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everythingblreview · 1 month ago

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Gakuen Heaven Review

Gakuen Heaven is a very iconic BL game from the early 2000s, it received a Fandisk, an anime and a second game with a new MC and new love interest after 10 years of the main game’s release. This time I played the game together with my friends and we decided to play the PSP version with an emulator, because the PC version is not voiced. The PSP version has no H-scenes (they are just hinting at it) but I was willing to scarify that for the voice acting, it made a big difference so no regrets there. (Only the quality was a bit 360p in the PSP version lol)

Spoiler for the whole game below

Description

Ito Keita, an average high school boy, is surprised to receive an acceptance letter from the renowned Bell Liberty Academy, BL school for short (yes this is what they call the school lmoa, the joke never get old). After being involved in an accident, on the day of his transfer, Keita finds himself among a variety of unique people... but what is Keita's "special ability"? Will he truly be accepted into this school full of elite students?

Story

If you have watched the anime, you pretty much know what happens in this game. Keita gets accepted to BL school after the school year has already started. He arrives after his bus flies off the bridge, completely unharmed because if there is one thing Keita is good at, it’s being lucky. There he meets the king (the student council president) and the queen (the head of the school accounting department and a beauty) and after it all the other characters, his classmate Kazuki (who is overly too friendly with him), Nakajima the (vice president of student council and basically the king’s mother/wife), Omi (also working for the accounting department and the childhood friend of the queen), Shinomiya (a pro at Kyudo), Shunsuke (a boy from Osaka who is good at riding his bike and loves food), Iwai (a depressed artist), Naruse (the school’s playboy and an amazing tennis player) and Umino-sensei (who teaches biology and looks illegally young). Yes, this game has 10 love interest. In the following weeks Keita gets to hang out and to know all of these people. And that’s basically the common route of the game, it may sound boring, but the characters interactions are really fun and entertaining. Everyone has a distinct personally (even if some of the have very stereotypical one). The games plot mostly revolves around the characters and MC, so if you expect some kind of exiting adventure, you’re at the wrong place. The characters route begin around the 3rd week, when Keita gets suddenly called by the vice director and is told he has to leave school, because his admission to BL school was a mistake, so the board of directors decided to kick him out since he no special talent and therefore doesn’t belong in the school. Keita is of course very sad about it since he started to like the school and its students. So, he seeks for advice from the other character, who tell him to go directly to the director of the school. Keita tries that but the director of the school is a mystery; no one know how he looks like or where you can find him (dude is never in his office). Frustrated Keita speaks with Kazuki who tells him that he could just write a mail to the director, which he does. In the mail he states that he wants to stay at the school and ask if the director could help him with his situation. Well, as it seems the director listened to him, because the next day all students get called for a gathering, where a stuff bear (yes you read that right) who is a substitute for the mysterious director, announces a MVP battle where all students can participate in and the winner will have a wish granted by the director. The battle has 3 rounds, and you have to play in pairs. If you watched the anime, I can already tell you the battles are a bit different in the game. In the first round you have to catch in a mini game hamster (yeah idk). You can either do it by yourself, let your partner do it or do it together (and my god some of these guys suck ass at this game). In the second route you have to do a quiz on the subjects of your choice (usually the one related to your LI) and let me tell you these quizzes are hard af. First of all, they are all in Japanese and second, if you think these are some simple questions like ‘what is 2+2’ you’re greatly mistaken. They ask you really hard question about Japanese history and literature and biology and what not. Once again you can let your partner answer but some if these dudes are idiots and can answer wrong. But if you survive this round, the last round is super easy, since it’s all about Keita’s strongest subject: luck. You just have to choose between two cards, and no matter which you choose you won’t lose. During the MVP battle you basically play your partners (the LI of your choice) route. The content of them all depends on the LI you choose.

I also need to mention that if you watched the anime, the part where the school nurse goes crazy and kidnaps Keita is completely made up by the anime, while the part with his friend being in coma is true, the other part after it was created for drama purposes, I guess? But he did tell Keita about his friend and Keita tried to help him together with Kazuki, so yeah there is that.

