Visual Novel / School Days

If only you saw the girl of your dreams in a train one day...

"If you keep the person you like on your cell-phone wallpaper for three weeks without anyone finding out, your feelings will be answered."

School Days is, at first glance, a romantic comedy in which the male protagonist, Makoto Itou, falls in love with Kotonoha Katsura, a girl at his high school who happens to travel on the same train he does. Since he is shy about approaching her, he gets help from Sekai Saionji, his friend and classmate who turns out to be in love with him herself. Naturally, a love triangle ensues, testing the limits of everyone's feelings.

Although only a tiny fraction of the game's endings being such, this game is (in)famous for its violent "Bad Ends" (as well as its infamous anime series that famously subverted everyone who watched it without knowing what they were getting into). As is the case with every Visual Novel, the ending you get will depend exclusively on the decisions you take. This means that if you play fair, behave like a rational, decent, good person, and deal with every problem presented in the story with maturity, the game will reward you with a good, funny, or even genuinely heartwarming ending.

But make no mistake, if you go into this game thinking there won’t be consequences for being a complete ass, it will end bad for you. Brutally bad.

The Days series is a continuation from the Radish Trilogy, a series of game made by Overflow which established many plot elements about the Days characters' backgrounds, as well as a Spiritual Successor of Pure Mail with similar tone. The game was followed by two sequels.

• The first, Summer Days, is an Alternate Timeline spinoff following Sekai's friend Setsuna in a What If? relationship with Makoto the summer before; a remake was released in 2012 titled Shiny Days.

• The second, Cross Days, is a P.O.V. Sequel which runs parallel to the events of the first game, following a new character, Yuuki Ashikaga, who also has feelings for Kotonoha and thus becomes involved in the infamous love triangle, unwittingly setting off one of his own.

• A third sequel, Island Days was announced for release in Japan on June 26, 2014; it strands Makoto and his fellow classmates on a deserted island and combines the usual visual novel format with survival and Tower Defense game mechanics.

The "remastered" edition of the game, School Days HQ, was released in English by JAST USA on June 28, 2012, and they have also obtained the license for Shiny Days which was released in a download edition on September 29, 2015. A limited edition physical release was released on October 7, 2015.

Note: All tropes related to the anime must go to its respective page. Same with the other games in the saga.

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This show provides examples of:

