For Christmas I got Jack Jeanne as a gift from my father. I have finally finished my first route and I wanted to talk about what I love and not-so love about the game so far! There are still 6 other routes for me to do, but I have so much to say about just one that I wanted to share my thoughts.
I will be discussing spoilers for Soshiro's route, but only under the cut! So BEWARE!!!!
I'll probably make more blog posts about this game when I do more routes lol. It's infesting my brain.
You play as Kisa Tachibana, a young girl finishing middle school. Kisa dreams of attending Univeil Theater Academy like her older brother, Tsuki, but unfortunately it's an all-boys school where both masculine and feminine roles are played by men. Masculine roles are played by "Jacks" and feminine roles are played by "Jeannes", hence the title of the game.
Tsuki was a legendary Jack Ace who was beloved by many and graduated at the top of his class at Univeil, but has since disappeared, leaving Kisa with her father who has unpaid debts which forces her to work in place of attending high school. Kisa is about to give up on her dreams until an encounter with Univeil's principal, who asks Kisa to audition for the academy on the condition that she gets a lead role at the Univeil performance, nobody finds out that she's a girl or that she's related to Tsuki. Kisa jumps at this opportunity to chase after her seemingly-impossible dream.
There are 4 classes at Univeil:
Something to note is that this game is by Sui Ishida and Shin Towada. You may know Sui Ishida as he's the mangaka responsible for 'Tokyo Ghoul' and the ongoing 'Choujin X' (which I totally need to read), as well as Shin Towada who is his older sister. I'm a super huge fan of Ishida's art style and the CGs for this game are super gorgeous. (Though, some CGs might have some dodgy anatomy or details because it seems like Ishida had a lot on his plate. Otherwise, extremely beautiful.)
Jack Jeanne has 3 elements: story, stat building and rhythm game.
Story- It's an otome visual novel, but something to note is that the actual character routes start about 80% into the story. The first section of the story is referred to as the "common route", which remains the same in every playthrough, save for very small interactions. The routes split on Christmas depending on who you choose and what stats you've raised.
As for what I think of the story, I personally really enjoy it. Kisa has to navigate her new life as a Univeil student, aiming for lead roles and performance awards while keeping her secret of being a girl. You meet some students from other classes who are about as interesting and peculiar as you'd expect theater students to be.
There are 4 seasonal performances that lead up to the final performance of the academic year, the Univeil performance.
You explore the struggles of being a Univeil student and the insecurities that build behind the curtains. I find the protagonist's relationship with gender quite interesting but I do wish it was explored a bit more. Maybe it just wasn't a big part of the route I experienced first to be fair, since the love interest I went for first already knew about Kisa's gender.
If you've watched Aikatsu, you might be familiar with the kinds of things Jack Jeanne explores in the story. This seems like a bit of an odd comparison but it's because they're both about students at a performance school and you see them grow and struggle. I found one of the characters to be quite similar to Kiriya Aoi and her personal insecurities of not being as good as her peers. Maybe it's just beause I'm a huge Aikatsu fan LOL. Revue Starlight would be a farrrrr more accurate comparison, but Jack Jeanne is not quite about sword-fighting-lesbians-under-the-school.
Stat building- I'll be real, this part of the game is an absolute joke. The ONLY thing it does is ensure you unlock the specific romantic route you want. You have 6 stats and each corresponds to a love interest. Raise the stat you want and you're basically set. It absolutely does not affect anything else in the game whatsoever and is quite literally a button press (you can even automate it so that you can just choose a stat to repeat for the week).
I really wish that this mattered more or that you had to manage these better. When I started the game I actually did think this mattered similar to in Monster Prom, but it straight up doesn't do anything. I hope that Jack Jeanne 2 reworks the stat system and gives the player a bit more management to do. I understand that it's not the focus of the story, but it truly feels like a useless aspect of the game.
Rhythm game- Have you ever played Love Live, Bandori, Enstars or any of those other mobile rhythm games? You will find familiarity in Jack Jeanne's rhythm game sections! There are two types:
Between the two, I found the singing one to be far more difficult. I think it's that my brain couldn't really process when to move left or right, but you definitely get more used to it. One complaint I have is that the expert level dancing rhythm game wasn't very compatible with how I set up my buttons, which is my fault, but I found it to be really unintuitive personally. I think the beatmaps were designed with buttons in mind and some expert maps are laid out in ways that are almost impossible to do by tapping on the screen.
