Topic: School System for UY stories

[UruseiNeo]

Before I go on, I just want to point out that all this is based on a single video game, Persona 4, where your character goes to school and stuff and the plot takes place throughout a year (setting is 2011).

Another note is that, this is something my teacher told me, is that not all schools necessarily use this system anymore.

With that, this is what I can gather from the game to come to the conclusion on how high schoolers go to school in Japan, seeing as how Lum and Ataru fit this category, and seeing as how UY seems to follow the system as most animes seem to do, I'm posting this.

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1. First, and I'm sure plenty of people know this, Saturdays are school days T_T

2. The first semester starts in earlier APRIL (Again, based on the game, which starts u off April 11th and u go to school the next day)

3. There seem to be a number of "holidays" where they get the day off between the beginning and the end of the first semester:

                         -May 3rd (Tues)
                         -May 4th (Wed)
                         -May 5th (Thurs)
            (I dunno why these were days off, I need to look into that. I think it was "Golden Week")
I think there were others but I cant remember what days they were, nor do I think anyone cares about the specific days off... -_-'''

4. The mid-terms occurred  throughout the week of May 9th-12th (Monday-Thursday)

   -The Finals took place between July 19th -23rd (Monday-Friday)

5. First Semester Ends--Summer Vacation Begins! July 27th (Wed)

6. Second Semester started September 1st (Thursday)

                   - September 23rd "Autumnal Equinox Day" (Friday)
                   - October 10th "Health & Sports Day" (Monday)

7. Second Semester Midterms - October 14th, 15th, 17th-20th (16th was a Sunday, dunno why its scheduled like this...)

                   - November 3rd "Culture Day" (Thurs)
                   - *** November 23rd "Thanksgiving" (Wed) ***

8. Final Exam? November 28th - December 3rd (Monday-Saturday)

                   - Xmas Eve and Xmas December 24th-25th

Then the game skipped to March 20th so I now I dunno when the Winter Vacation was gonna start -_-'''
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I'll say this again, this might not be true, I got this from a PS2 game that takes place 2 years from now but it WAS made in Japan as it is an anime style video game.

No one is obligated to use this system, I just thought it would make a good guideline.

Also, the main point was the exam dates and vacation periods, I threw in the individual days off just for the heck of it.

[FallinG_StaR]

Hmm... Must be snowing there... XD

Anyway when making school stories... don't forget whatever you do the class must always be 2-C... XD

Don't know why but its almost the standard class number in most animes and stuff...

[sidzero]

From my understanding, it all depends on the individual school for how the yearly schedule goes. When I was looking into information on the JET Program for when I finish school, all the information has participants starting in late July or early August, after summer holidays. But I've also heard of schools that start their yearly schedules in January, when students return from winter holidays. I actually think this is the first I've heard of it starting in spring, but I wouldn't be surprised because generally, Japanese schools are year-round, only having a few weeks off for both summer and winter holidays.

More often than not in anime/manga, I see the class numbered instead of lettered. Like year 2, class 3, instead of class C. I'm quite sure that, again, this depends on the individual schools involved.

I'd also like to add that I know for a fact that in Japan, high school isn't required like it is here in the US. And that every school is, in essence, a private school, complete with tuition and everything. The main purpose of high school in Japan, by my understanding, is to prepare students for college, so many who would otherwise be going the manual labor route don't go to high school or college.

And lastly, yes, the reason schools get out May 3-5 is Golden Week, which is always the first week of May.


On another note, how is Persona 4? I've heard it's a good game. Being the RPG geek that I am I've been thinking of checking it out once I get a chance to get out and get some new games.

[UruseiNeo]

I can see why High School isn't "required". In anime, I see stuff I learned in High School being crammed into the heads of elementary school students XD.
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Thanks for reminding me of this part, Falling:

(In the Game) as most schools seem to do, there are 3 years. There were 3 classrooms for each year.

First years were on the 1st floor and the classrooms were numbered "1-1" "1-2" and "1-3"
Second years were on the 2nd floor and the classrooms were numbered "2-1" "2-2" and "2-3"
Third years were on the 3rd floor and the classrooms were numbered "3-1" "3-2" and "3-3"

Simple, right?
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Persona 4... it is FREAKING AWESOME!

It's so anime like and has VA's from real anime such as Ichigo from Bleach, Sasuke from Naruto (AKA Ben from Ben 10 Alien Force), Henry from digimon tamers (couldn't remember any other anime I heard him from) and Tohru from Fruits Basket.

Between dungeons, you actually take a couple of weeks off to do school events or stuff like that.

It has a very anime like opening: #Invalid YouTube Link#

Aside from the anime likeness and familiarity, it also feels like a mixture between Sims and Legend of Dragoon.

Legend of Dragon: In that the battle system is in turns, you use elements (Fire, Ice, Wind, Electricity), each different character uses a diff type of weapon/fighting style.

