Anime from 2001 turns 25 this year.

Given the 2000s are my favorite Decade of Anime, we’re entering a period when what turns 25 a given year might start interesting me more then what turns 20. But of course I might become more nostalgic for the late 00s and early 2010s as they turn 20.

For these 25 year anniversary posts I want to start including some discussion of material in other mediums that became source material for future Anime, or haven’t yet but should. But my knowledge on those subjects is not as deep as my knowledge of Anime, which is itself far from comprehensive or complete. 

Type-Moon’s first Visual Novel Tsukihime was initially released at Comiket at the very end of 2000 but I feel it’s safe to say 2001 is when it really spread. The proper founding of Type-Moon as a company is considered to be in 2001. And January 21st 2001 was the release of Tsukihime Plus-Disc which included the first four chapters of the Kara no Kyoukai LN series. 

For Detective Conan this year opens with an episode that was at the time celebrating the show’s 5th anniversary and is now one of the Episodes with a new English Dub on Netflix, the last episode of the Rivals collection. Episode 219 The Gathering of the Detectives! Shinichi Kudo vs Vaitou Kid.  The show during winter went on to have some Heiji appearance I might have seen, 226-227 The Battle Game Trap which introduced an important recurring character and 228-229 The Murderous Pottery Class which is one of the show’s Columbo Episodes and perhaps among the best of them.  

There is no TV Anime to start in Winter 2001 I’ve watched to completion yet. Arjuna I’ve seen a few episodes of and keep considering watching more of, my feelings on it are mixed. For notable stuff I haven’t seen there’s Tales of Eterinia The Animation which I should check out since I’ve liked other Tales Of series Anime but there seems to be no Dub. And Ojamajo Doreme, a notable Nakayoshii/Toei Magical Girl series airing in the future PreCure timeslot, switched from its 2nd to 3rd series. 

The Manga being serialized in the Nakyoshi magazine during 2001 were Mink, Ojamajo Doreme, Little Cute, Tokyo Mew Mew, Zodiac PI, Instant Teen: Just Add Nuts and Musume Monogatari.  Elsewhere the Manga for Nana was also running this year. 

February 2001 had the Light Novel Boogiepop Paradox: Heartless Red.  None of the Boogiepop Anime or other adaptations have gotten this far, I have no idea what happens in it. Later in December was Boogiepop Unbalance: Holy & Ghost. 

In the OVA department March had the last episode of FLCL which is probably my “I don’t care for The Godfather” Anime opinion. But also the first episode of Puni Puni Poemii which wasn’t as funny as I was hoping it’d be, it’s 2nd and last episode was in December. 

Spring 2001 has a number of great shows, starting with Noir, my absolute favorite Anime of all Time.  Also Pretear, which I consider one of the most underrated classic Magical Girl shows, it was directed by Junichi Sato who was the Series Director for the best era of Sailor Moon. Angelic Layer might be my favorite of every proper Clamp Anime I’ve seen.  Comic Party which I consider the Lucky Star of the early 00s.  Sister Princess is a great forgotten Gem and Galaxy Angel was also a fun comedy. For shows I haven’t completed, SoulTaker is a notable Akiyuki Shinbo Anime which looks neat.  And SuperGals is an underrated Shoujo Anime I intend to watch more of, it’s currently streaming for free on Nozomi Entertainment's YouTube Channel.  

The 5th Detective Conan movie, Countdown to Heaven, came out in April. I still consider it one of the 4 best movies, and I know some consider it the absolute best.  Metropolis came out in May, it’s a movie I have mixed feelings on but ultimately recommend people check out. 

Back to the Detective Conan TV Anime.  April has 230-231 The Mysterious Passenger which is the formal start of the Vermouth Arc and among the episodes you can watch both Dubbed and Subbed on Netflix. This is what I still consider the best era of the show, so much of 2001 has I'm confident pretty good episodes even though I haven’t seen most yet. Metropolitan Police Love Story 4 and The Man From Chicago are also from 2001. 

In June was Lupin III: Alcatraz Connection this year’s annual TV Special.  I haven’t seen this one since it doesn’t have a Dub and I’ve chosen to be strictly Dub only with Lupin. But I know from asking about the topic once that it’s the first of the specials to be Digital Animation rather than Cell Animation. So it’s an important artifact of this transitional period that people researching should check out.  The same studio, Toho, wouldn't fully switch to digital for Detective Conan till the following year. 

For Pokémon this year was deep into the Johto Era, which for the TV Show I don’t have as much nostalgia for as other eras.  But it was the US release of the 3rd movie Spell of the Unown which I still consider the best Pokémon movie, as well as Mewtwo Returns which is a personal favorite of mine..  In Japan this year’s movie was the Celebi movie known to the West as 4Ever which is flawed but still good, and the Legend of Thunder special which was neat. 

What was different for the Western Fandom is something I need to keep reminding myself to get into more when making these kinds of posts.  Pokémon was usually a year behind, but some shows we didn't get till five years later.  It was in 2001 that Toonami finished Dragonball Z and started Dragonball.  Sailor Moon was also still broadcasting its Cloverway Dub era material S and SuperS. Gundam fans got both the 08th MS Team and 0080 War in The Pocket. Also The Big O and more Tenchi Muyo. 

I literally haven’t even started any TV Anime from Summer 2001.  Something like this seems to happen most often with Winter and Summer.  I think back when multiple Cour shows were still more standard those were the seasons getting fewer new Shows because so many slots were filled by second cours. But one of those Spring shows I talked about was single Cour. It looks like the most popular Anime from Summer 2001 was Fruits Basket which is a Shoujo. 

In the VN department July had the full release of Air, the second Key Visual Novel. And in August Age’s Rumbling Hearts was released. Both produced some very good Anime later, but Rumbling Hearts I’d recommend more strongly.

In the OVA realm August had the preview episode of the upcoming TV Anime version of Clamp’s X which was interesting but I don’t think necessary. 

Also the first episode of the non Hentai OVA series for One Kagayaku Kisetsu e.  I found this 4 episode series garbled and confusing, the Hentai version is legitimately a better presentation of the story. It’s based on a 90s Visual Novel the Key founders made before they started Key. 

Another OVA from August was Jikuu Ihougin Kyoko: Chocola ni Omakase! (it has no official localization but that seems to translate to Time Stranger Kyoko: Leave it to Chocola).  It’s interesting, I checked it out once because it's the only other Anime based on a Manga from the same author as Kamikase Kaitou Jeanne. 

The two episodes of the Pure Mail Hentai OVA that I talked about before came out in September and December of 2001. They are in the same universe as School Days. 

And Fall 2001 has the TV Anime version of Clamp's X which I recall really liking but I can’t describe it right now. The original Hellsing Anime which I still prefer to Ultimate aesthetically.  Mahoromatic and Najica Blitz Tactics. I’m also just now realizing as I write this that I had neglected to add Kirby Right Bat At Ya to any of the database websites even though I have watched a few episodes of it. 