Tropes from A-J

• Aerith and Bob: The series is known for its unusual names and alternate spellings. Compare Kotonoha, Sekai, Kokoro, Roka and Itaru to Makoto, Setsuna, Yuuki, Hikari, Nanami, Taisuke and the rest.
• Adults Are Useless: Most people's parents don't show up much, and the ones that do don't seem to notice how messed up their children can be. Kotonoha's parents apparently don't notice her descent into complete insanity (though her younger sister does). Sekai's mom, Youko, does offer some helpful advice in some routes.
• All There in the Manual: School Days and its sequels are all implied to share the same universe with a number of other 0verflow games, none of which have ever been translated into English. This is how we know that, for instance, Makoto's deadbeat father is also in the family tree of several of his Love Interests. But it's probably better not to know, or think about all that stuff if you value your sanity.
• All Women Are Lustful: Downplayed, as none of the girls perpetually drool whenever they see a guy they like, but notice how many times it's the female who initiates sex with Makoto rather than the other way around (this is more likely if the player is directing Makoto to be a genuine Nice Guy). Also, during the preparations for the school festival, several girls chatter excitedly about the "break-room". While it's never explicitly stated what the room is for, it's fairly obvious what its purpose is and why the girls are so excited to use it (and both Makoto and other students demonstrate its function on various paths). One might expect Makoto to be a counterpart to this given how he's usually portrayed in adaptations and spinoffs, but in actuality, he's a pretty normal guy outside of his sexual encounters. The problem is that he's extremely hormone-addled, socially inept, and very easily led by the nose.
• Balanced Harem:
  • Subverted, as casually spending time with all possible options turns out about as badly as humanly possible.
  • Also Double Subverted as it is possible to achieve harem endings in this game. There are exactly two harem endings achievable.
    • However be careful about the triple Subversion, as one of those harem endings is a good example of Be Careful What You Wish For.
• Betty and Veronica: With Makoto as Archie, Sekai as Betty, and Kotonoha as Veronica with three possible Third Option Love Interests: Hikari, Otome, and Setsuna.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Kotonoha is a sweet girl, if shy and withdrawn. Push her too far, however, and she goes off the deep end, resulting in her murdering Sekai or committing suicide in order to traumatize Sekai and Makoto forever. She also proves herself to be quite capable of manipulation and other underhanded tactics on a level with the girls who bully her in some paths, all for the sake of keeping Makoto from leaving her.
• Big Damn Heroes: Sekai's mother Youko, of all people, in the "Bavarois" ending. Because of Kotonoha's manipulation, Sekai goes home crying thinking she'll never forgive Makoto for "cheating" on her. Makoto goes to her home and begs to be forgiven, but Sekai just tells him to leave. Then Youko arrives home with bavarois, noticing that Makoto has been sitting outside for hours, thinking there's nothing good about himself. Makoto even refuses to go inside when she asks, so Youko calls him a "stubborn boyfriend" for turning down an invitation from a beautiful woman. That irritates Sekai, who insists there's good things about him too... so Youko asks, why doesn't Sekai give him the spare bavarois and tell him that? That causes Sekai and Makoto to reconcile, sobbing that they love each other.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Makoto's family line seems to qualify. And it turns out that Makoto, through his womanizing father and grandfather, is related to almost all of the other cast members, so there's that.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Pretty much every single character can be this depending on how much you push the game to nasty situations. Setsuna and Kotonoha seem to be the least affected, but even they are capable of rather questionable actions in certain routes. At least the local Girl Posse don't bother hiding their nastiness.
• Break the Cutie: Plenty.
  • Being cheated on, dumped and raped. All in the same day.
  • Being bullied into insanity.
  • Watching your ex killing herself in front of you, because of you. In that same line, watching your ex kill your partner in front of you.
• Breast Expansion: Nanami picks an inflatable bikini for Sekai in order to compete with Kotonoha’s massive natural rack. It fails miserably because even with the help, there’s simply no way to achieve Kotonoha’s size.
• But Thou Must!: No matter how well you try to treat Kotonoha, even if you only make choices that raise her relationship bar the entire way through, in most paths you break up with her anyway. How do you avoid breaking up with her? Cheat on her with Sekai for "practice" instead.
• Butt-Monkey: Kotonoha, NOT played for any laughs.
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • Sekai and Kotonoha can really take the cake on this one, depending on the path you take.
  • Setsuna also becomes this if you manage to reach the path that includes her very own episode.
• Cruelty Is the Only Option:
  • You will end up breaking someone's heart, period. It's extremely difficult to go through the game without breaking up with Kotonoha at least once, and if you do manage it, you probably cheated on her with Sekai instead. If you try to prolong the inevitable… well, read the rest of this trope page.
  • However, the game also manages to subvert this on some occasions. There are some situations where the game will give you two equally bad options to choose from or a single unavoidable bad one. However, if you keep in mind that you can always Take a Third Option by not choosing any option at all, you can turn some nasty situations into favorable ones that can even take you on a better path.
• Deconstruction: Arguably the main point of the series (and the entire Overflow Universe) is to deconstruct the Harem Genre, H-Game adaptation dramas, and other Slice of Life style romance anime series.
  • And it also deconstructs the female characters from Harem Genre and H-Game from the various previous games of OVERFLOW themselves as well. If a girl puts up with that much shit solely to be with a guy who's really good in bed, it likely means she has serious mental/emotional problems.
• Demoted to Extra: Depending on the path you take, many characters can fall into this. There’s even a path that turns both Kotonoha and Sekai into extras for the final episode.
