Grisaia no Kajitsu Review

[Tyrael]

Just a quick note, there is in fact a small Chizuru route in Grisaia no Meikyuu

[Dergonu]

38 minutes ago, Tyrael said:

Just a quick note, there is in fact a small Chizuru route in Grisaia no Meikyuu

Cant really call it a route. But its still amazing

(JB best girl though.)

Edit: Best Chizuru CG

Spoiler

 

[Amano Sora]

4 hours ago, Tyrael said:

Just a quick note, there is in fact a small Chizuru route in Grisaia no Meikyuu

Ahaha~ Lookin forward to it! XD The second Grisaia is 75 percent done i think.

[Vorathiel]

I have a question about translation.
There seems to be many 'western' jokes. Like one with 'they acting so dumb, like american politics', or probably famous one about Gestapo killing Jews
 

Spoiler

Is it present in original version, or is it loose work of translator, who wanted it to be funnier in english?

[Mr Poltroon]

3 hours ago, Vorathiel said:

I have a question about translation.
There seems to be many 'western' jokes. Like one with 'they acting so dumb, like american politics', or probably famous one about Gestapo killing Jews
 

  Hide contents

Is it present in original version, or is it loose work of translator, who wanted it to be funnier in english?

I don't know Japanese or the original script, so take this with a grain of salt, but the translator for this game, Koestl, is known for localising jokes and in general managing to adapt a script to an English audience. Pretty universally acclaimed translator, so far as they go.
I may be overplaying it, but the translator is definitely on the liberal side in the scale of translation policies.

[Decay]

I don't know the answer to any questions relating to specific translation, but I do believe that the Japanese script contained a lot of jokes about foreign politics, history, etc. From Spartans to the CIA. I wouldn't be surprised if the Gestapo joke was in the original, if only because it's not one I can imagine Koestl writing.

edit: Why don't you try asking koestl's ask.fm? https://ask.fm/koestl

[Vorathiel]

After around 6-7 hours of reading, time to share my grief!

I started Grisaia thinking that it will be loooong common route, filled with sol and 'pure gold' comedy, and long routes for each heroine with heavy dramas.
Well, I'm dissapointed. Maybe it was my expectations, but I don't think that I could have had a better attitude before reading.

So, let's get it started, uhu-hu.

Narration:
Common route has a strange, or rather original construction. Is not a typical day-by-day sort of story, like in fe Hoshimemo, or MuvLuvExtra. You know, Protag is waking up, eating or not, going to school, have interactions, making plans for weekend activities with others, afternoon activities, evening, sleep, morning, eating, weekend activities, interactions etc. That type of narration very much helps to get immerse in characters, and just 'live a life' with protagonist. Narration in Grisaia is different. It's just series of, mustly totally unrelated short events. I don't like it. It kills the 'flow'. I don't know why they did it that way. To trimm the boring sol repetitions? But they didn't. Lots of boring SoL stuff is still in here.
tl;dr - don't like that style.

Art:
It's ok. Nothing very good, but nothing repelling. Nice, clean backgrounds, non invasive music, emotionfull sprites. It's fine.

Story:

At this moment is non existing, but this is charage type of game, so overarching plot is not needed.

Comedy:

Same as above... Almost. I laughed twice. In 7 hours. Twice. That's... very not good result. I remember laughing to my tears in Muv Luv Extra, I remember laughing out loud every fewteen minutes in Majikoi common route. But why comedy there worked and here is not? Well, first thing - my personal taste, I like 'over the top' stuff. So MLExtra was ideally for me. Also in Majikoi there is some over the top stuff, but not as much as in ML. In Grisaia there is non. I will not say that it's a bad thing, it just simply didn't hit my personal taste.
But Majikoi wasn't only over the top stuff. There was a lot of great comedy coming from characters and their interactions. Mutual chemistry and banter between characters. And characters were really distinctive. In Grisaia... there are no banters, and no comedic interactions between characters. Only jokes are in 'Adam Sandlers' style. Which basically means no set up-pay off type of joke, only 'somebody saying/doing something stupid, laugh now'. Usually in obnoxious way. Not my type of comedy. And about banters and interactions...well, lets go for now to next chapter.

