Jack Jeanne Review: Amazing but with a caveat

So I finished Jack Jeanne and I had a great time with it. It’s made by Broccoli, where if you’re old enough you’ll either get hit by nostalgia from either Galaxy Angel or the Digi Charat show/ Party Night.
It’s just kids going through theatre with different plays. They struggle getting into character, to break through self imposed ideals and they’re just training in general. The pacing and the voice acting hard carries this vn considering some of the downsides I’ll go over later. There’s 4 classes; One that specializes in dance, another for vocals. One for geniuses and another where it feels like it’s for the rest but I assume it’s for the people that seem to have multiple talents. At first I thought maybe it was the class that’ll specialize in acting but I guess that wasn’t the case.

It’s technically an otome game but I guess I have a weird way of seeing what is and isn’t an otome vn. Outside of the rigid definition of maiden game where the mc must be a girl and there must be cute boys to choose from, I consider if the plot itself is written in a way to specifically market to women. Like pretty much all the yuri parts I’ve read felt like they were written for dudes. I’m assuming some bl titles will sell better for dudes and some for women. I technically read one a decade ago by accident and the plot was actually great there too. Tangent aside, this is more of something you can read with your friends or family and not seem weird. Consider it like you’re reading a vn based on Haikyu or something. Honestly, I’d give this a 10 if it was just a kinetic experience.

Some of the character art is kind of jank but it’s an art style that can differentiate from the rest and I’m pretty cool with that. The worst offender is probably Suzu and that’s probably your first route if you’re going for all of them. I’ll go over the routes later. The antagonist is probably the 2nd worst offender but honestly it really fits with what he’s going for.
The character traits are kind of templates, you’ve seen most of them.

You got Suzu, the sporty/charismatic loud one. Yonaga is the timid smart one that could be transferred to Amber if he wanted to after the first year. Fumi is the dancing fuckboy that has more going on. Kai is the gloomy supportive one, he generally elevates the rest of the cast. Mitsuki is the no nonsense one, he does vocals. Then there’s Neji, the weird one.
I thought Neji was going to be my favorite character considering I normally enjoy the weirdo of the group. I guess it kind of was, if you just consider the main cast but he wasn’t my favorite route. Which is also generally the case, their routes aren’t usually the best but they’re usually fine and important. Though he is my favorite to listen to and whenever he’s singing.

My favorite character ended up being this side character from the vocal class, Kiito. At first I thought maybe it would’ve been Otori who’s kind of like the asshole at the start. Honestly he deserves more screen time but it was generally a fun time when he was around. I think a lot of it is that Kiito and the people around him reminds me of myself and a couple of other friends so it was a comfort pick. I think most people would gravitate towards Kai and his route. But when it’s about acting, then Yonaga eventually steals the show. That helps a lot with his character because otherwise he’s one of the more boring ones.

The vn loops between training on the weekdays to raise your stats, hanging out with a set of options on the weekend and later enacting the play you were training for in a month or two. You generally have three rhythm like games you have to play. They’re pretty easy so I’m not actually sure how many you can fail before you fail on getting a route. But considering they give you the option to restart from the beginning of the play if you don’t get max rank in the finale, they probably do the same anytime the play is actually important. Either way you hang out with a specific character long enough to get their scenes so they can become a route you can choose whilst also levelling up the stat that represents them. The characters and the stats are in a linear line so you shouldn’t be confused on who links to what. I think you need to hit the cap of the stat to get the best ending, otherwise you’re stuck with the good ending which I assume just means you don’t get the epilogue.

But the routes themselves are really what hampers the vn. The routes themselves aren’t really special, they consist of maybe 5% each and that’s still adding that the final play itself is around 80% the same. There are enough differences that make them unique but it consists of you needing to replay the whole common route again. This includes making different training choices and doing the rhythm games every time, so if you go for 100%, you’re playing those games like 130~150 times. I got really good at them after awhile to the point I can watch youtube and get an SS score at the same time on expert, lol. This really pads up the playtime from like 40~50 hours to around 70 or 80 hours. Honestly, it’s one of the few vns where I’d say it’s just better doing one or two routes and just leaving with that. The best ones being Yonaga, Kai or the main character’s route. You get the most mileage out of those and you can come out of it with a 10 and a lot of saved time. You can’t unlock the true best ending this way but I don’t think you’ll miss a whole lot. You can probably just look it on youtube, it’s under 10 minutes long.

