After watching this, I can understand why the episode was delayed due to the axe murder. It was much more violent than I thought it’d be, and that’s even with the black blood censorship (which made things look kinda weird). Actually though, according to the people who went to the special screening of the final episode that Overflow held, the AT-X broadcast was edited heavily. In the uncut version, not only was the blood was red, but there were also no flashbacks during the Makoto stabbing scene (a lot more of where she stabbed him were there), they actually showed Makoto’s head in the bag, and there were apparently some more sounds added to the baby-confirmation scene.
Speaking of which, it’s not entirely clear about whether Sekai was really pregnant or not, but I tend to give her the benefit of the doubt because Kotonoha was completely messed up by that point, and I don’t think Sekai had been pregnant long enough for Kotonoha to be able to just cut her open and find a dead baby. That scene was just one part of what ended up being one of the most disturbing episodes I’ve ever seen.
If you think about it, there were two violent deaths, a severed head, an opening up of a girl up to see if she’s pregnant, and a hugging of that severed head. I certainly wasn’t expecting a good ending or anything, but this was off the charts since they essentially combined two bad endings from the game. The sad thing is that they could have gone for a clean sweep of all three bad endings by having Kotonoha kill herself by jumping off the building. I think that the yacht scene probably had more dramatic impact than that would have though.
Final Thoughts: This series started off so innocently like it was going to be any other harem show, and even though a lot of us knew that there was a potential for a bad ending like in the game, I don’t think that many people seriously thought they were going to end that way. That is, until Makoto started sleeping with everything that moved - putting himself in an unredeemable situation - and Kotonoha started showing signs of being mentally ill. Overall though, I still think the production team did a remarkable job building up the suspense and portraying each of the characters’ raw emotions. The story isn’t exactly a crowd-pleaser, but with an ending like this, I can honestly say that I won’t be forgetting about School Days anytime soon.
For those of you waiting to see the final episode of School Days, some bad news: TV Kanagawa suddenly decided not to air it and replaced it with a nature/scenery program instead.
School Days episode 12 / スクールデイズ 第12話 (9月18日 放送中止)
This appears to have been without any prior announcement, so speculation is rampant right now about what really happened. Some people, including MOON PHASE, are suggesting that it might have something to do with how a girl killed her father with an axe yesterday. If true, that would mean that the School Days finale was indeed very bloody.
I’m really disappointed at this point, but there’s really no choice but to wait until tomorrow to see if Chiba TV or TV Aichi air it. Both still list School Days in their schedule, however there’s no telling what will happen. If they don’t air it, then there’s technically still Teletama on Thursday and TV Osaka on Friday (though the latter is very unlikely due to its past record). For now, this probably means that I move the schedule around so that I blog Claymore todayand Bleach and School Days tomorrow, assuming it airs. Also, I’m still working on the fall preview, but it’s coming slowly because of schoolwork and job-related stuff. Hopefully it’ll be done by sometime next week.
Edit: Chiba TV, TV Aichi, and Teletama have all taken the show off their schedules.
Edit: Mainichi News now has an article confirming that this was indeed because of the axe murder and that the airings on at least TV Kanagawa, Chiba TV, and TV Aichi have been postponed. It also confirms that there is a scene of violence done by a high school girl in the episode and that they changed the color of blood from red to black, but still decided not to air it. One possible ray of hope lies with AT-X, which the article claims is still considering showing the finale on September 27th since they do R-15 airings.
Now that Makoto has slept with Hikari, Kumi, Minami, and Natsumi (the latter three all at once), he’s been with every girl in the show in some form or fashion except for Nanami and Kokoro. It amazes me that girls just continue to throw themselves at him, though at this point it’s serving more as shock value than anything else.
At least things are finally starting to come crashing down around him in terms of Otome rejecting him, Sekai’s pregnancy, and him finding out the condition that Kotonoha is in. Knowing Makoto though, there’s probably nothing keeping him from trying to sleep with Kotonoha and dumping Sekai completely. If he does that, then it could very well set us up for one of the bad endings from the game.
On the other hand, Makoto could help Kotonoha get over him and then go take responsibility for the baby that Sekai’s carrying. I just don’t see that happening after all the screwing around he’s done this entire series unless he has some huge reversal in the final episode. The other option is him getting Kotonoha pregnant too, and then we could get a harem ending where both girls are carrying his babies. Those are the three main endings I’m expecting at this point, but the writers have so far done a good job of surprising me (for better or worse), so I’m excited to see how this train wreck ends. The next and final episode is titled 「スクールデイズ」 (School Days).
Wow, I thought it was pretty insane how many things happened this episode. It seems like every major character got some form of development, and things are starting to come crashing down.
Kotonoha’s obviously the one who causes the greatest concern, as the knives shot seems to heavily imply that she could be going down a violent path. She didn’t lash out at Sekai though, and seems more occupied with Setsuna, but since Setsuna appears to have left for France, chances are low anything bad will happen there. I can, however, imagine that she’ll go crazy on Otome if she ever sees the video of the lounge or catches Makoto with her.
As for Setsuna herself, I can understand why she offered herself to Makoto if he promised to break up with Otome, but she can’t have reasonably believed that he’d actually do so unless she was there hounding him every step of the way. For that matter, it’s unclear whether Makoto actually slept with Setsuna, and I’m reminded of that one Setsuna ending to the game where she returns to Japan and declares herself the wife. I’d say that’s still within the realm of possibility.
To be honest though, I really can’t figure out what kind of ending they’re going for, and the drama and suspense they’ve built up is part of what I love about this. Next week’s episode title is 「みんなの誠」 (Minna no Makoto - Everyone’s Makoto) which is the title of one of the harem endings of the game. However, with Kotonoha looking about ready to kill someone, I’m not so sure it’ll be like that. Maybe it means that Kotonoha will chop Makoto up so that everyone can have a piece.
After watching this, I can understand why the episode was delayed due to the axe murder. It was much more violent than I thought it’d be, and that’s even with the black blood censorship (which made things look kinda weird). Actually though, according to the people who went to the special screening of the final episode that Overflow held, the AT-X broadcast was edited heavily. In the uncut version, not only was the blood was red, but there were also no flashbacks during the Makoto stabbing scene (a lot more of where she stabbed him were there), they actually showed Makoto’s head in the bag, and there were apparently some more sounds added to the baby-confirmation scene.
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Wow, I thought it was pretty insane how many things happened this episode. It seems like every major character got some form of development, and things are starting to come crashing down.