Characters:

...and now we're getting to the probably worst thing this VN has. Characters. Or lack there off. But lets start at the beginning.

Yuuji. The protagonists. He seems to be great. He's highly intelligent, he is focused on himself, he's pragmatic, selfish, indepenmdent, ballsy and witty. So far so good.
But. When comes to reall situations, that matters, he somehow turns dumb. And start acting like an idiot. He's also dense for women and their sygnals, as 99 percent of vn protags are. Sometimes he's so full of himself he's starting to believe his own delusions and trying to converse everybody, that what he is thinkin is the truth. Example?  Chiruchiru was visiblly feeling bad, and he came up in his mind with a story that she is collecting junk food and ate some crab on forreign beach. And then started stating this as a fact. What. The. Heck. This is not intelligence. Or maybe - he's intelligent, but at the same time - he's an idiot. Period.

Saki. Slave. Mindless slave. Doing everything everybody says her to do. No personality. Just robot to fullfill wishes of her masters. Sometimes she says something on her own, but it's never funny, or interesting, or witty, or sarcastic, or anything positive. Because she's 'caring' type of character. She 'cares' about others, so she will be nice and kind and do everything for others. Yuck. Grow some personality girl.

Amane. Clingy, slightly obnoxious (I know, oxymoron), obtrusive to Yuuji. 'Now youre my onii chan because I want that'. No girl, shat the hell up. But she's not overlly bad, I like how she sometimes gets to Yuujis core of thinking, like she 'reading him'. Probably subconsciously. She never showed that shes capable of abstract thinking. Of intelligence. Her hobbies are basically chores. But this is a plague of VN as a whole madium  people don't have any particual iterest, or have one and focus every second of their lives on it. Here we have bland dumb characters, which have no interest whatsoever.

Yumiko. She is in shadows, almost never onscreen... and I like that about her. When she is present she gives fairly 'normal' and intelligent replies to Yuujis questions. And she would be a just average, non invasive character, if not for one thing. She's effing murderous! She shopuld rot in jail for her attempted murders on Yuuji (and probably earlier on other heroines). She's a psychopat, and I will not forget about that ever.

Principal.
Erm...she's.... emm... have positive attitude to life? Maybe? I don't know. There wasn't much about her, but what was was so bland, that I can't tell anything about her.

JB
Another character and from the star we're finiding out that she is... you guessed it - dumb. Yuuji is saying that. Dumb buimbo with a yellow car, oblivious for sarcasm. Great.

Chiruchiru
This is like epitome of 'I want to take a great axe and split her scull into halves'. Shes dumbest of the dumb idiot and also wannabe tsundere. It can't be worse. Literally can't. In this short few hours of reading whe slimbed very fast to podium of my 'most hated heroines'. She's also obnoxious, screaming, shouting, being obtrusive and worst of the worst - she's oblivious of her own idiocy. Wanko in Majikoi wasn't smart. She was pretty stupid. But everybody knows that. She wasn't going around telling everybody 'I'm right about this, I'm smart, and youre all dumb' like this blond twintail tsundere is doing. Wanko also was a hardworker and that was making her a redeeming quality and made her likeable. Chiruchiru likeable is not.

And finally.... drumroll.... Makina!
Hell yeah. My shining lonely star on a dense sky of incredible idiocy. She's smart. She's fun. Everytime she's on screen game gets much better. Also every scene she's in gives the vibe, that there is much, much more to her, than what Grisaia already showed me. I like her very much.

...and now we can go back to:
Comedy part 2.
Why isn't comedy working? Because almost every single of of characters is dumb. There are no chances for some intelligent banter, no chances of sarcastic witty remarks and engaging scenes when characters play of each other. Which is really sad.

So, to summarize  I'm a strong hater of a dumb characters. I literally just can't stand them. Especially if their dumbness is not recognized by them, and they have no redeeming qualities.

Please tell me that this will get better. That characters will start to show some interesting sides of them, and the upcoming dramas will not be stupid and boring. Please. 