One of the last things to come out this year was the Overflow Bishoujo Game Snow Radish Vacation!  It’s the chronologically first game of the universe that School Days and Pure Mail take place in. 

Radish Vacation Days

I’ve expressed before my feeling that the decision to reveal Kagura is dead now in the Inroi Route added to Shiny Days in 2012 was a retcon.  When Kagura is name dropped in the Summer Days routes it seems like a reference to someone still alive. 

My attempts to decipher the Timeline of the Overflow Universe lead me to placing Summer Radish Vacation 2 as no longer a Prequel/Period Piece but in fact set basically when it was released, the Summer of 2004.  Which would also make it either the year before or the same year as the events of School Days and in turn Summer Days.

Summer Radish Vacation 2 and the Days Series are both presumed to follow the same ending of Summer Radish Vacation, where Shun, Kagura, Youko and Mai form a Polycule but Rina and Rio are both taken by Tomaru. 

In Summer Radish Vacation 2 none of the main protagonists of the prior game are on screen characters, but according to the Wiki it is referenced that Kagura is still in a relationship with Shun and that Mai had left home, no reference to Youko seems to exist.  

That reference to Kagura is Summer Days can be interpreted as being consistent with her still being with Shun, the reference comes from Shun, someone playing this not knowing the full genealogy might well assume Shun was talking about his Mom not Mai’s.  And of course the entire premise of the Days series presumes Mai and Youko left the Polycule for some reason (what Setsuna assumes about why her Mom left her Dad may not be accurate given everything else she probably doesn’t know).

In my PureMail post I talked about the awkwardness of most people, especially in the West, referring to these prior Overflow games as if they’re prequels to School Days when the relationship was originally the opposite.  It’s easy for people to assume Youko and Mai are the Waifus who matter most in Summer Radish Vacation because it’s their involvement with Shun that created two of the most important Waifus of School Days/Summer Days.  But it was made first and foremost as a sequel to Snow Radish Vacation.  So it was in a sense Kagura who was originally thought of as the female lead, giving her a true Happy Ending after the sham of her supposed happy ending in Snow Radish Vacation fell apart is arguably the most important objective of the game.  Maybe she’s even the only one ever actually properly married to Shun (that they have the same father is probably not legally acknowledged, I'm not even sure if they know about it).

I view Kagura as the true most important protagonist of this meta franchise.  Her getting to finally live a happy life after the events of Summer Radish Vacation is kind of important to me.

But all that is assuming they all follow the same ending.  

I kind of wish more of these multiple ending games would have separate sequels for separate endings. What if we could pretend Summer Radish Vacation 2 and the Days Series are exactly that?

Originally Overflow released an “Adultery Chart” that said Tomaru not Shun was the father of Sekai and Setsuna.  This is clearly firmly retconned by Summer Days but maybe School Days was first written with that idea in mind?

In Summer Days it is contrary to what I first thought implied that Shun being Sekai’s father is also known to both Sekai and Setsuna, it’s just not explored as much because Sekai doesn’t interact with Shun.  

I already laid out what definitely is pretty consistent between Summer Radish Vacation 2 and Summer Days. 

If they follow different endings, perhaps it is the fate of Rina and Rio that’s different?  School Days does refer to there being an Inou who was about Makoto’s age in Grade School, which the Wiki presumes is probably Rio’s daughter Risa Inou who wouldn't exist if Tomaru didn’t take Rio since Shun as scummy as he can be sometimes I don't think would impregnate Rio at that young, in fact he certainly doesn't have the means Tomaru has to make it biologically possible. But what if this Inou could be a daughter of Shun and Kagura?  But if I'm correct on them somehow getting legally married their kids would probably be named Hazama. 

If there is actually a problem for Summer Radish Vacation 2 and Summer Days being in the same timeline it’s Itaru Itou. Itaru is supposed to be usually staying with Tomaru and SRV2 depicts Tomaru’s household seemingly during this same time period or only a year prior.  Maybe she’s absent because she spends a chunk of each Summer staying with Makoto and their Mom as seen in Summer Days, but not all of it.  Maybe Tomaru is only so interested in keeping Itaru around because he doesn’t have any Inous in this timeline?  

If they are separate timelines then perhaps Rideru Takatsukasa and Makoto Itou are in some cosmic sense different versions of the same entity?  Both are born after the events of Summer Radish Vacation, both are children of Tomaru by a Nurse, both are protagonists who start their debut games knowing who they want to romantically pursue but can still wind up with someone else. But for Makoto it’s the first choice who turns out to be a Rapist.  And Rideru does seem like a much less passive character then Makoto.

But they probably are the same timeline and some explanation for Itaru’s absence from SRV2 can be dreamed up. It could be the Itou family only wound up in this shared custody situation less then a year before the Summer of Summer Days, I don't recall if the games themselves mentioned a timescale for it. 

Large Pon Pon is perhaps the most accessible Overflow Game

In addition to also being their first.  

And what I mean by accessible here is it could have a wide appeal if it was available in English.  It not being translated makes it less materially accessible then School Days or Shiny Days or even Cross Days which seems to have an unofficial translation floating around out there somewhere.

Large Pon Pon is a Visual Novel where the main cast seems to be mostly in their 20s.  Ayumu Inou the main protagonist is 24 if what I’ve read is correct.  One girl in the game is in High School and I presume that route is avoidable or at least it’s H Scenes are if there are any.  There are absolutely no Lolis.

Its content seems to include plenty of Depravity, but there are lots of people who are okay with Anime depravity so long as it’s between adults.

This is all stuff I know from reading about Large Pon Pon as I can’t play untranslated Japanese Games. 

So when trying to get Overflow Games on the radar of those English speaking YouTubers who can play Japanese Video Games that have never been translated, we really should start with Large Pon Pon not the Radish Vacation series.  Something I wish I myself had thought to consider earlier. 

Since the madness that is the Overflow Family Tree was mostly built by a game series that was a prequel to this, its relationship to all that is at face value more direct than say PureMail yet possibly still 100% Retcons. So most of the questions I’d want answered by seeing someone else give a deep analysis relate to that.

The infamous Overflow Family Tree makes some of the relationships Ayumu can have in this game Incestous, but I’m highly skeptical that any of that was in the minds of the developers when they first made this game, and if so it shouldn't be relevant to this game as a stand alone piece of Art. 

On the Overflow Wiki the biography of Ayumu Inou prior to the events of Large Pon Pon is already a very insane one.  But it seems to be all offscreen even in those Prequel games, Ayumu himself does not appear to be an onscreen character in any of them. 

Part of my brain is highly skeptical that any of that was mentioned or even hinted at in Large Pon Pon itself.  But I hope I’m wrong, I think the premise of Large Pon Pon would be a more compelling story if Ayumu’s sexually traumatized backstory is relevant to the present story. But it’s certainly by no means boring if it’s not. 

For those who don’t know, that history includes being sexually enslaved by his Aunt Asagi for years, a complicated history with his older sister Kagura, sireing multiple Bastard children who he may not know about, many of them with biological relatives, and being the possibly acknowledged son of the most vile fictional character ever written.