Despite that, I actually LOVE the music in this game. The characters have really lovely vocals too! My favourite song is "Intense Confessions at the Confessional" (hefty title!), one of the songs for the Winter performance ingame. Listen if you'd like, I'll embed it below ;) ! Though, if you're interested in the game and you care about not spoiling yourself on performances, I would say skip on it. It's not inherently spoilers, but I really did enjoy seeing them for myself.
I do think the 3D models are pretty ugly. They're kind of jank and clip a lot, but they're only used in the dancing music videos behind the rhythm game, so it's really not a big issue to me. It did make me burst out laughing when I first saw them, though.
In this game you have 6 romanceable characters. I'll give you a short rundown so you can get an idea of who they are and maybe who you'd go for first! They're all students of Quartz, the class that Kisa Tachibana is assigned to in her first year of Univeil. Sadly, only Quartz members are romanceable, but maybe that will change in Jack Jeanne 2 that was announced to be in production last year.
SUZU ORIMAKI - He's a first-year that Kisa first meets when they audition together. Suzu might not be the brightest, but he's energetic and earnest about everything that he does. He always does his best and aims to be a Jack.
SOSHIRO YONAGA- Another first-year, as well as Kisa's childhood friend that used to play pretend with the Tachibana siblings as kids. This makes him the only love interest to know from the get-go that Kisa's actually a girl. He's a bit insecure, but truly passionate about acting. He aims to be a Jack, but starts off getting Jeanne roles due to his appearance.
(Haha, is it obvious I did Soshi's route first?)
MITSUKI SHIROTA- The only relevant Quartz second-year. Mitsuki is Quartz's Tresor, their best singer. He's often cold and bossy and keeps to himself to focus on his singing. Mitsuki is always given Jeanne roles due to his feminine appearance and beautiful singing voice.
SARAFUMI TAKASHINA- Quartz's Al Jeanne, the leading Jeanne actor. He is a third-year and is best known for his exceptional dancing. Fumi may seem intimidaitng at first, but he's actually pretty easy-going and kind to his underclassmen. As well as that, he was previously paired with Tsuki Tachibana, the previous Jack Ace of Quartz.
KAI MUTSUMI- Quartz's Jack Ace, the leading Jack actor. He is a mysterious third-year who is rather quiet and withdrawn, but devoted to supporting Sarafumi when they're on stage together. Kai excells at leading his underclassmen and helping them grow.
KOKUTO NEJI- Quartz's class representive and playwright. He's an eccentric third-year who writes the plays for Quartz, but is also a talented actor as well. He often assigns himself silly roles, but it's obvious that he's still a genius. It seems like Neji is the only character who has a pretty even split on Jack/Jeanne roles, but I believe he leans towards Jeanne? (I'm doing his route next!!)
When I initially got the game, I planned to do Neji's route first (I should be calling him by his first name but Neji rolls off the tongue nicer) but I totally fell in love with Soshiro when actually reading the story. I found him to be cute and quite relateable. Now that I've finished Sou-chan's route, I can now do Neji's route. He seems to be the most popular character by far and I've seen glimces of what could be explored of his character, but I won't know until I play!
If I've caught your interest and you want to play the game for yourself, this is where I recommend you click off and spend about [paused to google] THE GAME IS HALF OFF RIGHT NOW! Usually about £45, but currently £22~ until the 12th. I totally recommend this game!! It's the only thing I've been thinking about recently!!!!
I did Soshiro Yonaga's route first because I'm a sucker for childhood friends. If you don't care about spoilers, then feel free to read on!
(Also this is going to be a bunch of nonsense and I'm aware. I just need somewhere to put my thoughts that isn't my twitter.)
I'm actually quite bad at keeping track what I've done and seen in a year, but I wanted to talk about the things that have stuck with me and really loved.
(I'll keep things spoiler free in case you ever get interested in any of these things!)
(Also warning for an image of a real life snail. In case that freaks you out.)
