Jast USA

Are there any self-respecting weeaboos out there who haven’t heard of Jast USA yet? The company’s been around since the late ‘90s, getting in super early on a niche that only continues to grow in the 21st century. Before these guys popped up, it was damn near impossible to get Japanese visual novels and dating sims in the English market. The internet’s a bigger, wider place nowadays, but Jast has managed to maintain their foothold. How?

JastUSA.com translates and publishes Japanese games so us English-speakers can have fun, too. They’re widely considered to be the premier source for high-quality localized games, with close to half a million visitors swinging by the website every month. That ain’t bad at all for a niche as deep as this one, and as we’ll see, these guys have plenty of offerings to keep the fans coming back. So, you ready to immerse yourself in an interactive hentai world? Let’s get into it!

Visual Novels for True Fans of the Genre

If you’re not familiar with JastUSA or with visual novels, you might initially mistake the website for an anime shop or doujinshi library. The presentation is slick, colorful and professional, with lovely big-eyed manga girls in almost every image. There’s nothing too explicit out front, though a couple pics hint at the depravity you’ll find if you start digging. Bikini babes, big-titty princesses and female cops in tiny uniforms caught my eye within seconds of landing.

One of the first things I noticed was that there are no obvious categories listed out front, which seems odd for a game shop. Every other platform seems to put the genres right in front of your face, so you can skip to your favorites, but you’ll have to use the Tags menu on the search page here. The good news is that they’ve got a nice, wide variety of games. JastUSA originally focused on visual novels and dating sims, but they’ve now got a more expansive range, including strategy games, RPGs, puzzle games and more.

It ain’t just the gameplay styles that are varied, but the storylines, worlds and characters, too. They carry games with a crazy range of themes, many of them sexy as hell. The latest releases out front as I type this up include girlfriends from the stars, serious hentai situations, badass devil chicks, and that old-time video-game staple, war. This war, however, comes with an adults-only content warning. “This software contains mature themes and graphic images that are not suitable for minors.” Oh man, we could have a whole sex vs violence debate here, but that’s not what I do at ThePornDude!

One of the major advantages of getting your visual novels and hentai games from an official source like this is the simplicity of it all. There are games archives on the web full of zip files, patches, and lengthy explanations about how to get everything working. Sometimes it can be a real pain in the ass. Jast USA has games for Windows, Mac and Linux, without the hassle of repackaged, pirated, or malware-infected files.

Fat Selections and Regular Sales

As of this writing, JastUSA.com has nearly 600 games for sale. Even if you’re a picky-ass pervert, I bet you find more than a few games that get the ol’ motor running. They’ve also got a growing DLC section, with a few dozen selections from games like Tokyo Necro, The Alchemist of Ars Magna and Neko Night. Sometimes you need a free DLC pack to unlock the adult content, and they’ve got the hookup.

They’re also putting out new content on the regular. The catalog ain’t growing quite as fast as some of the sketchier games archives out there, but that’s to be expected from an official source like this. The stash of New Titles at JastUSA.com includes a hundred games released in just the last few months.

If you poke around through the catalog, you’ll find a fair amount of free content. There are game demos and free DLC packs to play with, for example, and some publishers will offer up the first chapter of a visual novel as a test drive. I wish it was a little easier to find the free stuff, but hey, I get it; they want you to flip through the catalog in the hopes that you’ll buy something.

Prices at Jast USA do vary a lot, and I found that the sorting didn’t work quite like it was supposed to. Reshuffling the stack by price, low to high, didn’t seem to do anything. I’d say about half the games are in the $5 to $10 range, while the rest are more premium offerings costing upwards of twenty to forty bones. It’s pricey compared to the free sites, sure, but none of these games come with viruses or other bullshit.

Oh, and they’re running sales constantly. I’m typing this up during their Summer Sale, with prices up to 80% off. By the numbers, most of the JastUSA.com catalog is on sale as I write this. Damn, maybe I should stock up while I’m here…

How About Some More Perks While We’re Here?

One of the current big sellers at JastUSA is a visual novel called Real Hentai Situation 2. The screengrabs are absolutely bonerific and mouthwatering, with very colorful, high-quality hentai imagery. “A daydreaming perv finds his real life winds up far more perverse than his fantasies could have possibly concocted!” The game is currently twenty bucks, a fiver off the usual price. Jast USA has a customer rewards program, and this game will get me 200 coins if I buy it.

The coins ain’t the only perk. Jast prides themselves on offering DRM-free downloads, meaning you can do whatever the hell you want with your games once they’re on your computer. I love their attitude about it, too. “Additionally, we don’t require authentication software, because that’s lame. You shouldn’t need to give up your privacy just to have fun.”

They also offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. I looked around for the terms and conditions, but couldn’t find anything listed. I’m not sure how they prevent cheapskates from playing a game until they cum and then returning it, but come on, dudes. This ain’t Steam. The folks who run Jast USA do it for their love of the genre, and they ain’t raking in the big bucks. If you like this stuff, you really should support it if you can.

Let’s Talk About Uncensored Hentai Games

The Adult Content Warning for Real Hentai Situation 2 includes an interesting tidbit that I saw attached to quite a few of the games here. “Not for use inside of Japan,” it reads, even though the game was put out by Jitaku Studio, based in Japan. Pornography published within Japan has to be censored all to hell, but exceptions are sometimes made for export products.

Unfortunately, the list of tags for Real Hentai Situation 2 includes Mosaics, which suggests the usual hentai censorship. I couldn’t find an uncensored tag to check off, but they do have a No Mosaics category with almost 300 games. There’s a decent amount of uncensored content here, which helps offset the disappointment of all those flesh-colored pixels.

Jast no longer sells hard copies of games, as they did in the past. That’s probably not going to be an issue for very many of you, since most of us do our masturbating while glued to a phone, tablet or laptop. I definitely prefer the convenience of instant downloads, but if you’re looking for something a little more tangible, check out my review of JList here at ThePornDude.

It ain’t difficult to see why JastUSA.com has remained popular for over two decades now. Japanese porn games are still something of a rare niche, and fans often have to track down sketchy downloads from sketchy sites, but Jast offers a reliable source for reliable games. You get professional translations, instant DRM-free downloads and the peace of mind that you’re not going to have your identity stolen by some greasy teenage hacker with a Naruto poster on his wall. These games are official releases, so your purchases help support the visual novel and hentai game scene in a real way. I’d recommend the shop as a first stop for anybody looking in the market for a nice, sexy visual novel to get lost in.