JJOCT7 R2M21 Jojolity

Judge Haruka Mizusawa (Ceep)

For Mahimit, I really don’t have much to say. It’s short, it’s sweet! Mahimit examines their own twisted sense of duty and falls to it, and you played into the sniper, who Mahimit imagines to be Zafar. Whether it’s him or not, Mahimit actively plays into working to directly please his father, no matter what. Combined with its svelte package, I feel confident giving this an 8/10! Great work!

For the players, I’m of two minds for each of them. For Sonika, the sections with Drippy and Inago progressing against the sniper were really well written, but I feel like the process of figuring out the mystery seemed abrupt. Sonika presents a piece of evidence, and then instead of analyzing it, seems to come to the conclusion immediately and passes it over to the other two. I feel like the mystery of the sniper doesn’t have as much presence or connectivity with the strategy, especially when it is fairly vital for you to reach the endpoint of it.

As for Windy, there’s a lot of very fun things here, and a ton of exceptional writing. Windy is really written very well, not allowing Sonika to do as she pleases and trying to create a better path forwards. However, I think that the jojolity effort is flawed by a lack of clear integration; Windy’s best moments and Jojolity plays are done after Mahimit is RETIRED, once the match has ended. While I don’t think that Windy would need to put everything in the match proper to make this work, I do think that the strategy reads like Windy doing Windy things, without specific contextualization that could make me reread the match as a whole.

It hurts, genuinely, to do this when the strategy has such primo writing, but I think on balance I’ll give this a high 6/10. What’s in here is good, in some cases really good, but certain parts of it felt disconnected from the whole; while Windy gets a great showcase here for her own character, it doesn’t necessarily feel like she reaches out to anyone besides attempting to do so to Sonika. While Sonika solves the case, there isn’t as consistent or coherent an internal sequencing.

This isn’t to say that any of the character work here is bad; the character work here is great, and I want to see more of it if anything from these characters going into R3. This is just a case of the integration bug bringing down an otherwise slam dunk to merely solidly good.

Judge Jin Takayama (Alpha)

I will, once again, start with Boss.

I mentioned in passing that the strat would work better as the dialogue over a comic, as some sections seem to lack a presence of immediate space- to its credit, the strat is breathtakingly breezy because of it- and it does show. The internal dialogue and pacing would work exceedingly well in that medium, and they help lay the story out for the readers otherwise.

To be more direct, the strat itself plays into the idea of Mahamit being a good son through the lens of him finally giving his reins away to someone- or something- else, and being a pawn to be controlled, used, and sacrificed. He is here to be used like his father before him, who he genuinely believes is here to help.

The strat makes constant references to Mahamit’s mental state leading up to and during the match, but as the mechanics start to properly roll out, the narrative starts to get lighter and softer until the section headers and footers. The strat is holding the idea at its core, so I feel fine giving it a **7**.

And now, Players.

You succeeded in finding the sniper! Genuinely! With the clue places visited via chain-air-mattress-cloak-blanket or running where that’s not possible, I can easily see that having been covered! The confrontation stops at naming the proxy. Once it’s done, it kind of ends, but it’s done!

Moving on to Windy, we have Windy trying to convince Sonika to stop following a new, sudden plot thread I’ve yet to read up on! I apologize to the players for genuinely not getting it!

Now, I’ll be honest. With the goals laid out and accomplished, and the narrative genuinely married to the strat, I have to mention the nitpick. I feel like the mechanics and the narrative don’t properly line up, like the narrative was written before the major moving pieces were announced or used.

I can see giving this a **6**. While everything does work to the basic needs of the strat, it doesn’t really flow well.

Judge Jun Maehara (Extra)

Beginning with the boss, this strikes me as a textbook example of an "embody" Jojolity done right, even if the Jojolity didn't explicitly say "embody." The tactics in the strategy are formulated with the Jojolity in mind, focusing on letting the sniper handle your opponents and facilitating them wherever possible, even physically removing parts of their own body to give clearer sightlines. It's a classic case of "I really don't have a lot to say because you just did everything pretty damn well," and likewise I will be giving this an **8.**

As for the players, the mystery solving has a lot of fun character moments with Drippy and Inago, but a quick solve is never quite as interesting as a slow burn, and not much really seems to come from the first two clues? Spreading out the revelations more would have made it more narratively compelling. Meanwhile, for Windy, the issue is in narrative integration - the bulk of the strategy ends before the bulk of the Jojolity begins, and while the story of Windy being an example not only for Mahi but also for Sonika is a very touching take on the assignment, the disconnect between mechanics and flavor really holds it back. Taking both of these factors into account, I think this gets a **6.**