Starting strong with arguably the worst entry in the Zero Escape trilogy: Zero Time Dilemma. There are many things that give this game a bad reputation, most notably its writing, uncanny 3D models and its insanely stupid plot twist and ending. Despite all of this, I found it to be really good because it was so (unintentionally) funny and stupid.
I really love the promotional art for the game. It's creepy, dark and begs a lot of questions. I really adore how it was painted and the use of the textures to make it look gritty. It's a shame there isn't a lot more art like this for the game, but I assume it was likely due to its weird development.
If you aren't familiar with the Zero Escape series, it's a mystery puzzle/visual novel game series with 3 games: 999, VLR and ZTD. It was created by Kotaro Uchikoshi, who has since created the AI: the Somnium Files games (which I also quite enjoy).
Frankly I don't actually know much about the development for the game but it's pretty evident that the game definitely went through a rough patch. I think it's most obvious in the visuals of the game, particularly with how the 3D models look and how they move.
The characters look unnatural not only in their models, but with how stiff they are and how BAD the animations are. I actually personally like the 3D models even though they might look a bit disturbing. The way they're painted is actually quite stylish to me, but the lack of expression makes it look really poor. The worst offender is easily Eric, who has the scariest model in the game
(Pictured: Eric. He looks insane.)
The thing about the visuals for this game is that they're so bad that it makes things so much more entertaining. Even in its most serious moments, this game reads more like a comedy than mystery or horror just because the characters look stupid or they move in comical ways. I don't know if it was intended to be so funny but somehow I feel like it was on purpose.
This actually wasn't my first watch of the game (I tend to watch playthroughs more than I play games... broke lol) but I had never actually seen the entire game because I didn't bother to when I initially got into Zero Escape. I was trying to remember how this all came about and it turns out that I decided to watch a playthrough after seeing a snail in my bathroom. It had pooped on my wall and I made a joke about it to my friend who has played the ZE games. What does a snail have to do with ZTD? It's a reference to a story they tell a few times ingame.
As for the actual story of the game, it's not totally bad. I do enjoy the split between the 3 teams in the game and slowly piecing things together, but the biggest glaring issue is the plot twist and overall ending to the game. This game has the stupidest plot twist in a video game, ever, period. If you went into this game completely blind, I guarantee you would not pick up on the "foreshadowing". It actually made rewatching gameplay far more enjoyable with the knowledge of this plot twist because I did pick up on the few times it was foreshadowed and everytime I went "wow... this is so bullshit lol".
Again, no spoilers, but my favourite character is Mira❤. She's the token sexy woman in an Uchikoshi game, but she actually has a lot of depth and she's a character I think about very often. She isn't really fanservice either, surprisingly.
Even though I'm saying some horrible things about this game, I highly recommend the Zero Escape series. The games go on sale regularly on steam and they're some of my favourites. I can't speak personally on doing the puzzles myself, but from what I have watched I think they're pretty fun. The story is fantastic- it's mysterious but also fun and wacky at times.
Next is Gakuen Alice, which I read in September. Its anime was actually one of my favourites as a kid but since the anime only had 1 season, I never got to see the ending. The anime actually only covers a small portion of the manga which is a shame because it gets better in the later chapters. Gakuen Alice fundamentally shaped my childhood and I'm super nostalgic for it.
Something that was consistently a problem was that a large portion of the manga is not officially translated, which usually wouldn't be an issue with fan translations, but since it's an old manga the fan translations are extremely poor quality. It's a shame because I think the story is pretty fantastic, but I wasn't able to fully grasp it due to the poor translations. I do appreciate the efforts that people put into translating things, but sometimes a bad translation just doesn't add anything.
Gakuen Alice is an anime about Mikan, a 10-year-old girl who's upset about her best friend Hotaru moving schools, so naturally she chooses to follow her and sneak into the academy. Alice Academy is actually an academy for people with 'Alices', super powers. They range from things like pyrokinesis, to talking to animals to time travelling. No matter how mundane, Alice users are enrolled at the academy to train their powers but also protect them from the public, as Alice users are a minority.
It's like My Hero Academia before My Hero Academia, but with a younger main cast and no superheroes.