• Downer Ending: Probably the main reason you’re playing this game in the first place are the four (or 12 if you can get your hands on the PS2 version) violent bad endings. However, let it be known that there are some endings in the game that, while not violent, are Downer Endings themselves. "Lust" has Makoto accepting that love is just another way to describe lust and resigns to stay with Kotonoha simply because she’s willing to have sex with him anytime he wants. "Goodbye Sekai" has Sekai leaving Japan and Makoto falling into an endless cycle of having meaningless sex with every girl he meets, going all the way to underage girls. All of this, while showing real signs of a deep depression.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: If either Sekai or Kotonoha is shown to have these, bad things are sure to follow.
• Earn Your Bad Ending: A counterpoint to "Earn Your Happy Ending" below. Even if you're only playing the game to see the bad endings, they're actually rather hard to get if you're not trying for them. The exception to this is the "Bloody End" ending, which is possible to get from multiple routes in the game (so if you’re trying to reenact the anime, you’ll see this ending MANY times). The other three are played straight, with one being achievable only through two routes and the other two from one single specific route, with the "Pushed Too Far" ending being perhaps the most difficult ending in the game to get.
  • Subverted somewhat depending on your definition of "bad" ending. While there are only 3 endings where someone is killed (4 in HQ), there are other endings that are easier to obtain where Makoto and/or one of his girlfriends winds up severely unhappy and dissatisfied. Even some of the better endings have a bitter tinge to them, as whoever Makoto doesn't pick ends up depressed and lonely.
• Earn Your Happy Ending:
  • Arguably the three happiest endings of the game (a path where you have to choose between staying with Sekai, Kotonoha, or Otome, with the main difference being that the other two who aren’t chosen would agree to respect your decision and leave you alone) can be seen as this. To get there, you have to keep an almost complete neutral road and by the end, the game will choose which of the three endings you get depending on how you played before. Getting Otome might be the hardest of them all, considering not only do you have to play neutral till the very end, but also have to pick the right answers as well.
  • "Two Lovers", an ending where if you play your cards right, Makoto ends up with both Kotonoha and Sekai as his lovers. They're all on good terms with each other and plan to celebrate Christmas together, is this in spades. The "earn" part comes into play because in order to achieve it, you have to reach a very difficult path where Kotonoha actually gives up on pursuing a single relationship with Makoto and instead becomes open to him sleeping with whoever he wants as long as he continues sleeping with her as well. This is difficult because you’ll have to keep the bar very in the middle until at least episode 4 while getting a very specific path in which a few millimeters to either side can make the difference. Then by episode five, only the right answers will get you to the desired path, with many others still open if you go very far in one direction. Finally, you can still screw up and get a bad ending in the last episode if you don’t pick the right options, no matter where your bar is.
• Establishing Character Moment: Makoto’s reaction to the cellphone charm at the beginning where he's more despairing than skeptical and is genuinely upset when Sekai almost accidentally breaks the charm by peeking — and her following question about whether he's taking it seriously is the game's first player decision point, making it an Establishing Character Moment in more ways than one.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • One of Makoto's only consistent positive traits is that he hates bullies. The player can actually subvert this with a decision late on one path, but doing so leads straight to a bad end.
  • Otome isn’t exactly evil, but she does have a really nasty bullying record with Kotonoha. So seeing her being empathetic towards Kotonoha after Makoto dumps the latter in front of her during one of the paths in the game is a surprise.
• Everyone Is Related: Tomaru is his name, Sawagoe or Itou can be his family name depending on the setting, he fathered six generations, and made almost everyone in the Overflow universe related in one way or another.
  • Tangled Family Tree: Thanks to Tomaru's antics◊, Makoto is actually the uncle of Sekai, Setsuna, and Taisuke, among other things.
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • Kotonoha, in some of the paths, can turn from a very sweet girl who can’t catch a break into a very horrible manipulator who makes Makoto promise to date her if Sekai breaks up with him, then she manipulates Sekai into breaking up with Makoto by showing her a cell phone picture of what looks like Makoto cheating on her with Kotonoha without providing Sekai with the context.
  • One of the new bad endings in the PS2 version has Makoto pull a very surprising turn, helping Sekai to kill Kotonoha in an alley so she stops bothering them.
• Fan Disservice: It's hard to enjoy seeing Kotonoha's huge boobs and pretty Zettai Ryouiki-clad legs when she's getting raped by Taisuke. (Where's the Rape Discretion Shot when you need it?!)
• First Girl After All: In "Earnest Feelings Requited", the fact that Otome is the first girl Makoto met chronologically plays a big part in him deciding to choose her, after he comes to the realization he has been in love with her since the day he met her.
• First Girl Wins: Played with quite a lot. Kotonoha is the first girl the audience sees, Sekai is the first girl who talks to Makoto in the game, Setsuna was the first girl Makoto meets in the first trimester, and Otome was the first girl Makoto met chronologically speaking. Of course, you can also subvert this by ending up with Third-Option Love Interest Hikari.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Sekai and Setsuna hold this dynamic, with Sekai as the foolish one and Setsuna as the responsible one. Interestingly, this was reversed among their mothers, with Youko being the responsible one, and Mai as the foolish one.
• From Bad to Worse: Certain routes turn into this. Misunderstanding compounds misunderstanding, ultimately resulting in at least one death, and often two.
• Generation Xerox: On further searching for information on this anime/manga/Visual Novel… It turns out Sekai and Setsuna's dad is Makoto's half-older brother, and in one Marry Them All ending of the visual novel, Makoto does the same thing his brother does and gets the girls pregnant.
  • Goes back even further with Setsuna's and Sekai's grandmother, Hatsuka, who was involved with Tomaru's numerous affairs and "backstabbed" Kagura, her best friend, by becoming sexually involved with him. However, depending on paths, this may be subverted, as both Setsuna and Sekai truly want their beloved to be happy.