Characters

Naruse Yukihiko

Naruse is the first character who’s route we accidently ended up on (wasn’t our first choice but we didn’t want to redo it). Like said Naruse is the playboy of the school, he is also called a “playboy” by the other characters. Beside that he is also an excellent tennis player and the captain of the tennis club. He falls in love with Keita on first sight and kisses him on the first day lmao (or not if you make the right choices). Keita is, of course shocked why another guy just kissed him, and this starts the never-ending circle of “but we are both men”. You see, Keita has a terrible case of internal homophobia (or he just never heard of being gay). Naruse, with his extreme bisexual energy, has no problem and doesn’t care if anyone knows he like Keita (pretty sure the whole school knew after 2 days). He always tells Keita that he loves him and calls him “honey” as a nickname, with Keita always countering it with “but we’re both men” … Naruse tries pretty hard to convey his love, he makes bento for Keita, kisses him constantly (Keita was even into it at some point) always tells him he likes him and also explains why he like Keita. He also mentions that he doesn’t care that Keita is a guy and he takes him on dates to romantic place and yet KEITA ALWAYS ANSWERS WITH “BUT WE’RE BOTH MEN” AAAAHHH- *smashes head against wall* Despite my dislike toward the playboy type I can say Naruse was really nice and voiced by Miki Shinichiro of course, cough sexy voice cough I am biased cough and trying so, so hard and yet Keita never took his love seriously, it’s not like he had to like Naruse back but Keita just never took Naruse seriously. Naruse was a really good boy though, he never went against Keita’s wishes, never took advantage of him and always told Keita he would never touch Keita (in the indecent way) if Keita didn’t want it himself. Man is the biggest green flag, seriously. The route was basically just Naruse trying to woo Keita and Keita rejecting him with “gay is not real”, only in the fucking end Keita realised that Naruse maybe really was serious……. *smashes head against the wall again* and also realises that he is in love with Naruse too so he run to Naruse’s training and screams that he loves Naruse too with the whole club listening (and I’m sure no one gives a shit at a school called “BL school”) . Naruse is overjoyed and picks Keita up and carried him to him room for some sexy times (not shown in the PSP version but me and my friend peaked into the PC game and they only showed the foreplay and skipped the actual sex lol) I’m honestly glad we played Naruse first because his route is my (and all of my friends who joined for his route) personal frustration with Keita as a character. I really love Keita but damn his internal homophobia was so bad in this route that we all we’re just screaming at the screen at some point. Naruse himself was really nice, still not my type but I understand his charm (And I wish they would stop giving Miki Shinichirou the playboy role because his voice is hot, but I just don’t like this stupid character trope). Also, I feel like compared to the anime he was less annoying and just overall better, and I feel like if Keita wasn’t so anti-gay, Naruse would have been even more enjoyable.

Umino Satoshi

Although Umino is 24 years old, he looks like is 12. Even Keita mistook him for an elementary student (Can’t blame him). He also has a really fat cat called Tonosama who always looks like high af. Umino sensei is not only a biology teacher, who is quite popular with the students, but also works as a researcher for the Suzubishi group, that this school belongs to, and that’s what most of his route is about. Keita gets interested into Umino’s research and ask to help him, even if he doesn’t understand what Umino is talking about. Honest his route was boring since it mostly consists of research talk (not a very good topic for a bl game in my opinion) and I found myself zooming out for most of the time. (Nothing against biology but after a hard day of work I imagine something more fun than watching 2D characters talk about cells) The real “fun” of this route is when one day Umino’s research data get stolen. Keita is shocked but Umino tells him that it always happens and that he doesn’t care because he isn’t looking for fame and just want to be helpful. And this is the part that really pissed me off in this route, Keita was really pissed at his attitude, but for this route good end you needed to make choices that immediately throws Keita’s anger out of the window. Once this topic comes up again, Keita gets mad, then you have to make a choice and suddenly Keita is all chill again and always answers with “That’s so you, Umino sensei” Like what???” The “climax” of the route is when Keita walks into the room of Umino after one of the MVP battles and sees that another teacher hat tied him down. He was the one who stole the research data and is now trying to get the password out of him. Keita tries his best to convince Umino not to tell the guy, but he ends up doing it anyway after being beaten (and I think even raped in the PC version). So, the dude escapes and you know what Keita and Umino do? N O T H I N G absolutely NOTHING. Not tell the police or the director or anything at all, like wtf??? After removing Keita’s anger, we also removed all his common sense or what? This made me so pissed because Keita normally doesn’t take anyone’s shit but here he doesn’t even try and say “that’s so you Umino sensei” What was the writer ever thinking? Anyway the route ends with the dude never actually getting the data because he understand the password wrong and Keita being so happy over it that he kisses Umino, who is also like “Oh yeah I totally like you, too”. Strange is that they don’t even mention anything about the student-teacher relationship at all, like it’s totally normal. Can’t even decide who needs to be jailed here, Umino for dating a student or Keita for dating someone who looks like 12. Oh and Keita also tops (didn’t mention yet but Keita can be top/bottom depending on his partner) and they constantly fuck in the biology room…..Umino-sensei himself was annoying, I don’t like the “hehe I’m so cute and clumsy”- type, they make me mad for some reason, and him being weak and just getting stepped on didn’t help either.

