had closed, settle out of court for payment to odex being done, so we do not know if they really have the licensing power over the whole world…
August 6th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
So far, Ep 5 is already outed. You guys have to watch it. It’s almost a Hentai now XD
August 8th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Anybody know where could I download the Game? Not torrent but some direct download. It has some awesome moments in it. Quite diferent from the anime.
August 12th, 2007 at 4:03 am
Ive seen all of school days, and sheez how depressing.
August 12th, 2007 at 10:59 am
there’s 21 endings.0.0
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AND WTF! I DIDN”T POST IT AT 4:30 am!!
August 16th, 2007 at 7:06 am
at the end of the game, i got the scene where she commits suicide…….
i freaked out and now i don’t play it anymore.
()_()
(._.) XD
()_()
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:49 am
Hey Threed or anyone out there. Could you direct me to where you found all the video collections for the School Days game?
September 2nd, 2007 at 7:57 am
does anyone know if there is a english version of school days the game ? and i have seeen up to episode 8 and really wanna see more anyone no any sites ? cheers
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:39 am
hm…wat a persona u have…kotonoha was drawn and create to be that way, so dun be so bad and critise her… I played the game and seen those “gory’ parts, ending or watever you kol them…
So, next time…pls dun juz make fun of a certain char…setsuna u rox! kotonoha is cute btw…^-^
October 18th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
where ca i watch the second episode of new school days, updated?
November 4th, 2007 at 10:28 am
hey, just like finaldestins said dont be so bad and citicise her, i think kotonoha is really good, and i think sekai is the one who make mistake, because she knows that itou has a gf…^^
BTW, does anyone know where i can download the game????? …^^