  • Sekai is just like her mother Youko. Both are playful and outgoing, but can be overemotional and selfish. Also in certain routes, when Makoto and Kotonoha try to convince Sekai to enter a polyamory relationship with them, she refuses, wanting Makoto all to herself. Just like how Youko eventually divorced Shun for "not loving only her".
  • Setsuna, just like her father Shun, had an ill-conceived yet well-intentioned plan to protect their loved ones. While Setsuna was willing to destroy Kotonoha and Makoto's relationship to make Sekai happy, Shun had sex with certain girls (who were also related to him, no less) in order to protect them from Tomaru's clutches. Both have Sugar-and-Ice Personality as well.
  • Taisuke, like his father Ayumu, was subjected to Rape as Drama by Kei Ogata and Asagi Inou respectively in their backstory. And because of this, they see nothing wrong about raping girls.
• Gone Horribly Right: Sekai really, really wanted to be with Makoto. And look what it all led to…
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Inverted. In one route where Sekai gets pregnant, she wants to keep her baby, but is totally fine with lying about Makoto being the father, when it might actually be Taisuke's. Makoto, on the other hand, at worst, is just scared at the possibility of being a father (the player can decide if he’s happy). Even when he finds out about not being the father, he is willing to stay with Sekai, if she gets an abortion. He asks her to choose between him and the child of another man. As you can infer from this whole messed up situation, neither pick ends well.
• Gorn: The 4 bad ends in the HQ version. The additional PS2 bad endings aren’t really graphic, preferring to make use of the Gory Discretion Shot instead.
• Gratuitous English: The logo has the tagline "In the school, the three guys met. Their relation had been changed in the season, and turned into three love stories." ^{Better translation} "Three individuals met in high school. Their relationship has changed in the course of one season. These events are turned into three separate love stories."
• Grey-and-Grey Morality: Despite what some of the more rabid fans of any given pairing may tell you, there's really no "good" or "evil" characters in this story. They're all just a bunch of teen-aged high school students who end up making increasingly poor choices without really thinking things through.
• Grief-Induced Split: The "Forever" ending involves Makoto and Sekai calling it quits on their relationship after witnessing Kotonoha throw herself off the roof.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • The original visual novel, as well as School Days HQ, can be like this. The biggest problem is that because Makoto is indecisive and waffles too much, some of the choices the player makes can be counter-intuitive, since Makoto might screw up a choice the player would handle better in real life. Compounding the problem, just like in real life, not everything is under the player's control and the love interests sometimes make bad decisions Makoto has nothing to do with. For both reasons, the player has to consult a walkthrough/guide for the right choices to make if he wants to get a specific ending. Getting endings like "Setsuna’s Feelings", "Everyone’s Makoto", "Two Lovers", "Sexfriend", "Goodbye Sekai", or "Earnest Feelings Requited" in the first playthrough without a guide is pretty much impossible.
  • Early in the game, after a lunch date with Kotonoha goes poorly since Makoto ended up talking more with Sekai, Sekai persuades Makoto to go apologize to Kotonoha. The player has two options: "I'm sorry" or "Was lunch boring for you?" Most Kotonoha fans would pick "I'm sorry"; but if you do that, Makoto just blurts out "I'm sorry, that's all" and leaves, and Kotonoha misunderstands and thinks Makoto was apologizing for even asking her out. That puts Makoto further along the Sekai path. Kotonoha fans should actually pick "Was lunch boring for you?"
  • There's another lunch date example, later in the game on a Sekai path, where Makoto has promised that he and Sekai will tell Kotonoha the truth about Makoto and Sekai going out. But if you actually pick the option where Makoto tries to flat-out tell Kotonoha the truth, Sekai will get cold feet and interrupt, talking about how good the lemonade Kotonoha made is.
  • If the player is trying for the "Two Lovers" ending, then eventually Kotonoha and Sekai will corner Makoto on a rooftop and force him to choose which one of them he wants to have sex with. Guide Dang It comes into play because Makoto is one choice away from either ending up with both girls as his lovers or getting murdered. Of course, you can also not make a pick and let the game decide for you, in which case thankfully you get the good ending.
• Heroic Bastard:
  • Makoto and Itaru are Tomaru's illegitimate children (due to his marriage to Tomoe Sawagoe).
  • Sekai, Setsuna, Inori, the Nijou Girls, and (possibly) Roka, are Shun's illegitimate daughters.
  • Taisuke and his sister, Miki, are Ayumu's illegitimate children (due to his marriage to Rurika Washino).
  • Lastly, any of Tomaru's children (except Tomomasa) are illegitimate. Yes, every one of them!
• High-Pressure Blood: "Bloody End" and "Forever" feature this.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Setsuna if you follow the route to her special episode.
• Idiot Houdini: Taisuke is a character that, through his complete stupidity, complicates and sometimes completely ruins the lives of plenty of characters through horrible acts. However, if you’re hoping him to meet one of the horrible deaths you would expect in a game with violent endings, then I’m afraid I have bad news for you. There’s not a single path where Taisuke faces real consequences for the things he does. The most you can expect is him getting dumped by the girl you pick if they were “dating”. But even then, if he is dumped in the middle of the story, there will always be a chance of him getting with Hikari by the end or worse, forcing the other girl you didn't pick into a “relationship” in the worse way.
• If I Can't Have You…: "To My Child" features a pregnant Sekai killing Makoto for choosing Kotonoha over her.
• I Just Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Why Sekai plays matchmaker for Makoto and Kotonoha, despite being in love with the former.
• Irony: Most adaptations portray Makoto as a sociopathic sex-fiend, so some players may be surprised to find that there are instances where he will refuse a girl's advances. In fact, in one route, he'll complain to Sekai about Kotonoha's increasing demand for sex.
• Jerkass: Otome's Girl Posse, though not Otome herself, take this up to eleven.

