Hi all, and welcome to Katawa Shoujo: 2015-Nen no kurasu (Katawa Shoujo: Class of 2015). This RP is based off the setting of the visual novel Katawa Shoujo by Four Leaf Studios for which information can be found [here] if anybodies interested. You're still just as welcome as anyone if you haven't played the VN - the premise isn't too difficult, and I'm sure we can help you with anything you may need.
As is the same with the visual novel, the primary premise of the roleplay will be romance; in turn, a lot of the story will revolve around your character's interaction with one another. I'll be doing everything I can from a GM's standpoint to encourage and facilitate any interaction and romance between characters. I'm pretty lax, so lemme' know if I can do anything to help you, yeah?~ Romance is very strongly encouraged, but not mandatory.
Feel free to contact me any way you'd like if you have any questions. If you want to ask privately, you can PM me or add me on steam (reference my signature) and we can chat there~
Katawa Shoujo: Class of 2015 takes place in and around Yamaku Academy, the same academy featured in the visual novel, which is located in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. The events of the visual novel take place 4 years after the events of the visual novel - the visual novel itself has no cited year as far as I'm aware, so the assumption being made is that, at the very least, all of the student cast have moved on from the school and possibly a sum of the staff and teachers as well.
[Yamaku Academy] hasn't changed a great deal since the events of the visual novel. From July to October 2014, minor retrofits took place systematically throughout the school, although the results are barely visible since only the electronics were effected to reduce the risk of fire, and a more modern security system was installed to reduce the risk of the academy being broken into.
Within the school, key locations include the main building which contains the classrooms, staff room, key staff offices, the cafeteria, and the library, medical building, gym, male dorms, female dorms, the athletics track, and the pool.
Popular clubs include the student council, art club, track and field club, book club, music club, literature club, school newspaper club, photography club, baseball club, and science club, but students are free to open their own clubs if there are 3 or more founding members in total. A club is not required to have a room though: a student or a group of two students can ask to have access to a room during a break or after hours - noting the main building closes at 17:00 or 5 PM - although clubs get preference on using the room. Students are encouraged to join a club, but it's not mandatory.
The main building has 3 floors, each floor 'belonging' to a pair of year levels - whilst that floor is home to the year group, it's also their responsibility to look after it and report any damage to the teachers. The first floor belongs to years 7 and 8, the second floor to years 9 and 10, and the third floor to years 11 and 12. Each floor has 8 classrooms - numbered 1-8, a study lounge where students from all classes on that floor can work together, and elective rooms spread across the three floors; going to an elective subject is the only time a student may have to go to a different floor for their studies. The staff room and the on-call nurses office - although it should be noted there is also a separate, more equipped medical building, and that office is just for the nurse-on-call - is located on the second floor, the key staff offices on the third floor.
[The Shanghai], located in the nearby Yamaku Village, is slightly more successful than what it was in the visual novel, although is much the same. A cafe-run survey in late November, 2013, revealed that customers generally like the 'small cafe, homey feel' as well as students of Yamaku being able to come by freely, so all that was really changed was more staff were employed - a good percentage of which are students at Yamaku.
Other popular locations in Yamaku Village include the Grocery Store, the Park, the Arcade, and the Karaoke Cafe, although a number of other places exist.
About half an hour away using the bus transit is Sendai, the capital city of Miyagi Prefecture. Sendai, whilst some distance away, has arguably the greatest array of stores and activities in the prefecture - nearly anything legal that you can think of.
Katawa Shoujo: Class of 2015 will be operating on a day-by-day basis, running through every day of the week by broad regimental dictations of what the 'time frame' is; for example, the day might be Monday and the time frame might be 05:00 to 09:00, meaning that you can roleplay anything your character might be doing in this time frame. The reason for 'time frames' is to ensure everybody stays close enough together that interactions can occur easily although give enough freedom that your character can do what they want, whether they're up and on the track by dawn or run to class at the last minute with a slice of toast in their mouth.
Weekends will have much longer time frames, effectively giving you all near-complete freedom as to what you want to do and how you want to do it. Time frames are fairly negotiable and flexible, entirely depending on what you guys need to maximize your RP - that being said, it'll need to stay tighter during school hours; on that note, I'm also happy for classes to be time-skipped or detailed depending on what you guys are after. I'll include what the time frames are in the IC.
Monday to Thursday:
- 05:00: Dorms are unlocked, curfew ends.
- 05:30: Front gate is unlocked.
- 07:00: Main building opens.
- 07:15: Cafeteria opens.
- 09:00 to 10:10: First class.
- 10:10 to 10:30: Recess.
- 10:30 to 11:50: Second class.
- 11:55 to 13:10 (1:10 PM): Third class; note the 5 minute gap for students to gather their things and move rooms.
- 13:10 (1:10 PM) to 14:00 (2 PM): Lunch.
- 14:00 (2 PM) to 15:20 (3:20 PM): Fourth and final class, cafeteria closes.
- 17:00 (5 PM): Main building closes. Club activities generally run after the end of fourth class and before the main building closes.
- 17:30 (5:30 PM) to 18:30 (6:30 PM): Cafeteria opens again for dinner.
- 21:00 (9 PM): School gates are locked.
- 22:00 (10 PM): Dorms are locked, dorm roles are called, and curfew begins.
Friday:
- 05:00: Dorms are unlocked, curfew ends.
- 05:30: Front gate is unlocked.
- 07:00: Main building opens.
- 07:15: Cafeteria opens.
- 09:00 to 10:10: First class.
- 10:10 to 10:30: Recess.
- 10:30 to 11:50: Second class.
