http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2008/07/07/obama_books/

You seem to misunderstand my comment as a critique of your approach, not at all! Your lens is great, I just disagree with the conclusions you draw. Like I said, it was a hit and miss, that means I agree with a lot of it too.

“And after having fought so hard to persevere, suffering through the cruel jabs and relentless bullying from the other girls, she progressively puts more and more weight into her role as Makoto’s girlfriend as her grievances add up. She hangs onto it like a lifeline because if she loses that, then what else does she got left for herself?”

I like this a lot, an absolutely accurate description of Katsura’s psychology. Most of your post are along the same lines, except for a few sentences such as:

“She does not want to lose him because that would mean that she has lost to her own transgression, has become a victim of herself. She doesn’t want to be caught in her own trap, doesn’t want be proven wrong.”

That analysis is just simply too formulaic to be plausible. In the previous few sentences you discussed Sekai’s conception of him as chattel. But then you leave that subject in favor of something new and unsupported.

Also, “For both of these girls, chasing after Makoto is like digging a hole so deep, it goes right through the other side and they free fall endlessly, crashing and burning into eternity along with all of their hopes and expectations.”

Again, I don’t see it. There’s no reason why Makoto shouldn’t have met their expectations, if only he made choices slightly different from those which he did. That he’s a sounding board or that the girls were insecure had nothing to do with it. I completely disagree with your conclusion then, it’s absolutely you, as in Makoto.

You describe a black hole, but isn’t that what love is? Love is absolutely about looking for reaffirmation, love is absolutely about exposing your vulnerabilities, love is absolutely about surrendering control of your esteem to someone else. Katou managed to fall out of love in time, Sekai and Katsura didn’t. But does that mean it’s a self-delusion and destructive? No…

I really dislike your propensity for value judgments. Your continual emphasis of the emptiness of this and that implies that there is something wrong with that, or at least, that there should be something there. That’s probably too ethnocentric to make good analysis.

And your ethnocentrism is what leads you to the mess of the last few paragraphs (below sewing and cooking screenshot).

“So what happens when these idealisms are conscious of being idealized, when they know where they stand and what they have come to represent? It’s almost as if they have somehow managed to break through their own limited dimensions and are now suddenly so close to human.”

It’s very possible that you’re trying to say something different from what I understood, but I’m going to address the quote as I understand it. To rehash… there is nothing inhuman about ideals. Certainly I’ve imagined what an idealized myself would be like and I strive toward it. Does my approach of my ideal make me more human? Was I any less human before? Or do you mean ideals are less human than a more flawed image?

That’s the only way (making value judgments) you can get at this conclusion:

“Sekai is intrinsically empty because she is a dream, she is thick fog and smoky nights, a product of the collective fantasies of fanboys.”

Frankly, that strange attack on fanboys came out of nowhere. But evenmoreso, this profoundly post-modern statement is completely out of place in a post about School Days. It’s not a matter of different lens, it’s just simply wrong.

Sekai is NOT NOT NOT an idealized empty image. Sure, maybe not many real girls would act like her, but for all purposes, she’s supposed to be real. Yes, there are multiple frames of reality, yes anime is fake. Maybe
it’s incredibly self aware, but it never, consciously or not, breaks the fourth wall.

Here’s what I think your logic is:

Sekai is fake > Kat cuts away the fake > exposes reality, the viewers.

Here’s what I think it should be.

Sekai is fake > WRONG. Period, full stop!

I’m all for social deconstruction, but you have to admit that’s NOT what your post is. You discussed psychology, not sociology.

Sociologically speaking, these characters seem to live in their own bubble. Outside of society. In-society characters think, I hate this person, but killing him can land me in jail. Outside society characters act on their emotions. So I agree that the characters are a lot more libertine than conventionally portrayed. Itou apparently feels no guilt whatsoever at cheating, and we’re given none of the ‘should I or shouldn’t I’ monologues that are stable in this kind of series. These people, (or at least Itou), are different and primitive. Perhaps it serves as a warning against anomie and for why civilization is necessary.

And just to beat a dead horse, I’m not convinced that emptiness is part of the thematic repertoire at all. I think Itou could have used more development, I think that the relationships he had with the various characters could have been explored in more depth, and I think it would’ve made for a more excusable protagonist and a better show. The conclusion about emptiness is off-base and forced.