Tomaru Sawagoe is not an onscreen character in this game, but I really am curious to what extent he is mentioned. Because onscreen characters in this game do include the woman he’s actually married to and his son by her and that son’s wife, in release order the Sawagoe surname first belonged to those characters. And even in the canon established by those prequels Tomoe seems to have already had that surname before she married Tomaru. The Wiki presumes her to be Tomaru’s Aunt but I think that’s a mistake since Aunt-Nephew marriages aren't legal in Japan but Cousin marriages are.  And in Snow Radish Vacation they are either the same age or Tomoe is younger, so a possible but not typical Aunt-Nephew age gap.  

Also, is the Hospital that Tomaru is said to own in Shiny Days the same one much of this game takes place in?

But I’m even more curious if Kagura is mentioned in any capacity. To me the Radish games have made her the most important protagonist of this Epic Saga of Depravity, so it’d be nice if there was at least some hint of her existence where it all started. Even if it’s unnamed, if it's just an offhand statement that Ayumu has an older sister.  Kagura and Ayumu are siblings who share both parents and have the same last name and were raised together, so it’s a sibling status that has no asterix attached to it, unlike almost everyone else the family tree chart says is a sibling to them. 

The Overflow Wiki has Birthdates including Gregorian Calendar Years for the School Days Characters.

On their Character Pages, but the Timeline page itself states no Year dates are definitively given.

And I don’t think the years given on these pages had enough thought put into them based on how Japanese School Years work.

You see in Japan the School Year is April-March So I’m pretty sure that means Setsuna being born in February and Sekai in December of 1988 would not actually be in the same Grade. Now if their Birthdays do come from Canonical Material then Setsuna is more likely to be born 2 months after Sekai rather then 10 month before. Maybe I’m mistaken and there is some nuance to how who is in what School Year is decided I’m missing.

Japanese High School is also only three years, and it seems you generally begin as 15 expected to turn 16 before that School Year is over and end it as an 18 year old.

So on this Wiki

Setsuna is February 14 1988

Sekai is December 7 1988

Taisuke Sawanaga is July 19th but a year isn’t given

Makoto Itou is October 16 1988

Kotonoha Katsura is January 4 1988 (Kokoro is November 28 but no year)

So they decided to put all the cast in the same Grade as 1988.

If School Days takes place in the then present of when it was released, then all these characters being in their First Year of Japanese Highschool would more likely have been born April 1989 to March 1990. Coincidentally the first year of the Heisei era. Their Conceptions would then be the the Summer of 1988 through Spring of 1989.

School Days dropped in April of 2005 however, so maybe it wouldn’t make it that much of a period piece to imagine it’s drama as being primarily set in 2004 moving those estimates down a year.

Setsuna and Sekai’s mothers were previously Heroines of the original Summer Radish Vacation. It’s heavily implied we’re supposed to assume that Setsuna and Sekai were conceived during or within a year following the events of that game.

Based on the title I’m assuming that game takes place during Summer Vacation. Summer Vacation from School in Japan is only 6 weeks not the 3 months we Americans are used to (and certainly not the 104 days of Phineas and Ferb’s OP), generally starting around July 20th and ending around the end of August. Neither Setsuna or Sekai’s proposed birthdays fit being conceived during those 6 weeks.

Regardless of what Gregorian Calendar Dates you choose to lynchpin the Overflow timeline to, Setsuna and Sekai being first years in School Days creates a contradiction between the Overflow Wiki saying Snow Radish Vacation is 30 years before School Days and Summer Radish Vacation is 17 years after Snow Radish Vacation. However it could be where ever they got that 30 year estimate from really meant over 30 years.

If the title of Snow Radish Vacation is implying the Winter Holidays, in Japan that’s usually December 26 through January 6. But it opens on a sequence set at least 9 months before the main narrative so that would be in March probably, maybe early April.

There is more then one example across School Days HQ and Shiny Days of Youko saying she’d “long” had Sekai already by the time she was Sekai’s current age. But if her and Mai are in Middle School during Summer Radish Vacation they sure aren’t built like it. Shiny Days also says Youko is exactly 30 if you go down her Route.

It would be really funny if the most logical timeline places the events of Snow Radish Vacation in 1969.

Girls of the Overflow Universe

When one first discovers the absurd Overflow Family Tree the specific character to catch people’s attention is Tomaru Sawagoe because he’s literally all over it.  And I like memeing on what an over the top villain he is too.

But I also believe plenty of the Girls on the Tree are more than just perpetual victims.  They have interesting stories to tell as well. 

For one thing I can’t help but see is a possible compelling Marxist Feminist reading of the meta narrative, where this very literal Patriarch is the owner of the Radish Trilogy’s titular restaurant Chain, but it is all girls who are actually running and staffing it.  This is why the Radish setting is so interesting in Summer Days and really makes me want to somehow experience the Radish Trilogy Games.

The common “Apple not falling far from the tree” expression being said in reference to Tomaru’s sons I find amusing given we meet even more daughters and they never turn out to be bad people.  The most Evil Women in these games are the ones who don’t descend from Tomaru. So no being Evil isn’t Biologically Determined in this universe.

I feel like proclaiming Kagura Inou the Matriarch of the Overflow Universe.  Her mother may be Ancestral to even more branches, but Kagura is the protagonist of the Chronologically first game and is mentioned in key ways in both Summer Days and Shiny Days.  

I do dislike Shiny Days revealing her to have passed away already. And it does seem like a Retcon, when Kagura is name dropped in the Summer Days route it seems like a reference to someone still alive.

Shiny Days Route Order

The most well known online walkthrough of Shiny Days, that is also used by people playing through the Game on YouTube and Lexa$! Video Essays on it, advise people to play the Inori Route branch first.

I hate this.

Shiny Days is a remake of an earlier game originally titled Summer Days.

The Inori Branch is 100% new to Shiny Days, the Setsuna Branch seems to have some new content but it all feels like it fits in with the original Summer Days material just fine.  

The Inori route may be narratively an alternate timeline but it’s metatextuality a sequel.

As someone who feels like they’re very savvy to this kind of thing, certain events and plot elements in the Inori storyline feel like specifically events Summer Days players are used to seeing play out differently.  They are Subverting Expectations.

And the only thing I’d really call a Twist in the Game is definitely treated like a shocking reveal far more when it happens in the Summer Days routes.  In the Inori storyline it’s treated with much more dramatic irony. 

So when I see people on YouTube play through the game being shocked and surprised by this reveal while watching the Inori storyline and then play Summer Days making fun of how they already know it, it definitely feels to me like they’ve gotten the intended experience inverted.

The Game’s own internal Route Map does place the Inori Branch up top and the Summer Days Branch on the bottom and I think that’s largely what caused this.  The original Japanese developers of the Game may not have considered how many people will wind up playing only this release of the Game.  But for us Westerners this is the only release we officially have in English at all.

