Yesterday I acquired a novelty called あいつはクラスメート! “He’s a Classmate!” (2007). I was amused to see that if I “undress” the book by taking off the dust jacket, the girls on the cover become en déshabillé as well.

In this game you play a student at Himenogawa High School. If you are unaware of what a Japanese high school is like, consult any recent slice of life anime. Your character’s class can be hero, heroine, cultural club member, athlete, or student council member. You also choose a subclass from one of bookworm, otaku, celebrity, “hot blood”, upperclassman, underclassman, or delinquent. Looking at the first page of your character sheet, you see a box for HP, so combat must be a possibility.

The rulebook contains a sample session (albeit a slightly artificial one IMO). In it a character offers to prepare a bento box lunch for her upperclassman. The GM asks the player to make a skill check to see how well it turns out. She refers to her cooking skill on the 2nd page of her character sheet, rolls 2d10, and since both are below her skill level she discovers that her bento box is a huge success.

The character sheet contains a personal data section with height, weight (female characters always put question mark here it seems), size (which for females is bust-waist-hip measurements in cm), birthdate, zodiac sign, blood type, hobby, club affiliations, and pocket money. Anyway, if you want to run some romantic storylines when you get together with the guys on game night, this might be the game for you.

B5 perfect bound softcover with dust jacket, 176 pp.

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