PS Anyboy else think this VN is similiar to Sharin no Kuni? Protag with some military expertise, was rised and trained by his 'master', had an older sister, who teached him lot's of things. He is transfered to new school, where he must integrate and get close to heroines for some reason, and then in their respective routes he will be solving their dramas. Also all heroines are dumb, and protag while witty and inteligent is loosing those abilities in face of reall problem. Please no 2 - tell me I'm wrong and Grisaia is not similiar to Sharin.

[Mr Poltroon]

I never thought "Grisaia doesn't have witty banter" would ever be a genuine concern for anyone. I was under the impression that the fact that it does is one of its pros.
Or maybe I just thought that on my own?

[littleshogun]

@Vorathiel Maybe you better give up on this game because looks like it'll be similar to Sharin. Although the 'master' was already dead and Yuuji want to live in normal school by himself though. About dumb heroine, well I didn't know about that, but you may as well just search for Grisaia spoiler up to Rakuen, read it, decided if it's worth or not to continue on, and if not just delete it from your HDD. If you find out you didn't like it, may remove Meikyuu from your waiting list as well, since the main writer of Meikyuu and Rakuen was also responsible in writing Kajitsu common route, Fujisaki Ryuuta.

[Kawasumi]

1 hour ago, Vorathiel said:

tl:dr

Damn, I know we're the opposite on the subject of Sharin no Kuni, but you got it pretty much spot on with grisaia....almost.

The routes that you're getting is gonna explain to you why they act like they do so dont worry about that.

And you just made me realize how boring the common route would have been without Makina lol, as one of the few that, like you thinks that the grisaia common route is EXTREMELY overrated.

i will say that it gets better as you get into the routes, I wont spoil what routes though, it sounds like its up to preference really.

Also, I do indeed feel a connection between the protags in grisaia and SnK and the whole "solving their problems", but then again, this is really not anything new in charages, you see it almost everytime lol, just look at princess evangile for example.

[Vorathiel]

1 hour ago, Tiagofvarela said:

I never thought "Grisaia doesn't have witty banter" would ever be a genuine concern for anyone. I was under the impression that the fact that it does is one of its pros.
Or maybe I just thought that on my own?

Witty is only Yuuji, he is teasing girls with witty way, but they never tease him like that. Sometimes they do things he don't really like, but there is no forward-backward in teasing conversations.

52 minutes ago, littleshogun said:

@Vorathiel Maybe you better give up on this game because looks like it'll be similar to Sharin. Although the 'master' was already dead and Yuuji want to live in normal school by himself though. About dumb heroine, well I didn't know about that, but you may as well just search for Grisaia spoiler up to Rakuen, read it, decided if it's worth or not to continue on, and if not just delete it from your HDD. If you find out you didn't like it, may remove Meikyuu from your waiting list as well, since the main writer of Meikyuu and Rakuen was also responsible in writing Kajitsu common route, Fujisaki Ryuuta.

Oh no, never. I will probably slow down reading to 30 minutes per day or so, but I will definitelly finish it. Some day.
 

31 minutes ago, Kawasumi said:

i will say that it gets better as you get into the routes, I wont spoil what routes though, it sounds like its up to preference really.

So I will read further with a little of anticipation instead of totall resignaton.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I found out one more reason why I don't like dumb characters here, while likeing them in Majikoi.
Protagonist. In Maji he never alowed stupid people to do as they pleased, he always had an upper hand and found a way to win discussions, arguments, or just tu tease and not get teased.
In Grisaia (or Sharin, or Imouto Paradasie, or in many more) protagonists, while somewhat intelligent just surrender and let stupid people made fun of him. Which is, wel... annoying.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On the plus side - I love how (in contemporary standards) mysogynistic Yuuji is. His monologues or thoughts abot how 'noisy' women are are great.

[ChaosRaven]

2 hours ago, Vorathiel said:

Please tell me that this will get better. That characters will start to show some interesting sides of them, and the upcoming dramas will not be stupid and boring. Please. 

I share a lot of your gripes with the VN, and I'd recommend you to play Amanes route which has a rather long back story part called 'Angelic howl'. This story section about Yuuji's sister Kazuki and Amane is the by far best part of the VN. It's very serious, shocking and touching, and Kazuki is a fantastic character.