The way unlocked H Scenes are organized on the menu for watching them on their own confirms that Summer Days does still come first.

The Inori route is also kind of overall more Wholesome and so maybe some people felt that should be a Normie’s first impression.  But no one is playing the Infamous Sequel to the Infamous School Days because they are looking for Wholesomeness.  If you don’t download the Deconseoring Patch you won’t get the most problematic content.

Which of these two branches you wind up on is decided by the first choice Makoto is given.  I’m not gonna say any other choices are more correct after that, such would defeat the point of this genre. I just want people to play Summer Days first.

So the first choice is Otome asking Makoto what he’s thinking about doing for Summer Break.  Select the top choice “I want to make lots of Memories” to get on the correct Summer Days path.

I do like the story being told in the Inori route, the only detail I dislike is the reveal that Setsuna’s grandmother Kagura is dead.  She was born in 1958 at the earliest in my needless overthinking of this insane universe’s timeline, so dying by 2005 is way too young.  And it does seem like a Retcon, when Kagura is name dropped in the Summer Days route it seems like a reference to someone still alive.

Update May 12th: While thinking about what I said in this new post I went and checked and Makoto choosing nothing for the first choice also puts you on the Summer Days Route.  So the Inori Route is meant to be actively chosen, Summer Days is where the story is heading by default. 

PureMail OVAs

PureMail is a 2 episode Hentail OVA from 2001 that is an adaptation of a 2000 Bishoujo Game/Visual Novel made by Overflow the same studio that made School Days and its “sequels”.

It is also in the same universe, the character named Miki Sawagana is the older sister of Taisuke Sawagana.  That’s the familial connection that is made obvious by surname, but I'll get to the matter of Overflow Universe world building and it's associated family tree later.

First, what do I think of this OVA as a stand alone work of art?

The thing about Erotic Art that wants to be more than just Porn is that I want it to be more than just a Good Story with good fappable Sex Scenes, they need to inform each other, to be firmly integrated.  There are lots of mainstream movies where it’s part of the Plot that sex happens, but it doesn’t need to happen fully on screen.  In Erotic Art it has to be more than just that Sex happens but the specifics of the Sex have to matter, some of the character development has to be tied to how they do or do not enjoy it.

And it’s that test which PureMail fails.  I find the story and characters very interesting and I found at least some of the H scenes Fappable.  But those H Scenes also feel like they’re interrupting the story rather than enhancing it.  There are times when the conversation happening after the sex directly picks up where they left off before, but because it’s separated by 5 minutes of mindless humping I lost the train of the conversation.

I’ve watched two versions of PureMail.  I watched its English Dub unedited and uncensored on a Hentail website I won’t name here. And I watched an English Subbed version on YouTube that has the explicit parts edited out.  And it demonstrates my above criticism that the edited version actually felt like it had better pacing.  It removed vestigial organs while in ideal erotic art removing the sex scenes would be removing the heart and soul.

Unfortunately that edited version is no longer on YouTube, I neglected to download it and I don’t remember the name of the Channel, so it looks like it's probably now Lost Media that only I care about.

School Days and some of its “sequels” are known for not being presented how most Visual Novels usually are but being basically interactive Anime.  PureMail as far as I can tell wasn’t like that, it was a more normal Visual Novel.  I bring that subject up here because it means the actual source material for the Days series can be compared to PureMail’s adaptation at being an Erotic Anime.  Now I currently have not seen all the Erotic content that School Days HQ and Shiny Days have to offer, but I’ve seen some that definitely do succeed where the PureMail OVAs failed.  Even if it would be hard to argue everything is specifically absolutely necessary; they still convey things about the characters which those so easy to edit out PureMail scenes did not.

As the title of PureMail implies it involves some characters communicating via Email, so it’s perhaps one of the earliest Hentai to feature the Internet as a plot point.

One thing that I feel vindicates my vocal interpretation that Otome raped Makoto in episode 9 of the School Days Anime is that that Women Raping Men is a theme in these prior overflow Overflow works.  The MC of Large PonPon was abused by at least 2 older women.  And in PureMail at least in the OVA version Kei is Blackmailed and Raped by Yumi Matou, and it’s framed as traumatizing not comedic or harmless.

So yeah there is good material here, if that edited version were the official version I’d probably give it a higher rating.  But I also imagine like many VNs adapted with so little runtime the storytelling was also hurt by being condensed and trying to make everything fit one timeline.

Now let’s return to world building.  

The Overflow Universe Family Tree is a bit of a Meme to those of us who know it exists.  But in a way PureMail’s connections to all that shows how perhaps not well thought out it actually is.  Again I like most English speakers have no first hand information about these games, I’m mostly trying to draw conclusions from the Overflow Fandom Wiki (I wish I didn't have to use Fandom but no one’s cloned this content on an alternative Wiki network.) [Update: A way around using Fandom kind of exists now.]

These PureMail OVAs are technically the only onscreen Anime appearance of Tomaru Sawagoe. In the games his onscreen appearances are all in the Radish Trilogy, only they have character designs for him, and even the first of them came out after these OVAs.  Going off the OVAs Kei’s father isn’t mentioned by name and there isn’t even any hint at that father not being who he gets the surname Ogata from.  The OVAs felt they needed to actually animate a flashback and in it the character design of Kei’s father has a generic White Trash Wife Beater type look and seems to be “Lower Class”.  Tomaru in the Radish games has a more distinct and flamboyant style and is very wealthy owning the titular restaurant chain and a hospital.

Basically Kei’s father being identified with the villain of the Radish series feels like a Retcon.

Online discussion of all these Overflow games focus on how they relate to School Days because only it ever became truly infamous in the general Anime community, especially in the Anglosphere.  So Tomaru Sawagoe is defined first and foremost as Makoto Itou’s father and all the games set before School Days are talked about as if they are prequels to School Days even though they were all made before School Days.

Snow Radish Vacation was made as a prequel, but to Large PonPon, Overflow’s first game.  The Inou and Sawagoe surnames originated there and then become the focus of Snow Radish Vacation; no surnames you recognize from the core cast of School Days are in either of those games.

Large PonPon, PureMail and School Days all seem like they are set in the then present of when they were made (1999, 2000 and 2005) like the average Visual Novel.  It’s only the Radish Vacation games that have to be period pieces for the Timeline to make sense.  But I have no way of knowing how good they are at feeling like period pieces, or if they even bothered to try.

Summer Radish Vacation was a sequel to Snow Radish Vacation, but Summer Radish Vacation 2 is in some ways more of a spin off then a sequel.  School Days I think was originally made without how it connects to the other games being all that set in stone.  In fact I’ve learned there was originally a family tree chart published by Overflow which made Sekai and Setsuna children of Tomaru rather than of Shun.

Summer Days' relationship to School Days is more of a completely alternate timeline rather than a Sequel or a Prequel.  But thanks to Shun’s role it’s actually more of a direct sequel to Summer Radish Vacation then Summer Radish Vacation 2 is.

