The preface, or an introduction to the four elements:

I love music. I love good music and certainly one musical genre. And while everybody laments her death, I, myself, find her in my everyday life. Mostly in my mp3-player, movies and on the blogosphere, but sometimes I can spot in her in the world of games. If you didn't realize I'm writing about Hip Hop.

Hip Hop consists out of four elements: Bbyoing, Emceeing, Djing and Writing. And for me the culmination of those four elements is probably the closest that comes to a transcendence experience, and to experience that in a game is almost impossible. Sometimes they get the music, sometimes the style but never the vibe.
There were a heap of those games, but just a handful games gave people, that were alien to Hip Hop before, an insight into this rich subculture. One of those games was Jet Set Radio.

Jet Set Radio was released on the most cursed console ever known to man, the Sega Dreamcast, and saw the light of the world in 29. June 2000. It subsumes to the other creative and exclusives titles such as Chu Chu Rocket, Ecco the Dolphin and Seaman. The game never had commercial success, albeit it received much praise from critics and was later on sold bundled together with the X-Box.
Noetheless, Jet Set Radio (= JSR) is also the proof that commercial success doesn't say anything about the quality of a product. This game was unique and one of the first games that featured the cel-shading look, and layed with this new style, the ground for some of the most enticing places in gaming history.

Mcing, or the art of Storytelling:

We know that a peculiar Englishman called Slick Rick basically brought storytelling to the Hip Hop. His stories mostly revolved about stick up kids, who'd try their luck in the crime world.
GG's, the gang in Jet Set Radio, isn't about doing crimes in particular, their just writers (Hip Hop lingo for graffiti artist) that collide with the mights of Tokyo-To.
At first, though, your try to claim back your turf, which then later degenerates into saving the world.
The story isn't trying to ape MGS or another high-spirited game, but rather is the accumulation of different styles and influences, which articulate more clearly in the graphics.

“To be a graffiti writer […] , is like […] the gangs don't like you, the cops dont like you. So, you're in middle of some fucked up shit.”
Word. Nothing is more apparent in Jet Set Radio, albeit the shiny, flashy anime look, than the fact that everybody wants to stop you from spraying. The police takes drastic measures, other gangs are competing with your gang, and lastly, and probably unintentionally, the traffic.

It seems that the world in Jet Set Radio hasn't much to worry about, since they must spend a shit ton of money to thwart the malicious and hip writers. I take it as a satirical view on various undertakings of law to stop graffiti. For example, when in San Francisco the bill 'Proposition 21” was passed, and allowed the law to prosecute vandalism as felony. Meaning, that spraying was now on the same level as raping! All those things seem a little bit unreal and remind me of a videogame, and it's probably just fortuity that the police in JSR is as extreme with their measures, as their real counterparts.

Most of the Narration is done by Professor K., a DJ that hosts a pirate radio channel in Tokyo-To. And when you know your Hip Hop history, you might feel remembered of two things. Firstly of energetic and remarkable radio hosts such as Bobbito Garcia, and secondly of the pirate radio channels in the UK. The latter was specifically in grime an aggravating movement, and adds to the subtext of JSR. Apart from that, doesn't Professor K. remind you of 'Del Tha Funkee Homosapien'?


Lastly, there is the influential businessman Goji, who looks like a typical villian for Tony Stark, plays the antagonist of your crew and lets his crew spray rhinos all over the city. The interesting aspect of this, is the fact that a businessman chooses a rhino as his logo much like Mark Eko. Eko is
also known as writer and Hip Hop aficionado. Intended? I don't know, but it's interesting though.


B-Boying, or finding yourself in the B-boy stance in the middle of a night:

Every now and then, I have the possibility to bust a move in my life, and horribly fail. Nevertheless, it isn't about the dancing, rather about the characters. B-boys and B-girls is a term often used to describe hip hoppers, whether they're dancers or not. It was a way to overcome race and relate on a new and fair level where the one with the best skills gets the most respect from his peers.

And that's the motivation for most of the characters in JSR. The exception are Combo and Cube, who set up the plot for the second half with the introduction of Goji, and their goal to rescue their friend Coin. The rest is pretty much in their B-boy stance, always ready to compete with anyone in order to prove that they are the best in town.

Djing, or I hope that sample is cleared:

DJs are often forgotten and thus lack of enough appreciation. However, that doesn't mean they stopped existing. A lot of them experiment and add new flavours to the sometime homogenous stew that is Hip Hop. The art of digging for the weird, old and rare stuff brought a lot of interesting vibes to the game. In JSR, the use of various styles is a recurring theme in almost every aspect of the game, and so is also in the soundtrack.

The sountrack is mainly done by Hideki Naganuma, who I didn't knew till then, and comprises out of sundry brake beats and mixes them together into a blend of funk, hip hop and techno. The funk part is the one that sticks out, though. It gives the game the ethereal and eclectic vibe and makes almost the whole atmosphere of the game.

Writing, or home is where your heart is:

Writing. Is nowadays respected as 'Street art' and is to be found at every urban landscape. The range of styles got wider over the last decade and is steady growing. From writers such as Claw to Saber, the art of writing is maintained by evolving the art and withal insisting on the roots.

JSR was one of the first games to utilize the cel shading look and became an instant mark in game graphics, even though its not really the first game to make use of this graphic style. The exceptional thing about cel shading is, that the graphics are basically have an outline and gives the characters and objects a distinctive comic look. Also, next to the characters are the tags & pieces, that combine the different styles such as wildstyle, bubbles and funk, one of the most beautiful features of the game.


But what sticks out the most are the locations, and one in particular I'm very fond of. Kogane-Cho.
First of all, the overall look of the location is very japanese with few exceptions. The bus stations, the huge bicycle stands and the little gutters full with cardboard boxes are something that you can see in Tokyo.

But for me is Kogane-Cho the most diverse part in JSR. It looks like a mix of Venedig and Tokyo, and is bathed in orange light. Everything looks like the musical essence music video, and your pieces fits perfectly and adds to ambience. It's sometimes the solely reason why I pop in JSR and play a round to immerse into the world and experience something slightly transcendent.