JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Dating Sim Lets You Kiss A JoJo

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is one of the most influential mangas of all time. References to it show up in dozens of anime, and Hirohiko Araki, the manga’s author, has even shown his work in the Louvre. Despite all these accolades, you’ve never been able to kiss any of the characters, until now.

Joestar Struck is a fan game for the incredibly popular anime and manga series JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Explaining what JoJo is about is surprisingly difficult — basically, it follows the trials of Jonathan Joestar as an experience with a cursed mask sets him and then his descendants on a quest to defeat their family’s nemesis, which changes the course of history. This game is a much easier pitch: It’s a dating sim, where you will eventually get to smooch some of the JoJo characters.

Joestar Struck takes place in an alternate universe where all the members of the Joestar family attend a school for delinquent kids. The demo covers Josuke’s route, starting with him showing you around on your first day of school. There are a lot of cute references that fans of the series will appreciate. For instance, two of the teachers at this school are other JoJo characters, and the default name for the player character is Hirohiko. Josuke also gets really freaked out by a turtle, just as he does in his first appearance in his arc of the manga and anime.

The writing itself is warm and sincere, as well as totally unashamed about being an indulgent fangame. It’s like playable fanfiction. You swoon as the kind and honest Josuke invites you to hang out during lunch and sigh as you accidentally trip and fall into his arms. It’s cheesy, but since the writing for Josuke is pretty in character, it doesn’t feel cheap. After watching or reading Josuke’s arc of the manga, who wouldn’t want to gaze dreamily into those eyes?

The developers behind Joestar Struck, Team Scallywag, hope to have the game out in early 2018. They say you’ll be able to date JoJo protagonists Joseph, Jonathan and Jotaro as well as Josuke. Since the next season of the anime has not yet been confirmed, you can at least look forward to kissing some JoJos before then.