The routes:

So like I said before, the routes are pretty short. Each one starts during Christmas and ends in like 2 and a half months. The play itself is the same with some deviations because whoever you choose gets a lead role so some of the plot has to be changed. The antagonists and their plays also change depending on your route alongside what gets focused on.

Suzu’s route is the worst one because it’s basically just a starter route. It has more of the otome feel and I didn’t really care for it. I do feel like there’s a lot of potential in some of his scenes but they didn’t focus on him or his pov while that was happening. I think it would’ve done a lot better in a tv show. On the other hand, this route does cover the other class’s first years so you can still get something from here.

Yonaga’s route is one of the best ones. The dude is a straight method actor and you go through the benefits and how it can fuck you up at the same time. But it eventually gives focuses to everybody in the class and it was done stupidly well. It’s a more inclusive approach where it focuses on the characters you already know and how he’s proud of knowing them and amazed on what they can do.

Mitsuki’s route is also one that doesn’t really have much to write home about. But it does cover the feelings of the 2nd years and considering that covers Kiito, I can’t really bash it.

Fumi’s route is more on his feelings towards his family and the business. Basically the conflict of wanting to be free and enjoy how he wants to dance but also respecting the traditions of the family’s style. It also pays more attention to Otori, not a whole lot but I appreciated it

Kai’s route is similar to Yonaga’s route. The difference is instead of being like the child in awe of the rest of the group, Kai’s proud of what’s basically his children and how much they’ve grown. Outside of that, the route is more about himself but also gives some focus to the main character’s brother and this weasel you see around in the common story. It’s probably the best route in the bunch but he’s basically the dad of the group.

Neji’s route is interesting but also kind of shallow. It’s one of those things where he deserves more time to make the content shine considering what’s happening.
The main character’s route is probably the best case scenario if you just want to do one route. You have enough time in the weekends to hang out with all of the side characters and get all their cgs while also not losing much in the main cast in terms of team dynamic. It covers why she’s there and what’s going on underneath the base plot. It’s also where you can get a bad ending and join the antagonist. It’s not amazing but one of the effects was pretty cool.

Overall:

Overall I’m giving this a 9 but really it deserves something closer to an 8 with how much time they make you waste just to see the other routes. But it’s really not an indication of the writing but a poor hindsight of what you’d consider quality of life improvements. If you pick one of the better routes and just leave it at that, then I feel it’d be a 10. It’s kind of different than a case like giving Little Busters a 10 because of Refrain because you’re still forced to do all the routes to get there. But really, this is more like I understand why some people give it a 10 more so than me giving it one. The quality is more so on the pacing than the plot itself. There’s been titles with a good premise or has great moments all around but the pacing is somehow dreadful and I can only read bits at a time. It’s just an enjoyable time with a properly placed high impact moments just to keep you going.

Spoilers: Nitpicks/Confused on

So this isn’t really a complaint because the title itself didn’t feel like it wanted to even go through drama. It excels at common man conversations and topics but generally a lot of the drama felt either shallow or quickly fixed. Sometimes even forgotten in cases like Mitsuki, where he joined the drama school to get away from his mom. It never gets brought up again after the initial scene with them. This also happens with Neji, whereas his initial conflict is done well but how he loses all inspiration that leads him to lose all his instinctual talent and asks the rest of the team to actually teach him. Basically he’s a genius that never went through the process of gradually improving his skills, and it wasn’t really touched too much but the premise of him getting everything back like a light switch was kind of boring. The concept of why it’s back makes sense, it’s perfectly logical but it’s a boring way to read through.

I feel like I must’ve messed up somewhere and didn’t get all of Otori’s scenes because he has a lot of potential but becomes more of a background character that has a name. I get that it’s a consequence of him not asking for help a lot so it’s like his way of doing things doesn’t meld well with the class’s dynamic but there could’ve been more to him outside of Fumi’s route. And considering they handled the rest of the side characters well enough, I think this is on my end and I missed something.

