Gakuen Heaven
Gakuen Heaven is a media franchise originating from the Windows game Gakuen Heaven: Boy's Love Scramble, originally released by the company SPRAY. The franchise gradually expanded to include more games, drama CDs, manga, and anime.
Plot
Keita Itō, an average high school boy, is surprised to find out that he's been accepted into the elite and prestigious boarding school, Bell Liberty Academy ベル自由 学園 Unnerved by the mystery, he's further distracted by the school's social dynamics. In a sea of amazing young men, Keita struggles to find out what makes him unique, and how he can possibly deserve to be treated as an equal by the students of Bell Liberty.Characters
;Keita Itō;Kazuki Endō
;Kaoru Saionji
;Tetsuya Niwa
;Omi Shichijo
;Hideaki Nakajima
;Yukihiko Naruse
;Koji Shinomiya
;Takuto Iwai
;Shunsuke Taki
;Satoshi Umino
;Kakeru Ozawa and Wataru Ozawa
;Jin Matsuoka
;Hiroya Yoshizumi
Games
Specs
Boy's Love Scramble
In the original game, the player Keita Itō suddenly received an acceptance letter from the renowned Bell Liberty Academy. Attracted by the prestige of the school, he decided to attend. However, on the day of his transfer, the bridge joining the school and the academy, which was located on a remote man-made island, suddenly raised and his bus fell. Luckily, no one was injured but the accident aroused the attention of both the student council's president Niwa Tetsuya as well as the head of the accounting department Saiyonji Kaoru. After explaining briefly the cause of the accident, they guided Keita to his classroom where he met his classmate Endou Kazuki, who kindly befriended Keita and showed him around the campus. On the school grounds, Keita met the rest of the important students in the game: Naruse Yukihiko, captain of the tennis club; Shinomiya Kouji, captain of the archery club; Iwai Takuto, captain of the art club; and Taki Shunsuke, a genius cyclist; the vice president of the student council, Nakajima Hideaki; the genius programmer, Shichijou Omi; as well as the child-looking teacher Umino Satoshi. The objective of the game is to solve the mysteries surrounding Keita's sudden transfer to BL Academy.Okawari
A fan disc titled Gakuen Heaven Okawari! was released for PlayStation 2. The story takes place three months after the first game. This time, Keita picked up a cursed ring that would take away his major ability – luck. The characters are the same as in the Windows Game and the objective this time is to find the way to release Keita from the curse of the ring.Double Scramble
In the squeal Gakuen Heaven 2 ~Double Scramble!~, released in April 2015, the player Yuki Asahina is invited to study at the near-legendary Bell Liberty Academy despite possessing no remarkable skill or a talent of any distinction save his uncanny good luck. On his first day Yuki is inexplicably entrusted with a mysterious armband that marks him to all as the Ace; the school's new student council president. There is little for Yuki to celebrate, however, as the position of student council president has been reduced to a powerless servant, responsible for nothing besides the menial chores that Durak, Bell Liberty's disciplinary committee and the school's true authority, consider beneath them. After befriending classmate Tomo Kasahara and student council peers Kuya Sagimori and Masatsugu Takato, Yuki is introduced to the other important students in the game: other friends Arata Minase, a champion diver; and musician Reon Yagami; as well as Durak rivals Kiyotada Jokawa, Durak leader; Hayato Chiba, martial artist; and Eiji Sonoda, chef extraordinaire. Yuki must uncover and overcome a conspiracy; forming a partnership and, potentially, a relationship with a fellow student to save not only his position as council president, but the whole of Bell Liberty Academy.Anime
Summary
Keita Itō receives a Platinum Paper, the special letter of admission from Bell Liberty Academy, a prestigious all-boys school that only accepts the cream of the crop. Though he doubts his ability to succeed at such a school because he is a transfer student coming in the middle of the year, and he has no special ability that he can speak of, he accepts the admission. Keita is picked up by Niwa, the president of the student council, and from then on, he is warmly welcomed to BL Academy by everyone.Keita's first actual friend is Endō Kazuki, who immediately takes Keita under his wing and takes care of him to the extent that Keita laughingly dubs him "grandmother." The two of them become a steadfast pair, but in the days that Kazuki is not around, Keita has no trouble finding other company among the other students.
Occasionally Keita has flashbacks to his childhood, where he is playing with an older boy whom he calls "Kazu-nii." He can't remember much except that he and "Kazu-nii" were close at one point, but these memories seem irrelevant to his current life, so Keita dismisses them.
Meanwhile, Kazuki is involved in a power struggle with the Vice Chairman of the board. The Vice Chairman is distinctly annoyed that the former chairman chose to leave his position to Kazuki. He views Kazuki as a young and incompetent despot incapable of running BL Academy, much less the Suzubishi Group, the business group that owns BL Academy and many scientific research and development companies. Indeed, Kazuki rejects many of Kuganuma's proposals and seemingly "abuses" his power by admitting a student of no particular skill — in this case, Itō Keita — to BL Academy.
While Kazuki is away on business, Kuganuma summons Keita to his office and informs him that his admission to the school was unauthorized and a mistake, and that he is to be expelled from the school. At the urging of his friends, Keita emails the Chairman to protest, and the MVP Battle is created in response. The MVP Battle is a contest for teams of two, and the winners can choose to have any wish granted; unsurprisingly, Keita teams up with Kazuki with the goal of asking for his expulsion to be overturned.
Unknown to Keita, Kazuki stakes his position on the outcome of the MVP Battle - that is, if he and Keita do not manage to win the competition, he will resign his position as Chairman. Fortunately, they manage to succeed despite the obstacles in their path - both part of the competition and from outside interference - and Keita's place at the school is secured.
A short time after winning the MVP Battle, Keita is invited out by the school nurse, Dr. Jin Matsuoka, who takes him to an abandoned building. The doctor reveals that Keita was once infected with a dangerous virus that the Suzubishi Group had been researching, but recovered thanks to the administration of an experimental vaccine. Yoshizumi Hiroya, one of the researchers on the project, was also infected, but he reacted badly to the vaccine and has been in a coma ever since. The Suzubishi Group hushed up the incident, and it fell to Dr. Matsuoka to provide for Hiroya's medical expenses.
Dr. Matsuoka intends to force Kazuki to take responsibility for his family's neglect of Hiroya, using Keita as a bargaining chip. Kazuki and Dr. Matsuoka struggle, but in the end Keita wins the doctor over, offering himself as a research subject for the development of a new vaccine that can help Hiroya.
The series ends with both couples - Keita and Kazuki, Jin and Hiroya - reunited and realizing their feelings for each other.
Episodes
The series premiered on Toku in the United States on January 2016.Drama CDs
5 drama CDs have been released. Aside from the first drama CD, the core cast remains the same for all other products in the franchise and is based on the casting in the PlayStation 2 games.;Full-length drama
- Gakuen Heaven 1: Mirai wa Kimi no Mono
- Gakuen Heaven 2: Muteki no Sannensei
- Gakuen Heaven 2: Tsuyoki na Ninensei
- Gakuen Heaven 2: Welcome to Heaven
- Gakuen Heaven 3: Happy Paradise
- Gakuen Heaven: Bitter Chocolate
- Gakuen Heaven: Sweet Candy
Manga