Almost exactly a month ago, I reviewed Jack Jeanne and wished for a sequel, even though I thought the scale of the project made it unlikely.
But it’s actually happening.
It’s actually happening! A Jack Jeanne sequel is in development!
Jack Jeanne had a third anniversary live stream this morning, and although I didn’t watch since there was no translation, I woke up to the news that they announced a new game project, a live-reading drama, a new drama CD, and a new novel.
The sequel announcement is the biggest and most unexpected pieces of news. Next to no information is available so far; even the Famitsu article about it only lists the announced projects.
But even with next to no information, the fact that Ishida and Towada are making a sequel is enough for me to be excited! I loved Jack Jeanne, I wanted a sequel so much, and I’ll be looking forward to this no matter how long it takes (I’m expecting years before it’s even out and then another wait for localization).
Fingers crossed we get routes for some of the side characters, along with continuations of the original love interests’ stories! And since the music was so great, I can’t wait to hear see the sequel’s performances are like.
Are you looking forward to the Jack Jeanne sequel?
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With our romance celebration underway, we never had a chance to discuss the All Aksys showcase held on February 1.
I was disappointed in the immediate aftermath… I’d gotten my hopes up for a show that would rival their 2022 Anime Expo showcase due to how long its been since the last one, but it was more in line with their regular showcases instead.
Once I had some time to think about it, however, I realized that it actually was quite a decent showcase.
So instead of lamenting what they didn’t announce, let’s take a look at what they did.
The showcase began with trailers for Death Mark II, Tengoku Struggle, and Blazing Strike, their previously-announced titles. Then it was onto new announcements, with quite a big surprise up first – the Switch port of Tokyo Xanadu eX+.
I’ve had Tokyo Xanadu on my list to play for a few years now (it even joined my specific completion goals this year and last year), but I couldn’t help but feel I’d be more likely to play if it I had it on the Switch instead of PC. Well, I’ll get my chance this year, because Aksys is bringing the Switch version west this summer with an improved translation.
Their next announcement was Despera Drops, an otome about a young woman who becomes a murder suspect and ends up on the run with six other fugitives. This one was a surprise, since it’s not by Otomate (the usual otome developer Aksys localizes for), but I remember seeing it when it was announced for Japan and hoping for a localization!
Unfortunately, Despera Drops won’t be out until 2025, so we’ve got a long wait.
They had another surprise in store with the (non-otome) visual novel Tales from Toyotoki: Arrival of the Witch, about a boy who goes to a remote island to live with his grandfather and encounters a young witch. I’d never heard of it before, but it sounds interesting. It will be out this summer.
The final two announcements were the Radiant Tale fandisc, Radiant Tale -Fanfare-, also due out this summer, and the Virche Evermore fandisc, Virche Evermore -EpiC: Lycoris-, for this fall. I loved Radiant Tale, so I’ll be getting that one for sure, although due to my mixed feelings on Virche Evermore, I may skip that one.
So in the end, I really can’t complain. They announced 5 new games, 4 of which I’m interested in. I would have liked to see another non-fandisc otome localization, but we have so many otome games slated for this year already that I probably won’t even catch up on my backlog while waiting.
Anyway, this long after the fact you’ve probably long since watched or read about the Aksys showcase… but how do you feel about these upcoming games?
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Jack Jeanne came out last June, and with how big my backlog is, you might guess it simply got pushed aside for other games. However, you’d be wrong.
I actually started Jack Jeanne shortly after it came out. My first route took as long as some whole games I’ve played, and I realized that playing routes back-to-back would probably lead to burning out. So instead, I took a break after each Jack Jeanne route to play another game before returning for the next.
Jack Jeanne is long. Now, it’s about 80% common route and you can skip already-read text, but the structure of the game means each playthrough will still take a considerable amount of time.
You play as Kisa, a girl who gets a chance to fulfill her dream of attending a prestigious male-only theater academy on the condition that she keep her gender a secret. Since this is an academy where boys play both male and female roles, and many students use feminine appearances and mannerisms, Kisa can mostly act like herself – which is an interesting direction to take an otherwise familiar trope and allows for the matter of her secret to come into play more with specific performances and developing relationships.