Point is, the core world building starts with Large PonPon then goes through the Radish Games to end with the Days series.  PureMail and other Overflow games mentioned on the genealogy are largely afterthoughts.  The genealogy makes Ayumu the father of multiple PureMail characters (and Taisuke) and I really doubt the game was originally written with that in mind.

Update: Here's some more Timeline Speculation

https://mithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-overflow-wiki-has-birthdates.html

Fandom Wiki Network sucks

I'm definitely a supporter of the growing Anti-Fandom movement in the Fan Wiki Community. 

mossbag and Connorsseur both have YouTube videos on the subject I highly recommend.

Some of the franchises I often need to use wikis for don't have their Fandom alternative even as the second option to come up on a search, partly because of their not so straight forward names.  So I want to share some here real quick.

DetectiveConanWorld.Com has a Wiki that is a great resource for Case Closed.

TolkienGateway.Net is great for Arda Lore.

WikiMoon.Org is a non Fandom Sailor Moon Wiki.

FinalFantasyWiki.Com, Dragon-Quest.Org and SaGaWiki.Org don't seem to be as comprehensive as they need to be to compete with Fandom yet, but they can be made better simply with the help of new contributors.

I was also already a user of some of the more well known ones mentioned in those YT videos like Bulbapedia and the Mario Wiki.

However there are some I'm still frustrated to see have no Fanodm alternative, at least not one I've found searching.  Wookipedia is still the only option for Star Wars, DC Database is still the best option for DC and the others are also on Fandom.  PDSH is also a Wiki I like to use and wish would migrate.

And getting back to my Weeb stuff, ToAru, and the Nasuverse and Code Geass and Overflow still only have their Fandom options.  For Overflow there's a lot of information on the broader School Days Universe only available in English on that wiki, I wish that would change.

I also have occasional interest in the DereTypes Wiki so wish it would migrate, as well as the Dubbing Wiki and Audio Drama Wiki.

Update February 1st: I felt like mentioning this Megaman Wiki I stumbled upon.

https://megaman.miraheze.org/wiki/Mega_Man_Knowledge_Base

Here's a page where Miraheze attempts to comprehensively list their Wikis.

https://meta.miraheze.org/wiki/Gazetteer_of_wikis

Update February 19th: There is a non Fandom Song of Ice and Fire Wiki.

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Main_Page

Update July 2024: A non Fandom Star Wars Wiki now exists.  

https://starwars.archivum.wiki/

Update September 5th 2024: Now I've found a non Fandom Madoka Wiki.

https://wiki.puella-magi.net/Main_Page

Update April 30th 2025: I recently learned on BSKY that for Wikis without an alternative you can add "anti" before "fandom" in the URL to create a more useable alternative.  A truly independent Wiki is the ideal, but this will prove helpful especially for my continued dependence on the Overflow Wiki.

Update June 1st 2025: I've learned there is a Non Fandom Touhou Wiki.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Touhou_Wiki

Update August 2026: I just learned about this interesting Wiki.

https://evilbabes.miraheze.org/wiki/EvilBabes_Wiki

Sekai did Nothing Wrong! (An overly long School Days analysis)

This is my attempt to adapt my random thoughts from this long Twitter thread into a proper Blog post where I express some things better.  And I’ll add stuff I forgot to include in the Twitter Thread.

To me even in the timeline of the 2007 School Days Anime it’s apparent that Kotonoha is the antagonist.  But I can see why going off the Anime alone it’s easy to miss her wrong doings and focus entirely on Makoto and Sekai’s dumb teenage mistakes.  But once you’ve actually learned about the other timelines of the Visual Novel it’s difficult not to conclude that Kotonoha is an emotionally abusive and manipulative even when she’s not a killer.

The Visual Novel originally only had 3 Bad Endings (bad in the sense of involving Death, some others are indeed not exactly storybook happy endings).  The ones added by the remakes muddy the waters of characterization.  I still try to make even them fit my interpretation, but it’s difficult.  Basically the remakes wanted to add endings where Sekai kills Kotonoha because some fans simply wanted to see that.  But there were in fact good character based reasons why that was not originally possible.

Originally Sekai never became a true Yandere, she only ever became a Killer when dealing with the stress of a Teen Pregnancy.  And she never targeted her rival, she only killed Makoto and immediately regretted it.  There were no Laughing Mad scenes for her.  And only the Anime ever even plants the suggestion that she wasn’t actually pregnant, it is in fact clinically confirmed with doubt only ever being placed on the timing of it.  And in some timelines the baby is born.

VN Kotonoha does morally questionable stuff even on timelines with no fatally bad ending, like blackmail.

But the ending that makes me hate Kotonoha the most is the one where she kills herself.  And I know that sounds harsh out of context, but she intentionally does it in front of Sekai & Makoto when he chooses her, with the premeditated intent of ruining their happiness, and it worked.  Suicide or the threat of it is absolutely a tactic Emotionally Abusive people will use, and it's the type I have the most experience with.  So discovering this ending really kind of triggered me a bit.

Neither of the Bad Endings that are a result of Makoto choosing Sekai ends with him concluding he loved Kotonoha and should have chosen her.  But the one original Bad Ending that results from him choosing Kotonoha does indeed have him concluding he really loved Sekai.  He spends his dying moments concluding he is in love with the person who just killed him.  That is strong evidence the Story itself wants us to view Sekai as his true love and Kotonoha as an Enchantress coming between them.

Some of the Kotonoha endings really do come off more as bad endings for Sekai even regardless of the information relayed above.  In one it seems like her blackmailing worked, in another Sekai gets blamed for a bullying campaign she had no connection to.

Look I firmly believe Kotonoha is like this because of circumstances that are not her own fault, she is also still only a teenager and I am certainly not an existentialist. But as far as the narrative at hand in School Days is concerned, she’s the antagonist.

The Anime’s main problem is trying to condense into one timeline most of the worst things that can happen in the VN.  The Manga also has a unique Bad Ending but till then it’s much closer to conveying the experience you should be going for when playing the VN.

Condemnations of Sekai begin with the whole “let’s do it as practice” thing, with even other Sekai apologists conceding that as her one dumb idea.  But that itself is encouraging a very conservative attitude towards Sex, maybe that kind of thing should be more normalized.  Part of the perspective she’s coming from here is how society tells girls to expect the guy to be more experienced. But even in an ideal world with no Gender double standards, I think doing it for the sake of experience shouldn’t be shamed. 

I’m also not as hard on Makoto as other people.  That’s a more uphill battle to fight but I’m ready, and I'm not gonna say he did Nothing wrong.   To start with in the VN there is no one timeline where Makoto has sex with all the girls.  Someone outside the main two is only ever an option at the very end of certain routes besides one special case that will be elaborated on later.

His main sin in the early part of the Anime is that he should have simply ended it with Kotonoha a lot sooner when he realized he wasn’t that into her after all.  And ideally before starting a relationship with Sekai.