Nakajima Hideaki

Nakajima is the classic Megane, and not only that he is a Spray Megane (Spray are the one who made Kichiku Megane who I was totally fan of not). He is always mothering the king who is busy being lazy. Outside his route, his interactions are really fun because he is not taking anyone’s shit (especially the king’s). He is very smart, responsible and mostly how you imagine a Megane to be (except that he doesn’t speak polite). Nakajima’s route start with classic sexual harassment, which Keita really doesn’t take well and gets so upset about, that he doesn’t want to see Nakajima for a while (understandable, poor baby) but you have to interact with him, the game forces you to do it. Keita then starts spending time with Nakajima and is actually surprised to learn that Nakajima is actually a pretty nice guy, who even takes Keita out on dates (to an BDMS show lmao, sadly not show in neither version of the game, but Keita seemed to have liked it in some way). He also willing to help Keita with the MVP battle. During it another sexual harassment scene happened, which again upsets Keita. After the MVP battle, Keita is called by 3 guys who are mad at him because he stopped their confrontation with Nakajima, and he gets beaten up by them. Then Nakajima arrives kicks their asses and save Keita. After it is the whole confession scene, with Nakajima telling Keita that he does like him and viva versa.

And now let’s get to my commentary of this route. First, I like to say that I HATE the writer for this route (so does my friend who played with me) and not for the reason you think. I hate the writer because Nakajima’s route was actually good, but they had to ruin it through unnecessary sexual harassment, which ended up feeling completely ooc in the end. Yes, Nakajima is clearly a sadist and loves to tease Keita, but he was genius nice and helpful to Keita 95% of the route, only these random ass scenes mad the route really bitter. The worst part is that Nakajima explained in the end that he first sexual harassed Keita because he wanted Keita to be interested in him (worst excuse ever writer-san) since it turns out the director actually asked him to be basically Keita’s bodyguard. Man is out there working his ass off protecting Keita and writer though “hmm needs more sexual abuse” AJDAKKAJD I’m seriously so mad. “How to mess up a good route 101”. Keita and Nakajima had more than enough time to develop a good relationship and they did. But noooo need more sexual harassment *spits on writer*. The second scenes felt even more ooc because this was already far into the route where Keita already start liking Nakajima and was thanking him for helping him with the MVP battle and out of nowhere Nakajima pushed him in a closet and told him, how Keita seriously thinks he doesn’t need to repay the favour for helping him with the MVP battle and sexually harasses him right there.(Not shown in the PSP version but I saw what you did with the pencil Nakajima) It was just so stupid and out of nowhere. Later he tells Keita that he pushed him into the closet because the three guys, who later beat him up were looking for him and, okay that’s a decent reason, BUT NOT A VALID REASON FOR SEXUAL HARRASEMNT, WRITER *spits on them again*. Worst part is that Keita noticed his love for Nakajima not by getting reminded of all the good times they spent together, nooo he needed to think back to the sexual harassment. Ugh, I know I shouldn’t get mad over a 2002 game but this a serious problem that still happens in modern game, where the writers think forcing random sex/sexual assault is a good idea, which just ends up ruining the character and the route. And I don’t care, twitter kiddies can cry, scream and call my all names in the universe, but I’ll still say it again: Forced sexual scenes only ruin the character and story and I want them gone from BL games.

