Another route done (5/7! .... technically only 4 but I watched my friend play Suzu's route in its entirety.... I might skip out on writing a post on Suzu entirely for a few reasons...) and this time is my beloved Kai Mutsumi!
This route might just be my favourite so far. Spoilers ahead, obviously.
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.)