School Days is an interesting deconstruction (and when I say interesting, keep in mind that it takes more than just a tweak on the formula to interest me) because it becomes an exercise of brutality upon the viewer's sensibilities. There's a question of whether the team behind School Days intended for this, but I'm going to invoke Roland Barthes and say that, even if it was just a "happy accident," the creators of School Days brought into the world something that functions as a unique meditation on human cruelty and banality. School Days is especially cruel to those who view slice of life shows as an affirmation of humanity's better angels, as an escape from the brutal logic that often informs real life human interactions.

So many of these characters are a twisted mockery of their stereotypical slice of life counterparts. We have Makoto, who is the nondescript protagonist that encounters a variety of beautiful girls. This iteration of the main character is not only sexually aggressive (in a way that is sometimes creepy), insensitive, and extremely cowardly, he is also "rewarded" throughout the later episodes by being specifically sought out by beautiful girls for sex. Makoto, through his interactions, is the primary vessel through which School Days communicates its misanthropy (and possibly misogyny) to the viewer.

Sekai and Setsuna are a parody of the girl next door, the sensitive, good hearted female friend who weighs her goodness against her desire to be with the main character. Of course, their "goodness" and sensitive natures hardly get in the way of their goal of sleeping with Makoto (and hurting people in the process). Their roles as the "girl next door" are expressed not in their behavior but in the excuses they make, the way they frame and rationalize their decisions. Watching these girls wring their hands over their scummy behavior is another one of the masochistic joys that School Days offers.

Then the side characters are taken to higher levels of nauseating cruelty. Looks like Makoto's best friend Taisuke isn't doing so hot with the ladies. So what does he do? He rapes Kotonoha. Looks like the older girls are going to pull a prank on the younger ones. Oh wait, you mean to tell me they're showing footage of the younger girls having sex to bully and humiliate them (and there's one character--a girl with short hair--whose sole purpose in the show seems to be the victim of said humiliation)?

I'm not saying that School Days is going for realism (although it incidentally does ring more 'true' to me than half of these slice-of-life shows. I always hated high school anyways). I'm saying that School Days is all the better for being exploitative, for being mean, for lavishly fattening up Makoto for the slaughter, and for seeming so indifferent to the suffering in the world it creates (the happy-go-lucky theme song never changes, unlike, say, Madoka Magica's ending after the third episode). When we get to the bloody, psychotic end, the nausea has been built up to such a peak that I can't help but be impressed by the work of art that has aroused such a feeling in me.