However most people talking about this Anime aren’t condemning him just for not doing that.  In fact when they are aware of VN differences they still condemn him even on routes where that’s exactly what he does.  They condemn him for wanting Sex more then Kotonoha does in the first place. Some people want lots of sex, some people want no sex, some people want it in moderation, none of those is anything to be ashamed of.  But if your partner isn’t on the same page as you simply end it, don’t try to pressure them and certainly don't do anything they didn’t explicitly give you permission to do.

To me one of the ultimate signs of fake wokness is “puritanical sexual morality is fine when it’s men being shamed”.  And yes at least when critiquing fictional scenarios I do see people be explicit hypocrites on this issue.  The same media critics quick to condemn any male character who wants sex more then his female partner, when a show swaps that dynamic are all for rooting for the girl to dump the guy not giving her what she wants while calling him Gay because even many SJWs don’t know that Asexuals exist much less that straight men can also sometimes want to wait.

Makoto at the very least is one of the few characters who never violates anyone else’s consent (in School Days, the other VNs of this franchise I am not required to consider canon to how I analyze School Days).  The worst things he does in the Anime are after his own consent has been violated more than once.

The problem with discussion around School Days is both the people simply calling it bad and most of those calling it a "deconstruction" are using the same superficial face value readings of the characters.  If it’s criticizing the Harem genre, it’s criticisms aren’t the same as yours.  If anything, the kinds of viewers who think Makoto deserves what happened to him in the last episode are who the show is condemning.  That’s right, the “ain't it cathartic watching this teenager face consequences for his actions,” viewers I’m equating to Fight Clubbers.

My obsession with School Days this last year is pretty weird in the grand scheme of my history with Anime.  I first watched it years ago and expressed basically the same contrary opinions I have now, but did so to spite certain people I’d seen talk about it and didn’t really care that much, and as such didn’t make my arguments as eloquently or well thought out as I'm trying to here.  Now I have been drawn to revisit it for reasons that escape me and have become utterly fascinated by it.  The show as a whole is still not 3x3 material but Setsuna has become my favorite Anime character period.

I’ve self identified as a Kuudere for awhile now, my self insert characters in stories I never finished were basically Kuudere before I knew the term.  But I lacked a specific Kuudere I considered worthy of being my social media Avatar.  I liked Setsuna when I first watched the show but took her crush on Makoto at face value and was rather disappointed by that since I liked seeing her as Yuri for Sekai.  Now that I’ve dug deeper into VN information I realize she is basically me.  

My main justification for actively shipping Makoto and Sekai is their dance in front of the bonfire at the festival.  They looked genuinely happy there, happier than anyone else ever is at any point in the show.  It’s unfortunate what the Anime intercuts it with, I don’t think that’s the timing of those two events in any VN timelines.  But the fact remains that that is the most genuinely romantic moment in the show.

If only Makoto would have broken up with Kotonoha before or at the start of episode 6, she probably would have moved on just fine.  However the character flaw that led to Makoto making that mistake is a perfectly believable and relatable one, he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings and is uncomfortable in difficult situations. Logically it’s obviously better to do it sooner, but humans have trouble acting logically when emotions are involved.

What makes episode 6 the turning point here is that the happiest Kotonoha ever was in this relationship was not any time actually spent with him.  It’s the moment where Otome’s crush on Makoto became known to the rest of the class.  In that moment Kotonoha instantly goes from being this shy timid girl simply taking her bullying to having the confidence to stand up for herself.  Out of context I can see that as an empowering moment that viewers who’d been bullied in similar ways may have latched into.  But in the context of this being a show about relationships, I really do see it as evidence Kotonoha doesn’t love Makoto at all, she became invested in the relationship when it became a source of power.  Even before this the investment she had came off merely as investment in the social status upgrade of having a boyfriend and not Makoto himself.

This quote from Makoto’s conversation with Setsuna in episode 8 is so often glossed over by those who want to paint Makoto as preferring Sekai only because she’s the one giving him the sex.  “No, it’s more like I can be myself more with her, I can relax”.  I feel like if we were analyzing any other relationship melodrama we would all agree the person you feel more comfortable being yourself with is the healthier option.  

Again I fully agree that he should have formally broken up with Kotonoha well before this point.  But so many people are not mad at him only for that.  Half of it is men who would themselves prefer Kotonoha not liking that this MC has different preferences than they do.  And then there are the people who are like “he couldn’t handle that relationships take work” and I’m like “your American Capitalist ideology is showing”.   Why should it be a given that relationships take “work” why does everything have to revolve around some platonic ideal of being “earned”?

But more importantly the “work” being expected of Makoto here is very much the product of Patriarchal norms where the “work” of a relationship is supposed to be all on the man while the woman is a prize to be “earned”.  I certainly feel it’s unfair to claim Makoto wasn’t putting effort into this relationship but Kotonoha was.

Now to elaborate on my seemingly most unique School Days hot take, that Otome raped Makoto in episode 9.  Because I’m unsure if the writers of the show know that’s what they made happen, but it is. 

First off early in episode 9 we’re shown how inviting a boy to the “rest area” is supposed to go.  And I kind of like it. But the important thing here is how that should make us note that what Otome does is explicitly NOT that.  She doesn’t ask Makoto anything, she tells him to grab her hand, he’s from a different class so doesn’t even know what this is supposed to mean, then she gets mad and grabs him and drags him into the Rest Area.  Then she confesses and what he says in response seems to get translated inconsistently (I’ve watched different subs of this same scene). But to me exactly what words he says is irrelevant anyway, he’s stammering and shocked to be in this situation and not being given time to think about what he’s saying.  At any rate the Subs on the official BluRay I now own look like he’s turning her down but trying to be nice about it, again his hamartia is really not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings.  Then she pushes him down and starts kissing him, and his eyes have a weird expression, which in Hentai is constantly the visual language of Trauma caused by Sexual Assault.

If the genders were reversed no one on Tumblr would read this scene as consensual.  But because he’s a Generic MC-kun many Anime fans hate for being so “inexplicably” popular with Girls everyone clings to him not explicitly saying no.  

What concerns me about how this scenario is written is that after the sex is over he seems fine.  Maybe in real life when boys are raped by girls this way they cope by pretending they liked it as much as they’re “supposed to”.  But on a  Doylist level I feel kind of like the time constraints on the Anime version of the story needed him at the Bonfire dance right away and that scene wouldn't look right if he seemed traumatized.  In the VN Makoto having sex in the rest area and dancing at the Bonfire can’t happen on the same timeline.  Also in the VN it’s with Kotonoha not Otome and how it plays out is different, I do consider VN Kotonoha a Rapist but not based on the Rest Area scene.

Thing is acknowledging what happened here as Rape changes how we read everything Makoto does after this, how he suddenly becomes more aggressive then he ever was before.  

Now for how the Anime deals with Sekai’s pregnancy.  Is there a literary term for “fake twists” where a story pretends to end on a reveal but when you analyze the evidence that reveal was clearly a Lie?  Paul Feval’s John Devil as interpreted by it’s English Translator Brian Stableford is perhaps the ultimate example of that.