What I really enjoyed about Gakuen Alice was feeling the bond of the characters in the Academy. Alice users are forced to attend the academy until they're adults, so they all live in the confines of the Academy grounds until they're old enough to leave, or if they somehow lose their powers. Alices have different types, one being that your Alice disappears with age. As a result, all of the kids of the academy, of all ages, are very tight knit and all know each other.
It's pretty sad being a student at the academy because you're taken away from your parents, most from extremely young ages, and forced to study there. This is why Hotaru Imai, one of the main characters, had moved schools many times before meeting Mikan because her parents had already lost one child to the academy and didn't want Hotaru to be taken away. Her older brother, Subaru, is already a high school senior by the time Hotaru gets to meet him for the first time. The two have an odd relationship due to not growing up together, but since they're siblings, they get closer by the end of the manga which is really sweet.
It's small things like the Imai siblings that make me really appreciate the relationships in the manga. There are countless characters in Gakuen Alice so I obviously can't cover everything about it, but it's a manga where the relationships are so palpable to me. In true shoujo manga fashion, our protagonist Mikan is a shining beam of sunshine and she makes a lot of friends, even though she's initially outcast for being new to the school.
When Mikan sneaks into Alice Academy it's revealed that she's actually an Alice herself, but due to the true nature of her powers, it's initially kept under wraps by the teachers. Mikan has the nullification alice which allows her to nullify the powers of other alice users. It doesn't permanently remove their powers, but is proven to be extremely powerful in certain situations.
I absolutely love the power system in Gakuen Alice. There's a lot to cover, but one thing I really like is the Alice stone system. Alice users can make physical manifestations of their powers which are small stones, about the size of a pearl on average. These stones hold a small amount of their power and can manifest their powers. There's a myth about how if two Alices exchange their stones, they'll be together forever, but exchanging Alice stones is actually pretty practical if you get specific kinds. For example, Subaru has the healing Alice, so having his Alice stone would come in handy if you got injured...!
If you're a shoujo manga fan, I highly recommend this manga. It's sweet, cute, but also gets darker as you read further. I know that's something people say about a lot of stories, but I find some things explored in the manga to be really compelling. Of course with most shoujos, there's romance. I was surprised because I really liked the main pairing in the manga, Natsume and Mikan, as a kid but as a somewhat-adult, I actually prefer other pairings for Mikan. I don't take it super seriously though because they're kids lol. But it's just kind of funny how the author manages to write two other romances for the MC and choose the least interesting one.
Now, this is the only spoiler I'll cover in this post but I doubt anyone will care. Hotaru is explicitly in love with Mikan and I was absolutely fucking shocked. I was so shocked to find out that this 2000s manga had an explicitly gay character, no less one who's really young......AND THEY KISS!!!!!!!!!!! The thing about Hotaru and Mikan is that Hotaru seems to dismiss Mikan, but has a huge soft spot for her. Mikan is often silly and stupid as children are and Hotaru often criticizes her, but deep down she's overly protective of Mikan.
There is technically a third, but it's temporary: kissing a witch on the lips. This is how Guideau is able to tap into her original powers in the story as she encounters different witches. Unfortunately, kissing a witch is a one-time use, so it's only used in emergencies.
Ashaf wishes to teach Guideau what true love is in hopes of lifting her curse. It's proven difficult with how unpredictable and unruly she is, but she's slowly easing into the concept. After all, she's a beast and love is a completely foreign concept to her.
Sadly I don't love everything about the manga. The worldbuilding feels a little bit lacking in places, making the story feel a bit empty almost? (I'm not very good at articulating myself.) The action scenes are rather difficult to follow in my opinion, which is sad because I think they're extremely well drawn just on a technical level. Despite this, I still love the manga and it occupies my mind on an almost-daily basis.
Extra unfortunately, the manga has been on
indefinite hiatus for over a year now due to the mangaka's poor health.
It hurts to see how common it is for mangaka to be in poor health, but I
truly wish Satake-sensei the best. I hope that one day we can see the
end of the manga, hopefully not rushed either. When the anime was airing
last year, Satake released some new illustrations which seems like a
good sign!
I totally recommend this manga if you want something to read! I recommend the manga over the anime, but watching the anime is fun because you get to hear their voices and see them move. Plus, the ending song is sung by Yoshino Nanjo AKA Krile's Japanese voice actress!!!!!!