YMMV / DAYS

• Americans Hate Tingle: At its peak with the anime airing, it's highly advertised around Japan and a mainstream seller. Outside of Japan, it has a cult following at best.
• Arc Fatigue: Compared to Seiseki first match against Saku High & Yuigahama, which is around 10 chapters and against Keiou & Touin, around 30 chapters. The match against Ryouzan is unexpectedly long, going for almost 70 chapters which not only includes the match itself, but also flashbacks surrounding Ryouzan.
• Awesome Art: The manga art that uses a modernized 90s aesthetic, especially in big panels.
• Awesome Music: The second OP, "Higher Climber" by Howl Be Quiet.
• Base-Breaking Character: Anime viewers, in particular, found Tsukushi either weak and annoying or heartwarming and adorable.
• Bishōnen Jump Syndrome: It's a shounen manga and running in a shounen magazine, but that doesn't stop all the boys from being ridiculously pretty.
• Broken Base:
  • The manga itself. Readers either find it genuinely inspiring seeing Tsukushi starting as a soccer player along with the fun cast interactions, or totally unrealistic (given that Tsukushi, a complete beginner is in the thick of selection for tournaments amidst very experienced players) and the soccer matches (exacerbated by the anime series) being the weakest part at the start ^note  Yasuda admitted that he started off focusing more on the slice of life aspect
  • Tsukushi eventual role in soccer. Fans agreed starting as a striker, seeing him scoring an actual goal is going to be a highlight for this manga. But with his skill set proven as the matches go on, fans thought he might be more suited as a defensive midfielder.
• Cargo Ship:
  • Mizuki/Ball.
  • Kimishita/Food.
• Character Shilling: Whether or not you root for Tsukushi, it is hard to argue that the praises he got from everybody else (which is especially bad in the beginning) can be somewhat unwarranted, a criticism that even Tsukushi himself admits.
• Cliché Storm: The dialogue sounds very generic in early chapters. It gets better.
• Die for Our Ship:
  • Once Sayuri made her first appearance, she immediately copped heat from fans of both the Tsukushi x Ubukata and Tsukushi x Kazama pairings, especially when her appearances took a nosedive after Tsukushi joined the soccer club.
  • Thankfully averted with Ubukata, who usually gets the reluctant Shipper on Deck or Romantic Wingman treatment from Kazama/Tsukushi shippers.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Kimishita is just as popular as the main two, especially in fanart. Even Yasuda Tsuyoshi himself was surprised by his popularity. In fact, the first Days Gaiden chapter revolves around him.
  • Ubukata. The fandom loves her and liked to ship her with all the guys, a sufficiently rare occurrence in a Cast Full of Pretty Boys fandom. Then Hoshina appeared, and now she's mostly shipped with him.
  • Usui. The whole fandom seems to have a crush on Usui, to the point where he actually came in first in the popularity poll, beating even the main characters.
  • Hayase gets a disproportionate amount of fanart compared to his screentime.
  • Indou, and the rest of Saku High to some extent.
  • Satou and Suzuki. They're especially popular among shippers.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Some fans prefer to pretend the anime never happened after MAPPA first underbudgeted the first season to the point of no return and then broke its promise of a second season, choosing to conclude the series with a three-episode limited edition OVA series instead, meaning the finale is only accessible to a select few fans who can afford to buy it.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Tsukushi and Kazama, by a long way.
  • Ooshiba and Kimishita too.
• Gotta Ship 'Em All: As usual for a sports anime with a Cast Full of Pretty Boys. There are a few ships that are shipped by the large majority of the fanbase, but aside from that there are many minor ships, with many a Crack Pairing or two.
• Growing the Beard: The writing drastically improves during and especially after the match against Saku High. The match against Keiou is another highlight, as that is the arc where Tsukushi really shone for the first time, with the addition of his genuine slice of life chapters between the match against Touin and the match against Yuigahama.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Kimishita's voice actor has voiced another midfielder with the jersey number 10 and a tendency to think of forwards as his dogs. Even funnier when you consider that their personalities and voices are on completely opposite ends of the spectrum.
  • Ooshiba's line that "a handsome man and water never get along well" has become ironic after he got voiced by the voice actor who, in an earlier role, once rendered the famous line, "A little water doesn't hurt anyone... Besides, people are always telling me I'm dripping with good looks."
• Ho Yay: Has its own page.
• Jerkass Dissonance: Some of the most popular characters (Kishimita & Ooshiba for starters) are also the rudest or arrogant ones – both because they're well-written, charming and because they're just fun to watch.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • Averted with Tsukushi, surprisingly enough for a protagonist. He mostly only gets shipped with Kazama and sometimes Ubukata or Mizuki.
  • Kimishita. He gets shipped with Ooshiba, Mizuki, Kazama, Haibara, and generally half the team.
  • Ubukata used to be shipped with Tsukushi, Usui, Nakazawa, Kazama, and many others, but now that Hoshina has been hinted to be her official Love Interest the fandom has largely settled on shipping her with him.
  • Usui gets shipped with the whole team (including Coach Nakazawa) and several others.
• Moe: Pretty much the entire fandom agrees that Tsukushi is adorableness incarnate.
• More Popular Spin-Off: To Furimukuna Kimi wa, in the way that they both take place in the same 'verse and the former's protagonists show up again in DAYS as heroes of another story. While the former flopped and never got much attention, the latter became one of very few spokon in the 2010s that achieved success in Weekly Shonen Magazine, became Yasuda's most well-known work after Overdrive, and people now start referring to its predecessor as the spinoff.
• Never Live It Down: Mizuki's "Namaste."
• Nightmare Fuel: Some Slasher Smiles can have this effect, as well as Taira's dead-fish eyes.
• Periphery Demographic: While it's running in a shonen magazine, its Cast Full of Pretty Boys has naturally attracted quite a number of female fans.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Narukami, thanks to development and the prequel portraying his and Indou's backstory.
  • To a lesser extent, Ubukata. Opinions on her were divided while she was still implied to be Tsukushi's abrasive Tsundere love interest, but once that was scrapped and she became her own character the fandom welcomed her with open arms.
• The Scrappy: Taira, oh boy. Part of it is because of his creepy face, the other part is mostly anger at what he did to Kimishita.
• Ship Mates: Kazama/Tsukushi and Hoshina/Ubukata generally go very well together.
• Smurfette Breakout: You'll be hard-pressed to find someone in the fandom who doesn't love and admire Ubukata.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: For Furimuku na Kimi wa, another soccer manga by Yasuda that tells the story of Indou, Narukami, and the first year of the current Saku High third-years.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Fans' general reaction to the anime adaptation, which changed the original (and very well-liked) art style and cut out many a charming or enjoyable moment or character quirk for the sake of pacing. (All that might have been more forgivable if the series hadn't also suffered heavily from Off-Model and No Budget, but that's a different story.)
• Viewer Gender Confusion: When the first promotional art for the anime was released many thought Kazama was a girl.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: Completely and hilariously averted with Kimishita. The fandom loves his (intentionally) catastrophic fashion choices and has a lot of fun drawing him in even more terrible outfits in fanart.