Tropes from K-T

• Karma Houdini:
  • Makoto himself, depending on which choices you make, can be this if you manage to get a good ending despite an awful playthrough.
  • Both Makoto and Sekai get away with murdering Kotonoha secretly in an alley in one of the PS2 bad endings.
  • Taisuke gets away with every awful thing he does on every route.
• Large Ham: Taisuke. Also Hikari. Maybe they do have something in common.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Nanami’s actions to drive Kotonoha away from Makoto in order to bring him and Sekai together backfire spectacularly in many routes, eventually causing Makoto to actually do the exact opposite and sever his bonds with Sekai out of sheer disgust for her actions.
• Last Girl Wins: Chronologically speaking, Kotonoha is the last girl Makoto meets, having already met Otome, Setsuna, Hikari, and Sekai before he speaks to Kotonoha for the first time, so this trope is played for her endings.
• Lighter and Softer:
  • Most of the original visual novel's routes, actually. It's entirely possible for Makoto to not be a Jerkass (but some idiocy on his part is unavoidable), nobody gets killed, Taisuke is a dumb but relatively likeable guy who helps Makoto and Sekai/Kotonoha get together (though he is still capable of showing rapey tendencies in his relationships), and the overall drama gets toned down.
  • The Light Novel adaption. The only murder scene takes place in a Dream Sequence, and Makoto is once again depicted as less of a Jerkass.
• Lousy Lovers Are Losers: Bromantic Foil Taisuke is incredibly bad at sex, in contrast to the main character Makoto who is a Sex God. In most versions of the story, most of the girls want nothing to do with Taisuke and see him as an Abhorrent Admirer, and he only gets to sleep with any of them via pressure or by raping them. Even in versions where he does manage to sleep with Hikari consensually, it's still made explicitly clear that she was disappointed with his performance.
• Love Triangle: The game is exactly this on almost every route. Only one route allows you to turn it into a square.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Sekai, you may not know it, but it seems Setsuna is your half-sister. Oh, and Makoto is your uncle. Yes, Makoto's father is the grandfather of Sekai and Setsuna.
• Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe:
  • Comes up as a plot point on a certain route in the original game. Unfortunately, no matter what choices the player makes, this situation is guaranteed to end in blood and tears.
  • What if you suddenly found out you were pregnant but your partner wasn’t the real father?
• A Man Is Always Eager: Examined; in some routes, the best outcome is only available when Makoto conclusively demonstrates it's not true by refusing another girl's advances.
• Manipulative Bastard:

• In certain game paths, Kotonoha can develop into this, too. One sterling example is when she starts using her body as a way to keep Makoto interested in her.

• Marry Them All: One of the harem endings in the game — even when the game and anime seem to be a Deconstruction of the concept, this one harem ending is the game's way of conceding that it is possible to pull it off. It's just very, very hard and one little mistake can equal NICE BOAT.
• Matchmaker Crush:
  • Sekai helps Makoto and Kotonoha hook up... and puts a lot more effort into it than you would expect. And then she gives herself a reward for her efforts by surprise-kissing Makoto. This does not end well.
  • Also, Setsuna. She has a crush on Makoto, but decides to make sure he stays with Sekai instead, so he can protect her before she goes to live abroad.
  • Another version of this is revealed to have happened with Sekai. She was initially helping Setsuna to win Makoto's attention after finding out that she had a crush on him. Eventually, Sekai developed her own feelings for Makoto, and Setsuna quietly bowed out when they became apparent.
• Meido: Makoto's and Sekai's class ran a Maid Cafe during the School Festival.
• Mistaken for Gay: Taisuke calls Makoto one night before the festival to ask about Sekai. Makoto will try to guess why he’s calling and you’re given the option to pick “Confess your love”, at which point Makoto will hilariously assume Taisuke was calling to confess his love for him and hurry to tell him he doesn’t swing that way.
• Morality Kitchen Sink: Due to the complex nature of the story, it’s expected for every character to fall into this.
• Multiple Endings: As is usual for visual novels. The original game became infamous for its bad endings, but in actuality, there are five or six times as many good endings and most of the bad endings are hard to get unless you're deliberately aiming for them. In contrast, the happiest endings are also very hard to get. Most of the time, you’ll get bittersweet endings if you play the game blind.
  • An interesting variation of this exist in the PS2 version of the game where you can get multiple variations of a new bad ending involving a train. In total, there are three versions: One where Sekai pushes Kotonoha to the rails but falls as well, Makoto helps Kotonoha up but Kotonoha can’t save Sekai in time and she’s crushed; one where Kotonoha pushes Sekai to the rails and Makoto saves her but fails to save himself; and finally one where Makoto fails to save either girl and both get crushed. Eventually, Overflow would add one last variation of the ending to the HQ version where Sekai succeeds in pushing Kotonoha to the train rails where she’s crushed. NICE TRAIN, INDEED.
• Murder the Hypotenuse:
  • In "Bloody End", Kotonoha kills Sekai.
  • In "Pushed Too Far", Sekai kills Kotonoha.
• No Accounting for Taste:
  • Subverted. Unlike in the anime, the game makes every girl's reasons to like Makoto very clear. Kotonoha explains early in the game that she started falling for Makoto when she noticed him watching her on the train every day. Kotonoha has a crippling lack of self-esteem; at first it was because she was flattered that a gentle boy like Makoto would pay so much attention to her, and she started paying attention to him too. Then when Makoto confessed his feelings, Kotonoha was taken aback that Makoto would actually want to go out with "just" her. Makoto's the first person outside her family to bring happiness into her life; this is also the reason why if the player cheats on her with Sekai, Kotonoha thinks it was her fault and works harder to please Makoto. In Otome's case, it was because of how nice a guy Makoto used to be back in junior high school. And in Sekai's case, she repeatedly witnessed him being nice as they grew up as childhood friends, and eventually she fell for him at around the time of the entrance ceremony of the school year in which this game takes place.
  • Played straight between Hikari and Taisuke, though.
• Official Couple Ordeal Syndrome: Although it's more like an Official Love Triangle Ordeal Syndrome, given that while it's hard to make a strong case for which pairing is actually the Official Couple, it's very clear that all three of them end up putting one another through Hell by virtue of the fact that both Sekai and Kotonoha desperately crave the affection of Makoto, who is often (depending on the adaptation) either cripplingly indecisive or just taking advantage of both of them out of his own lust. The worst endings typically involve one of the girls snapping under the strain and killing either Makoto, her rival, or herself.
• The Dying Walk: During the "To My Child" ending, Makoto will try to walk back to his home, while being gravely wounded by Sekai, he doesn't make it back, as he lays down and Dies Wide Open
• The Ojou: Kotonoha. Just compare her room to Sekai's and/or Makoto's.
• Parental Abandonment: The only parents ever seen or heard are Sekai's mom Youko, Kotonoha's mother Manami (only heard in the anime), and Setsuna's mother Mai (in the Summer Days spin-off game). All the others (Makoto's estranged father, Kotonoha's father, Sekai and Setsuna's father) are merely mentioned.
• Parental Incest: (though this version is a bit bigger) look through this family tree.
• Poor Communication Kills: Not as bad as the anime, but still present. Makoto never bothers to tell anyone that he's dating Kotonoha (save Sekai), and Sekai never bothers to set the record straight when Nanami accuses Makoto of dating another girl behind Sekai's back (even if Makoto and Sekai hadn't been dating to begin with). This does nothing to defuse the drama.
• Porn with Plot: Granted, the plot can be mind-numbingly dense at points, but it's there.
• Practice Kiss: Sekai, taking advantage of the problems between Makoto and Kotonoha, uses this as a ruse to make Makoto fall for her.
• Primal Scene: Thanks to Makoto and Sekai being masters at communication, Kotonoha rushes to meet the former on the roof, only to find both of them getting frisky. No points for guessing how she reacts.
• Rape as Drama:
  • In some routes, this happens to whichever of the girls is unfortunate enough to end up with Taisuke.