Despite my deeply rooted anger, if I close my eyes and pretend those scenes never happened, I can say that I enjoyed the route and Nakajima more than I thought even if he was sadist he was really kind to Keita and their relationship development felt more or less natural. I just go and continue to curse the writer.

Kazuki Endo

If you have watched the anime, you know pretty much all of Kazuki’s route because his route was the one that was animated. His route is or can be considered the “true route”, but personally I don’t consider it to be. Kazuki is the first-person Keita makes friends with since they are classmates. Kazuki is a rather friendly person who sticks a little too close to Keita and always follows him everywhere, which I thought was annoying. Personally, I’m not a fan of Kazuki, he is just not my type of character, and I thought the romance development wasn’t done that well in his route (you can guess why). You have to play Kazuki’s route two times; the first time you’ll only get the normal end and the second time you get the happy end. Most of his normal route consisted of Kazuki hanging around with Keita, him fighting with Naruse over Keita (with Naruse beating his ass with sass) and going on a date with Keita (they had no chemistry at all, and I felt like they were talking past each other). Only in the end we (or rather Keita) learn Kazuki’s true intentions after he kisses Keita on the cheek. Keita is so shocked to learn that Kazuki was actually trying to woo Keita all this time, just like Naruse (Keita actually thought about the possibility before when Kazuki and Naruse had their sass fight but had thrown the idea to the side after his internal homophobia striking again). And this is basically where the route ends. The second time you play the route there will be more scenes with them together as well as Keita starting to have some déjà vu’s and dreams of his past. Well, turns out Kazuki is the classic childhood friend character (*sarcastic* wuhu) and that Keita used to play with Kazuki when he was a small child, but later Kazuki had to move away, which saddened Keita so Kazuki promising that they would go to school together one day. Keita suspects that Kazuki is the oniichan he used to play with but isn’t fully sure. After MVP battel, Keita is invites to the director’s office to make his wish, Kazuki is nowhere to be found so Keita goes alone. Well, turns out Kazuki has been the fucking director all along lmaooo and he invited Keita to the school so he could fulfil his promise to go to the same school together and to live his gay dream (even Keita thinks that this is a bit ridiculous). Keita is so shocked that the poor guy can’t even get a full sentence out. Because not only has Kazuki has told him that he is the director but also his oniichan from the past. Also, btw Kazuki is actually older (even if we have never found his age and he was just pretending to be a student.) Anyway, after a bit of talk, Kazuki confesses and Keita decides he is gay as hell suddenly and they confess to each other like 7 times (seriously the confession took way too long), before finally kissing and fuck right there in the director’s office in the PC version and that’s basically the whole route. The romance was rather meh, since there wasn’t a moment Keita actually realised his feeling himself which he did in most of the route. Also, I have question why Kazuki has the hots for Keita, who he only met when Keita was like 5 years old or something. But despites few complains the route was enjoyable to play, it had many funny scenes and Keita’s reaction to director Kazuki was hilarious. I have to say that despite me not being into Kazuki I though he was a great director, really cared about the students and let them have their own freedom. Also, Idk how this man can be a student + director + the research lab chef AND still have time to be a part in the handicraft club (granny hobby) while stalking Keita. Does he even sleep? We will never know. Compared to the anime the games doesn’t tell you that Kazuki is the director until he reveals it himself or until you recognise his voice in another route lol, it’s sad that they revealed it so fast in the anime since its just a big secret in the game.