It follows a calendar, with each weekday devoted to raising one of your six stats. I was worried about this aspect, but it isn’t really a traditional stat-raiser. Each stat is associated with one of the six love interests, and you basically just need to focus on the stat for the love interest whose route you’re pursuing. Of course, the story also progresses during the week as well, as Kisa and her classmates prepare for performances.
Then on the weekends, you have free time you can use to hang out with an available character for a short scene. In addition to the love interests, side characters are occasionally available as well.
You continue in this fashion until you reach one of the performances. For these, Jack Jeanne is a rhythm game. There are two styles of rhythm game, one for songs and one for dance numbers, and the music is all so catchy! Not only that, but the quality poured into these performances is incredible. I was already impressed when I first realized the character sprites would appear in-costume for the performances, but even more so when I saw the dance numbers had 3D character models for the main cast.
(In the game, the rhythm game buttons would overlay the scene, but you can watch the scenes themselves in the gallery after unlocking them.)
You can see why even with the ability to skip through story scenes in the common route, subsequent playthroughs still take a while. Nearly every weekend will have new scenes with whichever love interest you’re pursuing, and there are also random short scenes that pop up between days. After playing each major route, I had seen most of these, but occasional new ones still appeared even on my ninth time through. And that’s not to mention that each character route keeps the calendar structure, so while I spent each weekend with the love interest whose route I was on, there were always several other scenes I could have seen instead. The amount of content in Jack Jeanne is massive.
At first, I was disappointed that each route doesn’t have its own unique final performance, just variations on the same basic story, but considering the amount of content in the game I can hardly complain too much. It did feel a little odd in routes where the circumstances were noticeably different, but aside from that it makes sense.
Some players feel Jack Jeanne isn’t romantic enough, but I disagree. The story covers almost an entire year’s worth of time, week by week, during which time the characters slowly become friends and then move toward romance in the individual routes. This means it takes a long time for romance to blossom… but as a sucker for slow-burn romances, I loved it.
This is one of those rare otome games where I loved every love interest. I liked some more than others – no one will ever beat Neji, who is chaos incarnate and stole my heart from the beginning despite not being my usual sort of character – but none were bad. Some of the side characters also have mini storylines that progress if you spend each weekend with them, as well as one who has a unique bad ending.
I’ve played Jack Jeanne for over 70 hours. There’s still optional content I have yet to see, but my time with it is drawing to an end. And it’s one of those games where the thought of setting it down for good makes me feel like I’m saying farewell to treasured friends. No fandisc or sequel exists for Jack Jeanne yet, but I really hope one gets made so I can spend more time with these characters and hopefully get routes with the side characters who deserve full routes of their own.
My dream Jack Jeanne fandisc would feature stories for each of the 6 love interests, plus new routes for Kasai, Mare, Minorikawa, Otori, and above all else, Chui.
Click for Jack Jeanne spoilers
Despite initially being presented as an antagonist and almost an inhuman force of nature, Chui shows in so many routes that he’s not really a bad guy and is capable of growth and change, and that his extreme talent is isolating him and leaving him lonely, and you’re telling me the closest he gets to a route is a short bad ending?? On one of my replays of the final route to wrap up the sub-routes, I had a conversation with Neji where he says he wants Chui to hold onto hope of finding a partner who can match him so he doesn’t drown in loneliness. You can’t just say that about a character and then never give him a route!
Since Jack Jeanne is such a large game, a fandisc or sequel on the same scale would probably take quite a while to develop. So I’ll hold onto hope that one day it will be made!
In the meantime, I’m so happy I played Jack Jeanne, which is both one of my favorite otome games and the perfect game to wrap up this year’s Celebrating All Things Romantic event!
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Almost exactly a month ago, I reviewed Jack Jeanne and wished for a sequel, even though I thought the scale of the project made it unlikely.
