[Review] Chuusotsu! 1st Graduation: Time After Time

I’d like to preface this review by saying that I’m not a professional, or even an unprofessional, reviewer; I’m doing this largely for fun and practice, and not really to influence anybody’s decisions when it comes to buying the game. Additionally, expect mild spoilers.

Chuusotsu! 1^st Graduation is a game that sells itself on the premise of ‘wacky philosophy’; the mission statement, as given by the game, is that a bunch of oddballs are assembled, given a philosophy question to complete, and will be kicked out of their shared accommodation if they can’t answer it within a time limit. While this is true, I would probably say that anybody going into the story expecting heavy philosophical musing is going to be disappointed. Largely, the game seems content just to pose the question of ‘what is philosophising? What is philosophy in modern, day-to-day life?’, which, while not a bad question, it never quite seems to reach a resounding answer to.

This is, however, a game that’s very good at making you think and ask questions about what you’re seeing, and often is at its best when functioning as a social critique. The setting is a huge part of this. To give a relatively spoiler free version of it: sometime in the future, nanomachines are discovered that can interlace with and enhance the human body and mind. The country that discovers these nanomachines applies them as a way to make people better at their jobs: after a certain age, a person’s compatibility for a large list of jobs is assessed, and their nanomachines are configured to make them better at that job mentally and physically, imprinting an image on their hand that relates to their job – a ‘Seal’. That then becomes their job for life. The country that discovers these nanomachines then leads a glorious revolution, spreading their workplace philosophy to a newly united world federation…

What a shame, then, that the country that discovered the nanomachines is Japan – a country known internationally for having very polarised and potentially unhealthy views about labour and the workplace.

The game makes absolutely no secrets that this is, to the reader’s perception, going to be a smiling dystopia. In what seems to be a glowing statement of the success of these policies, it slips in a line about dreams ‘ceasing to exist’; you know from almost the very start what kind of game you’re in for. Even beyond that, a second of thought – and it does take only a second – throws up some troubling problems.

One main character’s stated ambition, for example, is to become a government worker, ‘the strongest job’ that gives her seal the highest Authorised Power (essentially, a measurement of the boost to strength and intelligence given by a Seal). Why, exactly, is this privilege given to government workers of all people? Why does a government worker require a higher strength boost than, say, a firefighter, or the policemen who will be tracking them down if by chance they become corrupt? What makes them more deserving of a heavy intelligence boost than a rocket scientist or a surgeon? Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and in the real world, officials are quite capable of becoming massively corrupt without having the strength and intelligence boosts to wriggle out of any consequences.

There are other unsettling things about these seals as well. Arue, the main character, is a Chuusotsu – somebody who failed her academic life for reasons discussed in the later story, and who has no seal. Her authorised power is a lowly 5 – worse than that given to children and middle-schoolers, and reported to give no strength or intelligence boosts. Early on in the story, this lack of intelligence is driven in by Arue being incapable of a simple tasks like reading a map, or using social media; it seems like a fine way to make a point. But again, a little thought reveals something darker: Arue is fifteen years of age, and in the backstory, was relatively studious before she lost her seal. Even if she’s not got an intelligence boost, she should still be baseline human levels of intelligent, surely? But reading a map is presented as an impossible task, and Arue never actually demonstrates any of the knowledge she attained in her previous, studious life. Was that knowledge all erased by the lack of intelligence boost? Or is her seal not just failing to provide an intelligence boost, but instead actively suppressing Arue’s intelligence?

Other questions loom in. What, exactly, is defined as intelligence in the setting? Certainly, there’s academic intelligence – but there’s also emotional and social intelligence to think about. Social problems we’re familiar with today haven’t been solved, despite the application of time and these ‘intelligence boosts’ to people in power – Arue has lived in poverty for most of her life because her mother has been too sick to work, trapping her family in a downward spiral. Too sick, it should be noted, to work despite having a seal at various points, which should be strengthening her body – do seals only boost brute strength, and not the body’s ability to fight off diseases and repair itself? If not, then why not? From a humanitarian and economic perspective, shouldn’t boosting a person’s ability to do a job come only after ensuring they’re healthy enough to actually turn up for that job?

In other games, these would be plot holes – but Chuusotsu seems to leave these questions deliberately. They are conspicuous in their absence from Arue’s narrative, and at some points she even appears to directly avoid confronting them, because the system they live in is so engrained in her worldview that she cannot imagine a better alternative. Or can she? Seals are also mentioned to monitor crime and behaviour, meaning that somebody is always watching what you do. In today’s climate of web giants harvesting vast amounts of personal details to sell off to advertisers, this should also ring alarm bells of: “How much data could these seals track, who is using it and how?”

In terms of pacing, the early portions of the story can happily be seen as a basic, anime slice-of-life sequence. The characters rumble along, amusingly enough but showing no great depth, until the time limit for answering their philosophical question finally arrives. In retrospect, this seems vigorously enforced; the characters simply don’t know each other very well, and in some cases are engaging under false pretences. They aren’t showing their true personalities to each other, and consequently, the reader isn’t seeing them either. Having read the story, there are moments of foreshadowing about what will be revealed later, but in the moment, they seem like one-off jokes, quickly moved on from and forgotten.

It takes the story entering another phase to shake them out of their complacency and start stripping off the layers of obfuscation, and when the story starts moving it picks up in both pace and unpredictability, occasionally treading into grounds that I really didn’t think it would – often in the name of even more savage social criticism. (As a result of these directions, the game is not nearly as family friendly as it initially looks!) I would definitely say that the opening parts feel like the weaker sections of the story, and I would have almost preferred it if they had gone on longer with a little more hinting at the darker depths of the characters before switching gears.

In terms of style, my only complaint would be the semi-frequent use of strange asides, taking the form of:

Character: … (←Feeling like a hippopotamus)

as an example. It’s not really my cup of tea, and happens often enough to be distracting. Other than that, the style if the text is fairly good – the translation hasn’t sucked all the character from the text, as can all-too-easily happen, and while there are occasional strange constructions, they fit the tone of the story.

The ending, I would say, is a little weak in the story’s current format – it relies on story elements and abilities that are also deliberately left as plot hooks for sequels, which I feel diminishes this first instalment’s ability to stand alone – and will be very, very irritating if for whatever reason the sequels are not written/picked up for English distribution. That said, the actual events are satisfying – a conflict that has been consuming Arue for the majority of the story is conclusively dealt with, and while the question of ‘What makes a wonderful life?’ is never answered onscreen, we’re given a good idea of what answer the characters would give – and yet, are free to choose our own, as we should be.

Overall, for anybody looking for a visual novel that is short (I finished in seven hours, although I’m a fast reader), often cheerful but with surprising depth as a social critique, I would definitely recommend Chuusotsu – and would be happy to welcome these characters back into my life in a second instalment.