Iwai Takuto

Iwai’s route had the most induvial plot of the game. The route starts with Keita seeing him burn his painting after meeting Iwai at the artist club. And the next day he walks in on Iwai trying to kill himself by cutting his wrist (like wtf). Luckily the cut is small and no danger to his life. Shinomiya who is friends with Iwai takes care of him while he heals (Keita is also there to help) and there we find out from Shinomiya that this wasn’t the first time Iwai did this (jesus) and then he starts to victim blame Iwai (I will come back to this bitch Shinomiya later). So, Keita being the good boy he is decided to help Iwai and find out why he is so depressed (enough to try to kill himself several times??). Well, turns out it has to do with Iwai’s family, who is just garbage. Iwai’s mother is the mistress of some famous artist who taught Iwai how to paint, but Iwai got really good at oil painting, so his trash father just took credit for Iwai paintings himself and got a bunch of praise and prices for it. But not only that it gets worse, his mother is a total hoe who forces Iwai to make more paintings because if not Iwai’s father will leave her and go back to his other family. This whole situation really sits on Iwai because he doesn’t want to create more oil painting for his shitty father, but he genuinely loves to paint. He was even once rejected from a competition for “copying” the art of his garbage dad. Also, the reason he burned the paintings in the beginning was because his mother was visiting him, and he didn’t want to hand her anymore of his. Keita as a character shines the strongest in the route because he isn’t having any of this shit and tries his best for Iwai to confront his family, even if Iwai is always trying to give up. Luckily an art gallery guy noticed that Iwai’s father paintings are actually Iwai’s and ask him for cooperation to reveal the whole thing to the public, Iwai first rejects it but with Keita’s positive influence he finally accepts it. The development of their relationship was also good, though it mostly consisted of Keita (friendly) kicking Iwai’s ass to stop being a puppet for his shitty family (we love that). Also, Iwai made a painting of Keita, which he later used as the main theme for his exhibition, after the whole situation was revealed and he finally got the praise he deserved.

He also confessed first to Keita by kissing him, but good thing is that the gay in Keita has already started to bloom, so he doesn’t think much about the fact that they are both men and happily gets laid. Generally speaking, Iwai had the best route story-wise, and Keita showed the strongest part of his characters here, despites that I can say Iwai is just not my type, I can appreciate the route by I don’t really have any interest in Iwai or the pairing.

Shinomiya Kouji

Shinomiya’s route was the second one we played, and after no homo Naruse’s air it felt like a breath of fresh air. Because this time Keita is the one who is falling first for the LI. His route is a bit different from others in that way that he agrees to be Keita’s MVP battle partner only for to fulfil his own dream. Which is to save his little brother, who has heart problems and can’t get a heart transplant immediately because in Japan you need to be older to get one. And since Suzubishi also has a medical research department he knows they can help him. Keita agrees to help him even if it means that he won’t be able to stay at the school. Along the way Keita falls for Shinomiya and can’t hide his feeling anymore, so he confesses to Shinomiya and Shinomiya is like “souka” (“I see”) like bitch what kind of answer is that???? The scene just ends without him actually saying anything back lmaooo. Later Keita confesses again and to get his feelings across he kisses Shinomiya (hell yeah Keita lets go full gay, Naruse probably crying in the background, wishing he had gotten this treatment.) and Shinomiya kisses him back, so they are happy clappy gay together now. Which also starts a long back and forth between “I want you to stay at the school so we can be together” and “I want to save your little brother” but at some point, they agree that saving Shinomiya’s brother is more important than dick battles. So after Keita wins the MVP battle they go to the director office, where they of course don’t meet the director because Kazuki is hiding but they can talk to him through speakers (I seriously want to know how Keita doesn’t recognize Kazuki’s voice) but they tell him that their wish is for Shinomiya’s brother to get the medical treatment he needs and director Kazuki tells them that he will make their wish come true, but also because Kazuki’s gay ass he let Keita stay in school. So, they get both the things they wanted, happy end~ And now let’s get to the part where I drag Shinomiya through dirt because he is a victim shaming asshole. I have to say he is already flat, but the fact that he wants to be a doctor is even funnier because I hate the doctor characters who have like no other personality than being a doctor (I talked about this in another review before) Anyway the part where he shames Iwai for trying to commit fucking suicide made me really dislike him. If there is one thing that gets my blood really boiling, its people who blame victims for their situation instead of helping them doesn’t that remind you of another doctor character who victim blamed the MC for his situation? Yeah, congrats Shinomiya now get your ugly ass out of my face.

Continued in Part 2

#bl game #boys love game #bl game review #blvn #boys love #gakuen heaven #next review will be omega vampire

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