In September 2007, one day before the airing of the last episode of the anime School Days in Japan (scheduled for September 21, 2007), a 16-year-old girl killed her father with an ax in Kyoto. Due to a very similar scene present in the episode and to avoid the relation to the ax murder, TV Kanagawa replaced the episode with a half hour of unrelated scenery while it played “Air on a G String” background. A Norwegian ferry (shown below) was included in the footage.
Amidst the shock and anger expressed among fans, a 4chan user commented “Nice Boat (beautiful boat)”, in reference to the Norwegian ferry that appears in the substitution images, which ended up generating a meme that would transcend generations. The phrase quickly became a meme, although it is more popular in Japan than in English-speaking countries. The scene spawned multiple pieces of fan art mixing School Days and the phrase “Nice Boat.”
The developer company of the original visual novel of School Days, 0verflowrenamed its stand the Comiket 73 named Nice Boat in honor of the meme. Also, in 2020, an episode of Ishuzoku Reviewers (Interspecies Reviewers) was canceled and replaced with images of boats, leading some to speculate that it was a reference to the meme “Nice Boat“. And why are we dedicating an article to that? It turns out that today marks fifteen years since that broadcast that made history both on Japanese television and in the anime fan community: the day School Days was “too much” for television.
Sinopsis de School Days
High school student Makoto Itou first notices Kotonoha Katsura at the beginning of the second semester, in his first year. He is immediately fascinated by her beauty, but her shyness does not allow him to approach her, even though they travel on the same train every day. Instead, he secretly takes a photo of her and sets it as the wallpaper on her cell phone: a charm that, if he keeps it secret long enough, is supposed to help forge a relationship. However, her classmate Sekai Saionji sees the image of her, but instead of ratting him out, she offers to help him with Kotonoha, even going so far as to befriend her just for him. Thus, the trio begins a rather impromptu friendship…
Fuente: Livedoor News