- 11:55 to 13:10 (1:10 PM): Third and final class; note the 5 minute gap for students to gather their things and move rooms.
- 14:00 (2 PM): Cafeteria closes.
- 17:00 (5 PM): Main building closes. Friday is a popular choice for club activities due to the extra spare time.
- 17:30 (5:30 PM) to 18:30 (6:30 PM): Cafeteria opens again for dinner.
- 21:00 (9 PM): School gates are locked.
- 22:00 (10 PM): Dorms are locked, dorm roles are called, and curfew begins.
Saturday and Sunday:
- 05:00: Dorms are unlocked, curfew ends.
- 05:30: Front gate is unlocked.
- 07:00: Main building opens.
- 07:15: Cafeteria opens.
- 14:00 (2 PM): Cafeteria closes.
- 17:00 (5 PM): Main building closes.
- 17:30 (5:30 PM) to 18:30 (6:30 PM): Cafeteria opens again for dinner.
- 21:00 (9 PM): School gates are locked.
- 22:00 (10 PM): Dorms are locked, dorm roles are called, and curfew begins.
As far as skipping classes, violating curfew, and being outside of the school grounds when the gates are locked, you're defiantly more than welcome; of course there runs the risk of getting caught, but I'm pretty lax as long as the RP is good *cough*getastudenttocoverforyouwhentheroleiscalled*cough*.
I don't really have any rules, I'm pretty lax plus you guys are all great anyways, but a few things to mention:
1: RPG rules are the first reference for anything relating to rules. These can be found [here] if you want to reference them for anything.
2: IC drama is fantastic, go nuts! In OOC though, please be nice to one another and if there's any issues, please avoid posting about it on any of the RP threads. If you need help with issues, I'm available to do what I can plus there's a lovely team of staff members that can be contacted. Information on reports incidents to moderators can be found [here]
3: Whilst I hope to never have to pull this, I reserve the right to make a final call regarding the RP. That being said, this call will be almost always with consultation with everybody in the OOC and will always err on the side of promoting RP.
I might update the rules if I need too, although I doubt I'll have to.
Whilst the title is 'Class of 2015' your character is welcome to be from any year level found in the [Secondary education in Japan] system - so from the start of junior high to the end of high school. Just note, in case you may be trying to set up or go for a pairing, that there'll probably be 3 classes with players in them which will contain 2 year levels each: a class containing years 7 and 8, a class containing years 9 and 10, and a class containing years 11 and 12.
Additionally, you might also note that whilst the school primarily caters for students with various physical disabilities, physically healthy students are accepted - but mentally disabled students are not. Students with both a physical and mental disability are handled on a case-by-case basis.
Feel free to modify the character sheet as you like! As long as the information I put down in the one here is still in there, I'm not fussed. You're welcome to have up to 2 student characters, but please try to avoid having them in a happy relationship with one another for the sake of RP; an unstable relationship might be interesting though, especially if it involves other player's PC's. If anyone's interest in being a secondary character - whose primary purpose will be to promote RP for student characters - such as a nurse or teacher, please let me know and I'll organize something. If there's enough staff characters, they're welcome to have their own stories with one another; preferably not with the students though, unless the age gap is considerably small - referencing the RPA rules, the statement is 'err on the side of caution'.
Also, if you have a ship organized or in mind, let me know any way you'd like and I can, uh, make a few arrangements to try facilitate that for you~ Whether that be posting in the OOC, PM'ing me, adding and talking to me me on Steam (reference my signature), or something else, is entirely up to you.
Character Sheet:
[b]Name:[/b] (Your character's full name. Note that in Japanese, the surname comes first.)
[b]Age:[/b] (The averages ages for the year levels are: Year 7: 13. Year 8: 14. Year 9: 15. Year 10: 16. Year 11: 17. Year 12: 18. You're welcome to vary by up to 2 years at the most, although if you want to go any further in variance, we should have a chat about it.)
[b]Birthday:[/b] (No reason for this one, I swear~)
[b]Year level:[/b] (Available year levels are 7 through 12.)
[b]Sexuality:[/b] (Your character's sexuality. Relevant for any potential romance.)
[b]Club (if any):[/b] (A list of the clubs can be found under 'Setting'. You are welcome to make up your own club though~ Just remember that there's a minimum of 3 people required for a club. You can still use a room for activities if you're not in a club, but clubs get priority.)
[b]Disabilities (if any):[/b] (Note that Yamaku is catered to students with physical disabilities, but does accept students without them. Students with mental disabilities are not accepted, although students with both a physical and mental disability are considered on a case-by-case basis.)
[b]Job/occupation (if any):[/b] (You're welcome to have a job if you'd like. A few choices might be at the Shanghai, the Karaoke Cafe, the Arcade, or the grocery store.)
[b]Appearance:[/b] (A description of what your character looks like. Can be either written, image(s), or both! Any pictures are welcome, as long as they're clean.)
[b]Personality:[/b] (A description of how your character acts, what their motivations and goals are, their tendencies and ticks, and their interests, to name a few. The more you write, the more I can... mysteriously make it so happen you might have more interaction opportunities with potential ships~)
[b]Backstory:[/b] (A summary of your character's life up to their enrollment into Yumaku. Doesn't need to be anything fancy.)
[b]Notes:[/b] (Anything you wanna' add that I've missed on the sheet, or just wanna add in general.)
2x Thank
![[Yamaku Academy]](http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/katawashoujo/images/9/96/Yamakuhigh.png/revision/latest?cb=20120113225431){kind=link}
![[The Shanghai]](http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/katawashoujo/images/e/e5/Shanghai_Afternoon.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/350?cb=20130217232823){kind=link}