Differences between Jet Set Radio and Jet Set Radio Future

*(currently the article is unfinished and will be for a long time, but the present comparisions are enough to prove a point)*

While Jet Set Radio and Jet Set Radio Future are games from the same game series and mostly share the same name, they are not that similar as you expect. Besides the obvious difference of them being different games that were released on different consoles, they are not actually connected in a chronological way. There is a common misconception that these two games are connected and that Jet Set Radio Future is, in fact, a sequel.

Besides the mountains of in-game facts that disprove this claim, the most obvious fact that the game was never a sequel, but an alternative retelling of the same story, is this statement on the official JSRF website, and the most recent one is this tweet from the composer of those two games, Hideki Naganuma.

But even with these facts, JSRF sometimes alludes to some character and plot details from JSR, which can confuse people and further strengthen this misconception.

This page is not created to discourage fan creations based around this concept, considering how different JSR and JSRF are, it is fun to think about how those can potentially be a part of the same timeline and what could possibly happen to the world of these games that it would be so different in the second game.

## Characters

Both games share the main cast, with new characters appearing in JSRF , some of the shared characters can have the same personality traits in both games. But even then, they have some differences like their roles and relationships with other characters, and some of the counterparts don't share the same personality at all. And other charactes can be counterpars not in their design, but in the role they serve to the story.

Despite similarities, it can't be assumed that all of them were carried over to the JSRF counterparts. This is refering to the character descriptions from the Jet Set Radio Perfect Guide. Those descriptions featured things like age, height, likes and a character trait for all of the GG members. While this guidebook has them, the Jet Set Radio Future Perfect Guidebook doesn't. So the things like age, height, etc. of the JSRF character counterparts are left unknown. While it would be easy to transfer those JSR character descriptions to the JSRF characters, most likely it would be wrong, because some of the description just won't match their shown in-game personality, so it's unlikely that the other traits would also match. (e.g. Mew's and Yo-yo's height. In JSR, Yo-yo is sligtly taller than Mew, but in JSRF, Rhyth is significally taller than Yo-Yo.)

There are some statements that confirm that JSRF characters were intended to look more mature and "smarter" than their JSR counterparts.Do with that piece of information whatever you want.

### Comparision

* DJ Professor K, while staying accurate to his JSR counterpart, still has minor differences, like being a lot calmer, less energetic(most likely to reflect his age) and somehow meaner and more biased, insulting the rival gangs and praising the GG's more. He even thinks that everyone who is not with the GG's is a wimp.
* Corn, while staying mostly accurate to his JSR counterpart, like still being a genius, got a significant role upgrade. From one of the first GG members, to their leader.*(Sidenote:according to one tweet from a Japanese JSR fan, Corn was the leader in JSR too, but we don't have a concrete source for that so we don't put it in yet.)*And it's established that he can do all sorts of mechanic related things, like him fixing Roboy. He also seems less arrogant and is more of a stereotypical leader character.
* Gum stayed the same in every aspect, except her design. She still is the one that gives tutorial to the player and the heartbreaker aspect of her personality stayed intact.
* Yo-Yo got a role upgrade, from a rival challange character to the protagonist. His personality stayed the same, with his liar aspect being more pronounced here.
* Beat got downgraded to a rival character, and the delinquent personality trait, that his also counterpart shares, is more pronounced here. He is also now arguing about the leader position of the GG's, thinking he deserves to be its leader. Despite this, he is still featured on the boxart, commercials and the rest of marketing as the face of the game, continuing the same trend from JSR. He got added connections to Gouji in the form of Zero Beat, that went unexplained in the game.
* Combo has a much less significant role and a completely different personality in JSRF, as compared to his JSR counterpart's calm personality in the game or the violent trait in the guidebook. While he narrates certain parts of the story and plays a significant part in the plot of JSR, he is a Rival Challenge unlockable character in JSRF. He is more as a comic relief character, hating dogs and goldfish and on the hitting female rudies such as Gum, even Rapid 99 or Love Shockers according to the Japanese exclusive dialogue, noticably characters that could be described as the "bad girl" type. He and Cube don't know each other nor exchange any dialogue in JSRF universe nor do they know Coin, as he does not exist. His only acknowledgement of Cube is telling the player that she was a leader of Rapid 99.
* Cube now is now a lot more plot relevant character compared to her JSR counterpart, and has a completely different background, being an ex-leader of Rapid 99 and a leader of Poison Jam. Not to mention being a minor villain(antihero?).
* Rhyth, while looking really similar to her counterpart, Mew, is different from it. Devil's advocate personality of her counterpart was not carried over, and instead she is more of a weirdo, noting things that are pretty rude to say, like saying that Beat smells weird and collecting odd things like Golden Rhino badges.
* Gouji not only has a different spelling name from his counterpart, he receive a bit of changes. While still being a crazy DJ, now he got a new ability - transforming info a giant robot. And he knows more foreign languages, as evidenced by his dialogue in the final stage.

## The setting

Both games feature a theme of basing their locations on real life places, but they go about it in different ways. Jet Set Radio goes the more realistic route, where levels in Tokyo-to can be recognised by the featured landmarks and their names, although being spelled differently(the theme that both games share), while Jet Set Radio Future chose the more exaggerated route.

The names of the locations are different too, in an obviously noticeable way and in a more obscure way. In Jet Set Radio story goes on in Tokyo-to, while in Jet Set Radio Future it's on Tokyo. Tokyo (トーキョーと) is based on the real life capital of Japan, Tokyo (東京). In the Japanese version, they are further distanced by the way their names are written, Tokyo in the game is written in the Katakana alphabet, while the real life Tokyo is written with Kanji characters.

Overall tone in both games is different too, with the first game having a more bright, positive, rebelious and playful attitude, further supported by the bright and colorful visuals, while the second one is more serious and even dystopian, and again, further supported by its visuals, that are sometimes more chaotic and with a noticeably more muted color scheme.

The time period where Jet Set Radio takes place in was never mentioned, but with Jet Set Radio Future it is, which is Showa period 1999.

While talking about the time periods with these games, the statue of Gouji's ancestors should be noted, because it uses a 3D model of Goji from Jet Set Radio, which seem to strengthen the notion that JSRF is a sequel, but it is nothing more than an easter egg. Because if it wasn't, then we have to believe that the GGs not just outlived Goji, but also possibly several generations of his family, while not aging or changing themselves that much, which makes no sense.

[1]

## References

1. ↑ https://jsrfcomrestoration.github.io/JSRFdotcom/system.htm

Translated in DeepL
2. ↑ https://twitter.com/Hideki\_Naganuma/status/533501405651169280
3. ↑ https://twitter.com/Hideki\_Naganuma/status/630572879000702977?t=DetOqXydyOhEvN21Sg0Asg&s=19
4. ↑ https://twitter.com/Hideki\_Naganuma/status/589599119951278080?t=5CMA4cpFhY9QhqnWgXekAA&s=19
5. ↑ https://segaretro.org/index.php?title=File:Play\_US\_006.pdf&page=67
6. ↑ https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/475263-jsrf-jet-set-radio-future/44372770 The said dialogue is translated by the author of the topic
7. ↑ https://jsrfcomrestoration.github.io/JSRFdotcom/tokyo.htm
8. ↑ https://jsrfcomrestoration.github.io/JSRFdotcom/index\_j.html