Sims: You go to school, create social links with NPCs. You increase Courage, Knowledge, Expression, Diligence, and Understanding.

You can make one of the female NPCs ur girlfriend though I have yet to see how that benefits you in gameplay very much. (You can, if you want, make all the possible female NPCs ur girlfriend but again, I don't see the point other than watching diff dialogue.)

Overall, the game is awesome, I plan to check out Persona 3  but the first 2 are said to be not as good. You might want to check out Persona 3 first but you absolutely DO NOT need to know what happens in 3 to play 4, they are very different.

Edit:  ONE MORE THING.... It has a total of 5 different endings! 3 Bad Endings, 1 Normal Ending, and 1 TRUE Ending

[sidzero]

(In the Game) as most schools seem to do, there are 3 years. There were 3 classrooms for each year.

That's something else that varies from school to school. They have as many class groups as they need for their number of students. But from what I hear, high schools in Japan are having less and less students because their population is actually on the decline right now thanks to single women who prefer to pursue careers and not have children until later in life.


And just what's wrong with Final Fantasy? That's one of my favorite game series. Though unlike most who like the series, I think the best one was 6, and that 7 was overrated (though 12 comes pretty damned close to overthrowing 6's place as best Final Fantasy). And your little analysis of Final Fantasy games is quite a bit off. That may apply to some of them, but not all of them.

From what I understand, Persona combines RPGs with Dating Sims, which is what I always end up trying to do when I design games. If that's true, then I really should play the game to see how someone else does the idea.

[UruseiNeo]

Oh, dude, there's nothing wrong with Final Fantasy. Its like Gundams, I just can't get into it -_-. Specifically FF, I think I gave up too easily.

And yeah, I'm pretty sure I know very little about what they contain XD. I actually kinda based the things I said on "Legend of Dragoon" but not many people seem to know that game so I say FF instead.

Edit: Should we make a Persona Topic? I have a feeling this discussion will progress

[sidzero]

Legend of Dragoon is nothing like Final Fantasy other than that they're both Japanese style RPGs. You might as well compare something like Soul Calibur and Street Fighter (SF being another of my favorite game series).

Starting a Persona topic cause this will continue? Probably not, I've said all I' really can say until I get around to playing it. Which probably won't be until mid-February, as I don't plan on going out to buy any new games until Street Fighter 4 comes out.

[UruseiNeo]

changed "Final Fantasy" to "Legend of Dragoon"
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In the game, I got to experience a number of Japanese school events.

"King's Game" was one of the funniest things I've ever seen, I dunno if its specifically a Japanese game or not though, but it was really funny. Who knows about it?

[sidzero]

Well, I finally got around to playing Persona 4, and I must agree, badass game. A little short (I'm working on my second playthrough already and I've only been at it a week), but it was still pretty good. Now that I've played it, I'd have to say the best way to describe it is mostly as a dating sim-type of game with a little bit of dungeon hacking, with about a 70-30 mix of the two. At least that's about the ratio of the time I spent in my first playthrough, though it probably didn't help that I beat all but the first 2 dungeons on the first day they unlock (once the fox starts helping your party out, the game becomes infinitely easier). Well, every time I try and design a game, I always end up with a similar bastardization of dating sim and RPG. Oddly enough this game is one of the few games I've played that I can say I didn't spend more time thinking "this game would be better if it was like this instead", though there were certainly a lot of ways it could have been better (if I ever start and actually finish making a game, I'll show how). But really, the only major complaint I'd have about the game is that even for PS2, the graphics are a little behind the envelope. You'd think a game that came out near the end of it's consoles lifespan would push the console to it's limits. Oh well.

On another note, about the "King's Game"... seriously, if you've never heard of the Osama Game, you don't watch enough anime or read enough manga or something.

[UruseiNeo]

I remember hearing "King's Game" before but right now I can't remember where. This was the first time I got to SEE it, I think. Or maybe before it wasn't memorable enough.

Anyways, I got Persona 3 FES (diff from Persona 3 in that it has MORE) and I have to say that although P4 does a reference to P3, I think playing them the reverse order would be better.

Persona 3 FES is without a doubt LONGER. P4 goes from April - December, P3 (without FES addition) goes from April - end of January. Add in the FES, and there's even more!

*FES has two games; "The Journey" which is basically P3 and "The Answer" which is what comes AFTER P3 but its the same characters, with the exception that you get to use a diff MC.*

Between P4 and P3 FES, P3 FES is probably more challenging, has some features that I like such as fusing Persona with weapons, you get more characters to add to ur party, and the Secondary Characters evolve their personas without the need of MAXing the Social Link. Although I have not gotten through the first Walkthrough just yet, I have a feeling I'm gonna like the MC's evolved Persona better than Izanami no Okami.

I hope you got to see the TRUE Ending for P4 because it is Epic as hell. (We really should have moved this to another topic cause I have way to much to talk about)