  • Going back to read Puremail After revealed that Taisuke suffered one as well from Kei Ogata (one of Makoto's half-brothers), the protagonist of the game who was dating his older sister, Miki, and mistook him for her.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Sekai and Kotonoha, respectively.
• Relationship Values: You have two bars, one for Kotonoha and one for Sekai; the bar swings toward one or the other depending on your actions, although you can also get with one of three other girls.
• Satellite Love Interest: Setsuna falls for Makoto because he saved her from bullies; this is something that many people with a sense of basic human decency would do, but there don't seem to be any other bully hunters at school in this game, so one could almost argue Setsuna fell for Makoto "by default". A similar "by default" argument could be applied in Kotonoha's case: Makoto was the first boy in her life who didn't either drool at her breasts and scare her or make her feel unattractive; when Makoto asks her out, she's taken aback that Makoto would think lovingly of just her. Otome loves Makoto because of the man he used to be in junior high school. Hikari in the game only falls for Makoto because he turns out to be really good in bed. And finally, Sekai seems to have fallen for Makoto because she repeatedly witnessed his best side; it's not clear whether Sekai anticipated Makoto's flaws in advance. Makoto seems to get female attention mostly because he's the only available male shown that isn't either a rapist-waiting-to-happen like Taisuke or isn't already someone's boyfriend like the good person (who is actually far WORSE than him) Nanami is dating.
• School of No Studying: Taken to a more ridiculous level than usual, as petty campus drama seems to be the ONLY thing on anyone's minds. Well, that and steamy, statutory sex.
• Secret Relationship: Makoto and Kotonoha's relationship might as well be one most of the time, as Makoto never really talks about it with anyone but her, and Sekai and few others are inclined to believe Kotonoha's protests even when Makoto's not cheating on her. So much of the plot would have been avoided and/or simplified if Makoto had just told other people that he and Kotonoha were dating. Also, Makoto and Sekai try to maintain one in most routes of the game, but they're very bad at hiding it from anyone but Kotonoha, who mostly doesn't realize at first because she's in denial.
  • Actually averted in at least one route: Makoto's ending narration says that at some point, everyone at school found out that he and Kotonoha were a couple. Apparently Sekai's friends didn't get the memo.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Subverted with Sekai and Makoto in Kotonoha's route. They are Just Friends, as far as Makoto is concerned, but Sekai's friends think it's "so obvious" they are dating, its funny how they keep denying it. They also bully Kotonoha, thinking she's trying to break up Makoto and Sekai's relationship, when in reality it's the other way around.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The bad endings definitely classify as this.
• Shrinking Violet: Kotonoha.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The bad endings are set to a calm, though still depressing, tune.
• Stalker with a Crush: Taisuke, Otome, and, to some degree, Kotonoha.
  • Makoto towards Kotonoha at the start, though he stops once he starts going out with her.
• Stock Shoujo Bullying Tactics: Kotonoha is subjected to several of these. She mostly goes through being cornered and insulted by Otome and Co. as well as being the target of Malicious Slander from Nanami and Hikari in all routes. In some routes, things are taken way too far, and if you have Makoto stop the last round and call the bullies out, you get some of the happiest Kotonoha endings.
• Tears of Remorse: Kotonoha in the extended version of "Bloody End" in the PS2 version. She has just murdered Sekai in front of Makoto in cold blood and offers herself to him, but Makoto is terrified and rejects her offer. This is enough to make Kotonoha realize that she has just done something terrible, and she breaks down in tears.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Kotonoha delivers one to Sekai on many routes for having helped her to meet Makoto, only to stab her in the back later.
  • If you choose to play both sides like ping-pong or go all the way for Kotonoha ignoring Sekai completely, Nanami gives one to Makoto during the last episode telling him that he's an asshole for making Sekai so depressed with his actions and that even though she was ok with him dating Sekai before, she would never accept him as Sekai's boyfriend from now on. A rather sad situation, given you can get one Sekai ending from that point onward if you play properly.
• There Are No Therapists: Nobody but Kotonoha's little sister Kokoro notices her fall into insanity.
• Title-Only Opening: Only applies to the first episode, which has a simple title card on a black-screen. The Anime Theme Song still plays over the ending credits, though.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl:
  • Sekai is the Tomboy to Kotonoha's Girly Girl, and Setsuna's as well.
  • Nanami and Hikari
  • Otome plays Tomboy to her trio's Girly Girls.
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: None of the plot's many twists and turns in any media would have happened if Sekai had managed to keep her lips to herself.
• Tragic Hero: Makoto. He genuinely cares about both Sekai and Kotonoha, but his Tragic Flaw of not being able to choose between them and carrying on a simultaneous relationship creates problems he is unable to resolve properly until it's too late.
• Trauma Conga Line: Kotonoha. At times, it seems like the creators thought up her character and then based the entire game around making as many horrible things happen to her as possible.
• Tsundere:
  • Sekai seems at first to be a Type B...
  • Otome is a more straight example, acting like a Type A often. Lampshaded in her ending, where two members of her Girl Posse ask themselves how come she and Makoto can stay together if they keep squabbling all the time, and the last one just shows them a picture of them kissing she took in secret, implying that Otome is incredibly Tsun in public but ridiculously Dere in private.
• Two-Teacher School: The few teachers that appear are never even given a name aside from Yamamoto who scolds Makoto in some paths.