The only other routes I played were Sachi's and Yuminko's. From those Yumiko's route was horrible and Sachi's was mostly boring and the ending was idiotic beyond believe.

I didn't like Michiru and Machika enough to play their routes, but at least Makina's route is supposed to be almost as good as Angelic Howl because it was written by the same writer.

[Soulless Watcher]

It still surprises me how many different opinions there are on the various aspects of Grisaia no Kajitsu. I wonder what makes Grisaia different from other visual novels to cause such a vast amount of differing views.

[Dreamysyu]

Well, you know, it really seems this game is just not for you. From what I've seen, most people who like Grisaia do it because of comedy in the common route and because of the characters. If you like neither of those, then this VN will most likely be just a massive waste of time for you. Well, there is a possibility that you may come to liking a route or two, because they are quite different from each other, but I wouldn't bet on that.

I personally finished Grisaia about a month ago, and even though I came with very low expectations, I ended up liking it quite a lot. There are some major flaws in all the routes. Plot is a bit too convenient sometimes, and pacing is pretty slow. Michiru's route feels completely out of place, and even though it would probably work in some Key games, here it feels like the worst part of the VN. Sachi's route is full of boring and unrelatable drama. Yumiko's is pretty empty: no good points, no really bad points (well, except for a certain cold chicken scene). Makina's good ending is extremely rushed, and Amane's route has a bit too many sex scenes (well, not a real flaw for an eroge) and feels unfinished because of references to sequels. And that climax came out of nowhere.

On the other hand, I guess, the way it is written is just enjoyable for me. I liked comedy and Yuiji's monologues in common route, I liked action and character development in Makina's route, and I loved "Angelic Howl" part in Amane's. Even other routes, though generally bad, didn't put off me that much. So, in the end, it all comes to personal preferences.

And, btw, I hate Muv-luv Extra.

[Vorathiel]

28 minutes ago, Soulless Watcher said:

It still surprises me how many different opinions there are on the various aspects of Grisaia no Kajitsu. I wonder what makes Grisaia different from other visual novels to cause such a vast amount of differing views.

Probably...popularity? I'm really sure there will be as much diversity in opinions about any other VN similair to Grisaia. Look at f.e. Muv Luv Extra.  Which for me is incomprehensible how people can hate it. But I hated Sharin no Kuni and Cartagra, so for each their own.

[Soulless Watcher]

14 minutes ago, Vorathiel said:

Probably...popularity? I'm really sure there will be as much diversity in opinions about any other VN similair to Grisaia. Look at f.e. Muv Luv Extra.  Which for me is incomprehensible how people can hate it. But I hated Sharin no Kuni and Cartagra, so for each their own.

Well usually most people fall in two or three camps, like with Extra they either hated the cliche soup or loved the comedy and characters. With Grisaia nearly everyone has a very specific and unique opinion on the title. For example, while I enjoyed every route in the vn, I disliked allot of aspects in "Angelic Howl". I found 

Spoiler

the class's "seclusion" from the outside world to be distractedly unbelievable and I was pretty disturbed by the "demonization" of cannibalism to survive. While I found Michiru's route to be one of my favorites, people tend to go on about how it is particularly unbelievable and therefore out of place. However, there are plenty of documented cases of people who received organ transplants gaining personality traits of the doner, so it isn't as fantastical as some believe. 

 

[Zenophilious]

About Mitcher's route...

Spoiler

I'm sorry, but I really don't believe that transplanting organs will give the recipient bits of their personalities or memories.  I'm not saying that it's inherently impossible, but until it's confirmed by reputable scientists in a peer-reviewed study, I'm going to assume that it's pseudoscience and crap, and will treat it as such.  The theories of body and cellular memory haven't had that happen yet, so I'm going to continue to hold that against her route.  I'm not saying that having impossible things happen in fiction is inherently bad, it just makes no sense with the way the other routes in Kajitsu handled that sort of thing.  They never embraced pseudoscience, all they really did was have ludicrous things happen that, while ludicrous, weren't scientifically impossible, aside from the whole "throwing a frozen turkey into a plane engine at high speeds" bit, and that's just really, really unlikely.  The reason it pissed me off so much is because they could have had her develop an actual mental disorder, like borderline personality disorder or disassociate identity disorder, and it felt like they just went the easy, lazy route.

