Katawa Shoujo Forums

Hello!

Is there a chinese restaurant in the Yamaku Academy town?

Straight to the point, what is Yamaku's education system? As in: how many years and grades; stuff like semesters, trimesters, exams and vacations. Are all classes mandatory or are they selected by the students who want to study them? What kind of fees and/or scholarships does Yamaku have ? (I can't imagine somebody from a poor or nonexisting family like Hanako to be able to pay high fees) What year does class 3 correspond to, and why?
I live and study in Bulgaria, and have no idea how neither American nor Japanese school systems work, or if Yamaku follows either of those... Hell, over here we don't usually even have standard college(other than some private schools). We go through 12 grades of school, then to university for a bachelors and masters degree...
If I missed something important in my questions, please include it in the answer anyway... If nothing else, this info might help some fanfic writers portray school related topics more accurately.
And thanks!

What disabilities Aoi and Keiko have, or do they have disabilities at all? Or, with such short screentime, was any disability thought for them firsthand?

Just the stuff that has been said before:
Yamaku is located in Japan, thus uses the japanese school system. In Japan there are six years of elementary school, three years of middle school and three years of high school. Third year of high school corresponds to the 12th year overall.
The school year is organized in trimesters, beginning in April with the first break during August and the second over the new year.
Usualy there are Mid term and End-term exams taking four or five consecutive days in the middle and at the end of each trimester respectively, but some schools handle that differently, and it is not explicitly stated that Yamaku follows this practice.
Also Yamaku has only High School classes.
I'm not a hundred percent certain about being able to choose subjects, but from what I know about japanese culture, I consider that highly unlikely.
The subject of fees has been kept very vague in the VN, probably deliberately...

The subject of fees has been kept very vague in the VN, probably deliberately...

Misha does mention something like the only reason she could afford it was because of a special scholarship they were giving her for studying sign language.

I was surprised to discover that some characters who aren't even mentioned in the actual game - such as Shizune's mother - have names, at least according to the Mishimmie.

Have Hisao's parents ever been defined beyond the few references that Hisao makes in KS? More to the point, have they been named?

Erthel wrote:Hello!

Is there a chinese restaurant in the Yamaku Academy town?

It's not unlikely.

RecoiL wrote:Straight to the point, what is Yamaku's education system? As in: how many years and grades; stuff like semesters, trimesters, exams and vacations. Are all classes mandatory or are they selected by the students who want to study them? What kind of fees and/or scholarships does Yamaku have ? (I can't imagine somebody from a poor or nonexisting family like Hanako to be able to pay high fees) What year does class 3 correspond to, and why?
I live and study in Bulgaria, and have no idea how neither American nor Japanese school systems work, or if Yamaku follows either of those... Hell, over here we don't usually even have standard college(other than some private schools). We go through 12 grades of school, then to university for a bachelors and masters degree...
If I missed something important in my questions, please include it in the answer anyway... If nothing else, this info might help some fanfic writers portray school related topics more accurately.
And thanks!

Yamaku is a Japanese highschool. Google can tell you more about Japanese highschools than I could, but it's 3 years from grade 10 (16 year olds) to 12 (18 year olds), school year starts in April and is split in three trimesters with vacations between each. There's quite a bit of variety in course selection and elective classes and whatnot.

mysterycycle wrote:I was surprised to discover that some characters who aren't even mentioned in the actual game - such as Shizune's mother - have names, at least according to the Mishimmie.

Have Hisao's parents ever been defined beyond the few references that Hisao makes in KS? More to the point, have they been named?

We like to fool around and do irrelevant shit. Hisao's parents however were never touched on.

Well, first off, this seems a good excuse to say thanks, for making the game, for making it something worthwhile, for engaging the community, and for having the patience to stick around for six months while people ask for an annotated notarized version of Emi's sexual history.

Random question, mostly simply because it hasn't been asked.

In Act 1, Misha indicates that there's a pool. The pool is never mentioned again. Was there ever any consideration of having any pool scenes? Was it forgotten?

Aura wrote: We like to fool around and do irrelevant shit. Hisao's parents however were never touched on.

Thanks!

RecoiL wrote:Straight to the point, what is Yamaku's education system?

::snip::

It sounds like your question has mostly been answered, but if you're into tabletop roleplaying games at all, the game HeartQuest has a chapter or two talking specifically about what Japanese high school is like. It may not answer all of your questions, but since it was intended to help Americans and Europeans run roleplaying games set in Japanese high schools, it may help you to get a better feel for it for writing purposes.

ProfAllister wrote: In Act 1, Misha indicates that there's a pool. The pool is never mentioned again. Was there ever any consideration of having any pool scenes? Was it forgotten?

The pool's mentioned in order to give an idea of the size and scope of the facility. Generally, having a pool means you've got a hell of a lot of resources, and Yamaku is definitely a well-funded operation. It's entirely likely that at some point one of us considered using the pool for something but I can't recall it ever coming up, honestly.

TheHivemind wrote:

ProfAllister wrote: In Act 1, Misha indicates that there's a pool. The pool is never mentioned again. Was there ever any consideration of having any pool scenes? Was it forgotten?

The pool's mentioned in order to give an idea of the size and scope of the facility. Generally, having a pool means you've got a hell of a lot of resources, and Yamaku is definitely a well-funded operation. It's entirely likely that at some point one of us considered using the pool for something but I can't recall it ever coming up, honestly.

I think it was one of those things that we threw in to make the place more "believable".

Things like elevators, wide hallways with handrails, and facilities for rehabilitation/exercise were considered essential.

There was also a time where it wasn't going to be a boarding school, but for some reason we went with that option. I think we did it because it was easier to explain why HIsao went there - constant supervision.

Geographically speaking, where in Japan is Yamaku Academy? (I ask for fanfiction purposes, so you could give me some random Japanese city if you want.)

Breaker deGodot wrote:Geographically speaking, where in Japan is Yamaku Academy? (I ask for fanfiction purposes, so you could give me some random Japanese city if you want.)

An unnamed city in Miyagi prefecture.