We the audience see Sekai alone by herself way too much for the possibility that she lied about the Pregnancy to have any credibility.  There is no ambiguity that she believed she was pregnant.  Maybe she had a false alarm, but given what we know from the VN I find that unlikely.  Kotonoha is not a trained medical professional, she is in that ending a mentally unstable teenager seeking to confirm what she already wants to believe. 

This is different in the VN where doubt is only cast on the pregnancy's timing.  But even there Sekai didn’t have sex with anyone else, the VN is just taking advantage of how most people don’t get that “conception” doesn’t necessarily happen the same day you had sex, the sperm can linger.  

Another character I kind of like is Hikari but the reasons for that are largely VN only.  The only issue I have with the Hikari ending is that you’re cheating on Sekai.  I like how Hikari gets over her crush on dickface right after having sex with him and then does it with Makoto.  I like that she’s open and unashamed about only wanting sex from the relationship.  And I also like the part about her deciding it would be selfish to keep him to herself.  The Anime should have had Hikari initiate the Orgy, instead the three named extras just doing it on their own.  However all that is my glossing over how she’s a Pimp and a Blackmailer, so she’s also a villain but a likeable one. Not like Kotonoha or Otome who I’d be terrified to be in the same room as.  

The official Family Tree of the Overflow universe implies Bavarois+Watermelon is the canon ending.  It’s not officially classified as a Harem ending because there is no Threesome scene.  But emotionally I think the route to get that ending is the best Threesome story the VN offers.  It’s on a route where Makoto is preferring Sekai and the Kotonoha ending of that Route is considered a Bad Ending being called Lust.  

But Makoto and Setsuna do have sex along the way, and it’s not at all like how they wind up doing it in the Anime.  They develop a deep emotional connection that isn’t solely based on but is tied to how much they both care about Sekai.  You can have a Threesome relationship where all three never have sex at the same time, so yeah I feel like that is a stealth Makoto/Sekai/Setsuna route. 

Meanwhile the official Threesome ending of the VN bothers me.  I want to like the Non Monogamous resolutions of Dating Sims and VNs as a Polyamory advocate. But this one has issues.

First, Sekai and Kotonoha have no relationship with each other outside of Makoto, Sekai first befriended her to help Makoto.  That alone could be overcome, they could develop a bond, but….

Second, Kotonoha is acting like a Yandere even in this ending.  Just a Yandere who’s taken a different strategy than usual. She says Makoto can sleep with as many girls as he wants as long as he says he loves her the most. That kind of confirms my conclusion from episode 6 of the Anime, that what she really wants from this relationship is to use Makoto to feel Superior to other women.  

And then there is the way she’s still accusing Sekai of malicious intent, even as she’s trying to pressure her into this threesome.  “You thought I was some innocent naïve girl you could easily deceive”.  If that’s how you actually feel about Sekai then I don’t trust you with her well being.

So this ending kind of feels more like something Kotonoha is seducing Sekai into.  Even when Kotonoha kisses Sekai right after she has an orgasm it looks like Kotonoha was an evil genius who knew exactly the perfect moment to do that.

And the start of this ending is also the same as one of the ways to get the ending where Sekai snaps. One wrong decision on that rooftop results in Sekai being brutally Reverse NTRed.  

I shall return to Otome’s role in all this, this time in the VN where she isn’t a Rapist on any timeline but is still a Bully.  There is one timeline where Kotonoha will mistakenly think Makoto is dumping her for Otome.  She will actually confide to Sekai how she had intended to just kill her rival, but she apparently has no confidence in her ability to overpower Otome because she’s “fit” athletically speaking.

That explanation is BS, Otome being good at Basketball will not be useful to defending herself against Kotonoha coming at her with a Knife.  It’s clearly really because Otome has been bullying her since well before all this started, she is irrationally afraid of Otome in a way she isn’t of anyone else. In Kotonoha’s head here she is experiencing the reverse of episode 6 of the Anime.  She feels defeated by Otome in the worst way possible and helpless to do anything about it. And I’d feel bad for her if it wasn’t for everything else.

I bet Otome’s the kind of Bully whose Bark has no Bite.  And that in truth just the sight of Kotonoha pointing a knife at her would have her falling to her knees begging for mercy like Rick Flair in a match with Ricky Steamboat.  But she’s successfully traumatized the second most iconic Yandere in all of Anime to feel powerless against her, because bullying isn’t as easy to simply get over and deal with as many conservatives and liberals want you to think.

I know some people may be planning to respond “you sure are glossing over Kotonoha’s rape in order to vilify her”.  First of all in the VN she can become a murderer or a blackmailer or a rapist all in routes where the VN version of that rape doesn’t happen. And even in the Anime she was showing manipulative and morally questionable tendencies already before then. 

Like the scene on the Train where she can tell Makoto is about to break up with her so she uses her body like she never had before to get him to agree to dance at the festival.  She also basically blackmails Setsuna after she catches her kissing an unconscious Makoto in episode 8.

Kotonoha’s rape scene feels particularly gratuitous and unnecessary to me.  All we needed to set up Kotonoha’s mindset in the closing episodes was her seeing the Bonfire dance.  Otome’s rape of Makoto feels far more important to explaining his future behavior.

Back to the VN, there Kotonoha being raped by Taisuke doesn’t guarantee you’ll get the morally worst version of her.  In fact I don’t know how to feel about the way her being Raped actually seems to decrease the odds of her becoming a Supervillain.  Oddly enough the only ending that depends on that rape happening is the Hikari one where Kotonoha winds up in a relationship with Taisuke, which doesn’t sit well with me either.  Of course Kotonoha can also wind up dating Taisuke seemingly without even being rapped first, so maybe those jerks are just meant for each other.

In the VN Taisuke can also wind up raping Sekai on routes where you are preferring Kotonoha.  And again that is not really a factor in whether or not she ever gets homicidal.

Now I’m gonna talk about the Anime’s ending.  A lot of it can be reverse engineered to how one looks at the two original VN endings it’s combining, just remember in the VN these murders don’t happen on the same timeline.  Though Sekai snapping can still be preceded by Kotnoha becoming a Yandere with a different tactic.

So in the episodes leading up to the finale Makoto had started doing a lot of sleeping around but I’ve explained the reason for that already. His main sin is distancing himself from Sekai when she tells him she's pregnant.  That is messed up, but remember he’s not an adult, in fact now is perhaps the time to ask “where is everyone’s parents”.  Well according to information you’d get from the larger universe the original VN was a part of, all of these teens seem to be the product of teen pregnancies themselves.  So their parents probably don’t know what they’re doing either.

The fact I already emphasized that originally Sekai can only Snap if she’s pregnant (and aware of it) is important because one detail the Anime forgets to mention is her resentment of her father for abandoning her mother when she got pregnant.  Setsuna’s obsession with taking care of Sekai is also tied to her knowledge that they are half sisters, maybe even some guilt that she’s the one their father at least kind of helped provide for.  But the problem with the greater Overflow universe family tree is that my desire to ship Makoto with Sekai and Setsuna is shot in the foot by the knowledge that he is unknowingly their uncle (I want to see UsefulCharts do a video on it, I think it would break him, it makes the Habsburgs and Ptolemies look normal).  So I’d rather pick and choose what to acknowledge from there.

