Throwback Thursday – Nice Boat

So I literally had zero ideas of what to do for today’s Throwback Thursday until I watched this week’s Mahou Shojou Ore. Ore made a reference to School Days and I could not stop laughing. A large meme that spawned from School Days was the reference and I’ll touch on that later, but for now, we discuss School Days.

School Days is a visual novel adaptation about a boy, Makoto, who has a crush on a shy girl, Kotonoha, from his school that he shares a train ride with on the school commute. He believes in a superstition where if you set a picture of your crush as your phone wallpaper they will eventually like you. Sekai, Makoto’s seat neighbor in class, catches a glance at his wallpaper and she takes a big interest in getting that relationship started. She takes initiative and becomes friends with Kotonoha and acts as a bridge so the two can finally meet.

Though, while helping establish Makoto and Kotonoha’s relationship, she starts developing feelings for Makoto. And Makoto, being the scumbag he is, gets bored with Kotonoha and decides to hook up (read: have sex) with Sekai. He even goes so far as to dance with Sekai at the bonfire after the school festival while Kotonoha watches from the school building where Makoto’s friend decided to violate her. But while fooling around with Sekai, he still “maintains” the relationship with Kotonoha. This escalates Sekai’s jealousy and in the end, scenic videos of a boat were played for a whole half hour.

I’m not kidding about that. Check Know Your Meme for the full explanation, but long story short, a real-life stabbing incident caused the station to take down the last episode of School Days from airing and replaced it with a boat. But what really happened was Sekai decided if she can’t have Makoto all to himself, no one can. She murders him and tells Kotonoha she was impregnated by Makoto.

Kotonoha finds Makoto’s body, beheads it, and then presents it to Sekai before brutally murdering her and cutting her open to check if she actually was pregnant. We close on a happy sunset with Kotonoha cuddling with Makoto’s head sailing into the sunset on a boat.

Overall, the show is all sorts of screwed up. Definitely worth the watch if you’re into drama and rapid escalation. Worth the watch if you want to see everyone get what they deserve in the end. I did not watch it while it was airing though, so I did not experience the Nice Boat incident live. I would give School Days an 8/10 mostly for the ending escalating to some insane levels. It’s available on Crunchyroll if you’re into this sort of thing.