If her route was in a VN that had a bunch of pseudoscience and 100% impossible things happening left and right (a la Majikoi), I wouldn't have minded that much, but that's not what happened, and it sticks out like a sore thumb because of that.  There is a reason they retconned it in the sequels, ya know.

 

[Ainz]

I consider kajitsu a good game.. It has one of the wittiest comedy I have seen in VN medium. Also it seems like author took inspiration from Golgo 13 they are almost identical except Yuuyi shows emotions through his interaction with girls.

[ChaosRaven]

8 minutes ago, Ainz said:

except Yuuyi shows emotions through his interaction with girls.

You're kidding, right?! 

[Ainz]

2 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

You're kidding, right?! 

I'm not saying he is best example, he acted like ass at first but he mostly helped them with their problems. My free opinion you don't have to agree.

[ChaosRaven]

1 hour ago, Soulless Watcher said:

Spoiler

I was pretty disturbed by the "demonization" of cannibalism to survive.

 

I honestly find this comment more disturbing than the whole 'Angelic Howl' arc...

[Vorathiel]

23 minutes ago, Ainz said:

Yuuyi shows emotions through his interaction with girls.

Well, definitelly not at start.

Just read Michiru scene at the ocean shore, pretty nice moment I liked Michiru in it a lopt, which was surprising, but.. Yuuji was an totall asshole there. And was totally ruining the mood. Sigh.


How are the sequels looking? Schematic wise? I know in first Grisaia there is long common route and 'romance' routes for every girl, branching at different points of CR. So how was it sequels starts? Is there some 'true end' without any relationships in first Grisaia?

[Soulless Watcher]

1 hour ago, ChaosRaven said:

I honestly find this comment more disturbing than the whole 'Angelic Howl' arc...

I was referring to situations like

Spoiler

the Rugby Players that were stranded in the Andes, in which survivors decided to eat the remains of their dead to live. 

3 hours ago, Zenophilious said:

About Mitcher's route...

  Hide contents

If her route was in a VN that had a bunch of pseudoscience and 100% impossible things happening left and right (a la Majikoi), I wouldn't have minded that much, but that's not what happened, and it sticks out like a sore thumb because of that.  There is a reason they retconned it in the sequels, ya know.

 

Well, I suppose this too comes down to taste. I absolutely love things that are tonally deaf and unpredictable. 

Edited March 22, 2016 by Zenophilious
Kinda spoiler-ish >.<

[Kawasumi]

3 hours ago, Soulless Watcher said:

I was referring to situations like

  Reveal hidden contents

the Rugby Players that were stranded in the Andes, in which survivors decided to eat the remains of their dead to live. 

Well, I suppose this too comes down to taste. I absolutely love things that are tonally deaf and unpredictable. 

Spoiler

They essentially use what I like to call "movie logic". A really good example would be the korean horror movie "the eye", where the main character is suddenly able to see dead people because that she gets a cornea transplant from a person that also could, which is totally ridiculous obviously

 

[Soulless Watcher]

8 minutes ago, Kawasumi said:

  Hide contents

They essentially use what I like to call "movie logic". A really good example would be the korean horror movie "the eye", where the main character is suddenly able to see dead people because that she gets a cornea transplant from a person that also could, which is totally ridiculous obviously

 

Ehhhh, I'm not entirely sure that I follow. A untold number of visual novels, anime, manga, movies, books, TV shows, and any other form of entertainment out there hinge upon a ridiculous plot point or device in the first act to jump start the story. It was a microwave/timemachine in steins;gate, kidnapping a Japanese businessman that was carrying data on nukes in Black Lagoon, random compulsive murder in Tsukihime. 

Spoiler

The Mitcher's route is problematic for people because it contains a major plot thread made of a fantastical element that occurs latter on in the story, which is significantly different from all the other elements, in that they are (arguably) grounded in a more realistic setting. The tonal difference agitates some people, it isn't the inherent fantastical element itself that is the problem. It's kinda like watching those x files episodes in which they are just going after a normal serial killer or the ending of White Chapel.