9 From Fantasy to TraumaSound and Sex in School Days
Ko On Chan
Content warning: This chapter contains discussion of rape, sexual assaults, and graphic violence.
Beginning as an innocent high school romance, the Japanese anime School Days (2007) quickly turns into a story of sex, trauma, and violence. Its finale, in particular, features two vengeful murders and concludes with a gruesome scene on a drifting sailboat where a teenage girl contentedly hugs a decapitated head. Disturbingly, this episode found an echo in reality on the day before its scheduled premiere when a 16-year-old girl in Kyoto murdered her cheating father with an ax while attempting a guillotine execution.1 Subsequently, School Days became ...
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