The last bit is on Tsuki, the MC’s brother. You can tell he’s the weasel kind of fast but then gets more solidified in Kai’s route to being confirmed in the final ending. I’m usually a fan of implied story telling but I think I’m missing a piece of the puzzle. I’m assuming it’s a reference to old theatre considering a lot of the stuff going around are references to it already. So something like because he has the same talent that the MC has, he must’ve given to much of his own self to keep being human. Or it could be referencing the play Chui does throughout the routes and he’s the character that sacrificed it all to achieve what he wanted but I’m leaning towards the first one.

Spoilers: Stuff I liked about the plays/characters

My favorite plays were the 2nd and 3rd one but more so the 3rd. Each play has something unique to it and it’s generally getting carried by the voice actors. The themes of the plays are kind of interlinked between them all but the general one is increasing their repertoire of roles and creating rivalries.
Part of the first play is to setup the foundation for Suzu and Yonaga’s rivalry that ferments at the start of chapter 2, explodes in chapter 3 and becomes their main theme going on for the last two chapters. It’s one of those things where they’re both envious of what each other has and how if they had X then they’d have less of a hard time trying to keep up with the seniors and Kisa. It’s not written in a heavy or dark tone, it’s something they go through and it’s something they acknowledge of each other where they see each other as something to jump through before competing against Kisa who they both see as more talented and further ahead.

The 2nd play introduces the vessel and flower concept where one role is to prop up the other. But outside of that it’s to shakeup Kai’s way of thinking considering he’s imprisoning himself into the vessel role. This leads to the 4th play and also the 5th play during his route where he gets roles that either take the lead or have something that makes the play more thought provoking. Because in the end of the 4th play, he’s the last shown character wanting his own mugwort. The mugwort is part of the play, don’t worry about it, but it’s basically saying he’s also in this town and therefore he also belongs in its debauchery and wants to keep on going, he’s one of them. Basically saying he’s done staying in a passive position.

Fumi kind of has the same thing happening in chapter 3. Where it becomes a theme of freedom to do what they want to achieve on stage and how to expand what the audience can expect. This also sets up his own rivalry with Kisa, mainly considering she’s the first one to light a fire up his ass after Tsuki.
You can consider the cast on the 3rd play to represent the quartz class in general. Fumi’s enormous talent forces him to responsible on carrying the rest of the class and how that shackles him. How Kai’s Jack Ace is basically made because Fumi is around. At the same time you have Kisa and Suzu/Yonaga killing the old way of doing things. By the end of the play, Fumi still wins whilst losing the majority of his baggage and constraints, which are represented as dolls that became human that fended off the antagonists. So Fumi’s basically saying I still have the experience to keep myself at the top but I finally got someone to fight for this pedestal. So he finally has a reason to keep on improving just to fuel the competition between the class.

Kisa’s theme encompasses all of the plays but they’re more apparent in chapter 4 and 5. More so on 4 where it reaches a boiling point and it’s basically the highlight for Mitsuki as well considering he’s kind of just been there as an vocal advisor until this point. He eventually becomes the class leader and that generally Mitsuki’s thing. He never really cared to be part of the group and was fine just being in his corner even though Fumi and Neji kept pestering him to join on random crap. So it’s the point on just as how the first years and the third years reached out to Mitsuki, he also finally wants to do the same thanks to Kisa and can accept her even though he figured what she was doing.

And Neji is actually an interesting one because it’s one of those that you wouldn’t even think about until he brought it up. So in every play, he always plays the weirdo or a character that does whatever they want that brings them joy or success. He’s a weirdo so you wouldn’t really think much of it. It was already brought up that he takes lesser roles that handle the same considering he’s doing basically everything else. But then it gets revealed in his route that his dad was having an affair with a lady of a similar demeanor. He was basically traumatized to the point that he’s scared of women and the only female role he can play is one that makes fun of his dad’s mistress. And the funny thing is that the dad was no longer able to write anything and Neji believes it’s because all of their thoughts are getting funneled to thinking about their love interest. The dad eventually dies by drowning so Neji’s basically scared out of his mind about ever finding someone he loves because he considers him the same level of genius as his dad. So in his logic, he’d also lose his ability to write or get into character and he knows that will set him off to throwing himself into the same ocean as his dad. The problem is like I said before, all of this happens really quickly during his route.