Makoto is himself also very stressed by the end of episode 11, and the way Kotonoha approaches him at that point, I really feel like Makoto’s own consent to anything he does with Kotonoha in the last episode is dubious at best, he seems really zoned out through all of it.  But critically thinking about Makoto’s own mental state would distract from everyone’s desire to just go “Harem protagonist gets killed for being a man slut, take that Otaku perverts”.

Another thing Sekai’s breakdown in the Anime has in common with at least one route to getting that in the VN is her being Reverse NTRed.  And I guess I’m a bit messed up in that after everything I’ve said in this post, I find that scene hot.  I am on Sekai’s side here, she’s who I’m empathizing with the most, but I also have a thing for Reverse NTR and so this scene that is about emotionally and mentally destroying a character I like, I have fapped to multiple times.

The thing that cuts even deeper however is everything Kotonoha says to mindbreak Sekai here isn't just about calling her a Slut who manipulated Makoto (really the standard reading of the show kind of is just people believing what a clearly unreliable Kotonoha says here), she also brings Setsuna into it and convinces Sekai she was a bad friend to Setsuna.  Setsuna obviously doesn’t feel that way.  If anything, and I'm saying this as a huge Setsuna Stan, Setsuna was the one in the wrong in her handling of her relationship with Sekai (in both the VN and the Anime).  Her hamartia was always placing Sekai’s wants and needs over her own and allowing Sekai to become way too emotionally dependent on her.  When she kissed Makoto in episode 8 was the one time she ever acted selfishly and tragically Kotonoha just happened to be there.  But of all the things Kotonoha could have done with that dirt she had on Setsuna, using it to convince Sekai that she had betrayed Setsuna is worse than any more conventional blackmail tactic.

I would really like to get someone like LegalEagle to look at the scene where Sekai snaps.  I really do feel like it ought to fit the legal definition of Temporary Insanity, I really don’t think it was premeditated, I think even seconds prior Sekai wasn’t planning to do that.  And like in the VN she regrets it instantly, and again she's dealing with the stress of a teen pregnancy and now being accused of lying about it. Every version of Kotonoha killing Sekai however is clearly premeditated, she may be acting more conventionally like a “crazy person” but that’s because whatever mental illness she has isn't temporary.  Her crimes are always way more methodical and well planned.

To me the Anime ending is all about Kotonoha becoming the most successful supervillain of all time, even Palpatine in ROTS got less of what he wanted.  The circumstances that lead to Sekai killing Makoto was the result of Kotonoha’s intentional premeditated actions.  She was evil and she won.

Update July 2023: I eventually played the VN myself some, and I found the VN basis for that scene in episode 6 of the Anime I fixated on so much.  The Anime version feels better executed in presentation because of more precise Animation and use of Music.  But the Dialogue confirms my interpretation of what this scene tells us about Kotonoha even more blatantly.  Kotonoha goes beyond just saying "we're dating so I can talk to him if I want", there really is an even more clear catty "He loves you not" subtext to it.  God I really did love that song.

Update July 2024: I'm now even more intimately familiar with the content of the Visual novel then when I first wrote this.  And over all I feel nothing but vindicated.

If anything my focusing so much on Otome as a Rapist in the Anime is unfair to her in the context of how it's Kotonoha who does equivalent stuff in the Visual Novel even more blatantly.  VN Otome is still a Bully and her role in inspiring Taisuke's actions is much more intentional.  But as far as the issue of Female on Male Rape goes it's all Kotonoha in the VN.

In the scenario that comes from episode 5 being The Video Tape Kotonoha repeatedly assaults Makoto on the train against his protests, once start jerking him off while he's still asleep, and more.  Twice in these scenes a prompt will come up for the player but our options are only say no or nothing, no option to actually consent.

In a scene leading up to Bavarois/Lust after he tells her he loves Sekai and wants to break up she undresses in-front of him and tells him to touch her and when he doesn't she walks over and forces his face in her breast.

The issue today with how society treats Female on Male Rape is less a denial that it's theoretically possible and more having a different barrier to considering that's definitely what happened.  When it's a male assaulting a female at least most self described feminists understand that any Consent given after an encounter begins as non consensual is dubious.  But in the scene I just talked about will go "look how easily he starts sucking on them" but I'm like "he barely even looks aware of his surroundings".

Then there is the matter of SA victims themselves often not being willing to recognize that's what happened to them.  And for male victims an added reason that is this very double standard.  But because people enter this franchise with such a baseline cynical view of Makoto it's easy to go "even he admits he did something wrong...." when that's not how human psychology works, people feel guilty about things that aren't their fault all the time.

Leaving that issue I also hate Kotonoha for how the pregnancy storyline plays out in the VN, because in the VN she isn't even in full "Yandere Mode" for that.  Makoto had little interest in questioning if he was the father before Kotonoha pressed the issue.  And no this isn't me blaming her for Makoto's actions, what she does here is vile and despicable whether Makoto would have acted on it or not.  She's doing this to try and get Makoto back even though he left her for Sekai before he was even told about the pregnancy.

For anyone still questioning the parentage of the child, the fact that Sekai only gets pregnant when she has sex with Makoto early in the game even if she is with Taisuke for the same period proves the baby is Makoto's.  He simply must have really potent Sperm.

I also learned recently how the ending you get for making no choices at all is With Honesty a Sekai Ending.  If the Bad Endings are really consequences for Makoto's indecisiveness then how come the most maximally indecisive route has a good ending?  No that being the ending that happens if we don't interfere at all vindicates my belief that Sekai is who he's meant to be with.

I'm incredibly hard on Kotonoha but I also sympathize with her when the focus is on Otome and Nanami's bullying of her.  But I can also sympathize with them sometimes.  The game just is really well written with nuanced characters.

Update May 2025:End of The Folly

This extension of the To My Child ending that is only in the LxH version of the game not the original or HQ implies Taisuke is the father, as it involved both Kotnoha and Sekai raising kids officially considered Makoto's and Taisuke having one with Hikari and it's observed that the three look alike. Problem is they don't look in a way them makes them look more like Taisuke then Makoto.

What those of us familiar with broader Overflow know is that Taisuke and Makoto have close paternal common ancestry to begin with, Makoto's father is Taisuke's grandfather. So yes their kids could easily look alike. 

Also it seems like this is the only release of the Game where it's even theoretically possible for Sekai and Kotonoha to have both been inseminated by Taisuke on the same timeline.

This scene is clearly just a thoughtless tack on for this release to appeal to the Otaku community's growing NTR fetish, as shown by removing it for HQ.

It again reinforces that Sekai was certainly not faking the pregnancy, but the original version of To My Child without this addition already confirmed that showing very visibly pregnant.