Tropes from U-Z

• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Sekai; her seducing Makoto is what sets in motion all the events that transpire.
• Utsuge: Even the routes to the better endings have their fair share of drama. Even if you are as good of a person as possible the whole way through, regardless of which of the 2 girls you pick, you're going to make someone suffer and cry at some point.
• Violation of Common Sense: The only way to go through the whole game without breaking up with Kotonoha is to cheat on her with Sekai instead.
• Yandere:
  • Kotonoha is seen as the prime example poster child of this Character type due to the "Forever" ending, her portrayal in other media and most of the fan works. In reality, she’s more of a subversion than a straight example in the original game. While Kotonoha was very jealous and obsessed at times, she never went to extreme lengths to keep Makoto from spending time with other girls and usually would never complain as long as Makoto eventually had time for her later. In the Harem ending, she’s the one who accepts and encourages Makoto to sleep with anyone he wants. There are also some routes where she actually accepts that Makoto has moved on from her. Finally, the extended version of one of the bad endings shows she would never be capable of killing Makoto no matter who he chose.
  • Sekai is also an example in some bad endings.
• You Bastard!: You pretty much have to be aiming for the worst endings in the game in order to get them. Studio Overflow's tongues can be assumed to be firmly in cheek, though, considering that these same endings have essentially become the game's main selling point.

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