Jiminy's Journal

Jiminy's Journal is a journal written by Jiminy Cricket containing information on Sora and the countless number of things he meets and discovers on his journeys through the Kingdom Hearts universe. It contains sections on the Heartless and other characters, story plots, notes on the worlds, mini-games, treasure chests opened, Trinity Marks (Kingdom Hearts) and hints of what to do next (Kingdom Hearts II). However it is wiped clean at the beginning of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and again at the end, with only one sentence left: Thank Naminé. The Journal is the first object to become a character in the Kingdom Hearts series, first appearing in Kingdom Hearts coded.

Contents and Story
Jiminy's Journal has many contents, slightly differing between games. In general, all games' Journal includes entries on defeated Heartless and (in the case of Kingdom Hearts II) Nobodies. The entries feature a brief description of the Heartless, sometimes mentioning an attack of theirs or the main world that they appear in, and mentioning how many have been defeated. They all also include entries on the characters encountered over the course of the game; anybody that Sora meets is added, unless they are generic characters (such as Traverse Town's townsfolk). If the character added is from a Final Fantasy game or a Disney film, their first appearance is noted also.

In Kingdom Hearts
Jiminy's Journal in Kingdom Hearts has several top-level categories to further investigate. The categories include "Ansem's Report," which documents the pages from Ansem's Report for the player to read; "Story," which tells Sora's adventure world-by-world in story format, with the exclusion of the Destiny Islands, Traverse Town and End of the World; "Characters," which then further breaks into 3 sub-categories ("Characters" for the general Kingdom Hearts characters such as Donald Duck or Sora, and characters from Final Fantasy; "Characters II" for all the world-specific Disney characters and the Summon characters; and "Heartless" for all defeated Heartless); "101 Dalmatians," which checks off each of the 101 Dalmatians that Sora finds; "Trinity Marks," which number Sora's usage of Trinity Marks; and "Mini-Games," which record Sora's records on mini-games. By pressing while investigating an entry, the player may view and rotate the concerning character or Heartless' trophy.

In Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Jiminy's Journal is wiped clean upon entering Castle Oblivion. The journal in this game is like that in Kingdom Hearts, but in this game it splits into three main areas. The first section is the Story section where it details each World's storyline as well as Sora's own story as he goes through Castle Oblivion. The second section is the Card Index. It separates the cards into their own types such as Attack, Magic, Map, and Enemy. It gives a description of each card and what it does. The third and final section is the Characters section. It splits all the Characters into the same sections in Kingdom Hearts. It has Characters I, which are the main characters, Final Fantasy characters, summons, and the Organization. Characters II is the characters for each world Sora visits. The last subsection in the Characters is the Heartless section. It gives information about each Heartless.

Reverse/Rebirth
It should be noted that in Reverse/Rebirth, Riku holds a journal similar to that of Jiminy's Journal, known as the D Report (D stands for Darkness).

Re:Chain of Memories
In Re:Chain of Memories, the Journal is altered and is now sorted much the same way as Kingdom Hearts II. The sections are Story, Characters, Card Index, Cards, and Minigames. The Card Index is a graphical view of all collected cards of any type. Charcters is now sorted by world. Cards and Story are identical to the old Card Index and Story Menus.

In Kingdom Hearts II
Again, the journal is wiped clean in Kingdom Hearts II, as all the memories of Castle Oblivion have been removed by Naminé. We begin with only one phrase: "Thank Naminé."

The contents of Jiminy's Journal are separated by world. All world-specific characters may be viewed under "Characters" while viewing their world (for example, the player may choose Beast's Castle and then choose "Characters" if they want to view Beast's entry). The Characters screen is different than in the previous games. Instead of a list of characters, it shows a small square with a picture of the character, divided into related groups. Sora, Donald, and Goofy all have entries under every world, with little difference in all world entries other than that of the Timeless River, Atlantica, Halloween Town, the Pride Land, and Space Paranoids. Any non-world specific characters, such as the Summon characters and discarded entries (such as that of a cloaked Organization member after the real identity receives an article), or the defeated Heartless and Nobodies, appear under the "Jiminy" selection (a picture of Jiminy Cricket).

The main sections in Jiminy's Journal are Ansem Reports, Character Files, The Heartless, The Nobodies, Treasures, Maps, Synthesis Notes and Character Links. In Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix four more sections were added, namely Puzzles, Minigames, Missions and Combo Attacks. The most important part, however, is the Character Links section, which the portraits of the major characters are grouped in a page to show their relation, with heroes at the top while villains at the bottom.
 * Ansem and King Mickey are grouped on the upper left corner.
 * Naminé is on the upper right corner.
 * Donald, Goofy, Riku, Sora, and Kairi are grouped at the top center.
 * Maleficent, Pete and Xehanort are on the lower left corner. (along with Terra in Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, probably because of his connection to Xehanort).
 * Finally, Organization XIII, is arranged in rows of multiples of 2 except Xemnas, for he is on the lower right corner.

The colours of the squares containing the faces of the characters determine the characters' alignment: blue indicates that they are Heroes, green indicates that they are friends, yellow could very well indicate that they are neutral characters, while red indicates that they are villains. Organization XIII members and some other Characters are placed in grey squares.

In Kingdom Hearts coded


In Kingdom Hearts coded, Jiminy's Journal has a much more important role in the storyline. After the events of Kingdom Hearts II, Jiminy is organizing his journal in Disney Castle and comes across something that he did not write. A page says, "We must return to free them from their torment." He asks King Mickey what to make of it, but the King doesn't know, so he digitizes the contents of the journal. This is how Kingdom Hearts coded begins. The Data Sora goes through the digitized contents of the Journal and tries to debug the program. It is unknown who "them" is referring to in the sentence or where this sentence came from. In a recent scan, it shows that the Journal has something new after progressing through the game. It says, "Their torment has been lessened." Nomura has stated in an interview with Famitsu that the game will take place with the events from Kingdom Hearts and possibly Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories.

In Episode 4, the black coated man revealed himself to be the Journal incarnate, using the form of Data Riku to communicate with Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Jiminy and Data Sora. In the Data Olympus Coliseum, the Journal tells Data Sora the reason he didn't reveal himself to him earlier is because he wanted Sora to become stronger. He discusses with Sora whether they are data or artificial, but the Journal says as long as they made an impact to the world, and it helped their friends. It is revealed the reason the video kept showing things Jiminy never wrote about is because it shows the Journal's sleeping memories. Even the Journal incarnate doesn't know the reasons for the mysterious messages appearing in the journal, the Bug Block Corruption that appear in the Data Worlds, or what is happening to the Data World.