Harmonia General Discussion

I understand where you’re coming from. However, the main character’s motivation revolves around discovering his emotions. Since he’s convinced he’s a phiroid, regaining his ability to empathize and support those around him is the only thing that gives him purpose. Every moment where he succeeds in connecting with someone else, Rei believes he’s one step closer to reaching total fulfillment. Learning how to interact and satisfy the needs of Shinoa, Tipi, and Madd broadens his emotional horizons and opens his eyes to how complex people are underneath it all. The child-like exploration of emotions each of the characters embark on not only foreshadows the nature of the townspeople but emphasizes how straightforward and earnest Rei’s desire to help people is. The village is an idyllic place, sharply contrasting the selfish realities of the world outside. As the second half of the story makes clear, the characters in the village are hiding, in a way, from the current state of the world. None of the phiroids fully explore their emotions, even though it would be necessary for growth as individuals, because of the cruel reality that awaits them. Shinoa expresses to Rei late in the story that she hoped to live on in this peaceful if uneventful life with Rei forever. However, whether phiroid or human, everyone needs to identify with their desires and understand why they have them. I believe this key focus is what differs this story from Planetarian (I could also mention the ending, but as I laid out earlier, I believe it was far too idealistic for the hopelessly post-apocalyptic world the story had established)

I do understand your desire for the Christian imagery used in the novel to play a bigger part in the story. I was somewhat disappointed when it turned out to be little more than a motif, with Shinoa’s faith having no bearing on her character. Her personality is mostly derived from her emotional inclinations as a phiroid, rather than her apparent occupation. However, I believe the deeper shade she, Madd, and Tipi share is that inside, they all have a desire to branch past their ordinary behavior. Part of them wants to find a way to resolve the feelings inside of them by confronting what causes them in the first place. I believe the “sentimental pablum” you discussed is deliberately invoked to emphasize how detached and distant their vision of the world is. While the characters refuse to embrace a cynical view of the world, they learn to accept them, while still finding a way to hold on to their idealistic beliefs about the good side of all beings.

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See, I actually liked the first few chapters despite their relative lack of noteworthy events. I liked those first few moments where Rei showed flashes of understanding new emotions based on what seem to us like normal, everyday events, but to him are brand new experiences. In a way, Harmonia is like a condensed version of how life really goes: we begin with the eyes of someone brand new to the world, and during their “childhood” the world is painted with a brush of idealism. Nothing noteworthy happens, but every day is still faced with a sense of wonder. Sure, there are a few bumps in the road (needing to apologize to Madd after breaking the clock, for instance), but at the end of the day everything is smoothly resolved.

Then, around the midway point, “adolescence” hits. Suddenly the people around Rei aren’t quite as one-dimensional and easily pleased as they once were, and the issues that arise can’t be viewed with a black and white sense of morality. Shiona, the mother figure of sorts that Rei had come to trust so much, has begun acting like a different person entirely, and Rei can’t figure out why. He’s torn between helping Tipi when no one else will, and believing in the girl who “raised” him. There are no right or wrong answers, and all Rei can really do is feel around and hope that he’s doing the right thing.

Finally, not too long after the raid on the village, everything is revealed, and Rei has to take on responsibilities far heavier than he ever imagined. He has to accept the truth behind not only the world around him, but also his own identity. This could be viewed as the moment Rei hits adulthood.

I mean, coming-of-age stories aren’t exactly uncommon, especially coming from Key. But I think the way they handled it in Harmonia was actually pretty masterfully done, especially considering the short length.

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Harmonia is a story in a post-apocalyptic setting where robots who are capable of emotion turn out to be more “human” than actual humans. It’s not the first of its kind and certainly not the last. As it should be. After all, us humans really need to be constantly reminded of what it is that makes us human, since we tend to forget it quite easily. You could even say that the ability to have feelings is where human greatness comes from. The other humans in Harmonia did little more than kill, steal and destroy, while Rei, being a person with fully developed emotions, managed to help others, to bring them happiness, and even to literally rebuild and restore their world. Forgetting all emotions (Harmonia) or concentrating on the negative ones (Planetarian) is a surefire way for us to go extinct.

While Planetarian is more about rediscovering and nurturing what little warmth is left in a world that has ended, Harmonia, goes beyond that and concludes the story on a more hopeful note, where said warmth becomes a means of reaching a future of harmony happiness.

I really enjoyed Harmonia and the beautiful visuals exceeded all of my expectations. It was not exactly a mind-blowing or heart-rending experience, but definitely a time well spent. I was skeptical about the unusual text placing, but it turned out to work perfectly.

What I liked the most was the gradual “revelation” of Shiona’s “dark side”. Despite several hints being dropped here and there, her behavior in chapters 4 and 5 came as a huge surprise in terms of how far she has gone with her personal agenda. Good thing I’m familiar with these kinds of situations in Key works, or I might have ended up hating Shiona.
But really, thinking about how Tipi was all alone in the library, crying, while Rei and Shiona were being lovey-dovey left a bad aftertaste.

Expecting a real-world religion to play any kind of role in a story in the anime culture is weird. It’s a rare occurence. Normally, the author just borrows a few characteristics, concepts or legends to build his story and/or characters around. So a motif is usually all it is. A nun is a woman that wears a certain uniform, does certain things in certain places and is associated with certain personality traits, just like a nurse, a stewardess, etc. For all we know, Hinoue probably just wanted to draw a certain outfit and that’s how Shiona’s character design came to be.
The bookclub did discover a lot of christian themes and imagery in Planetarian, but that’s one of those rare cases.
So I don’t see anything to be disappointed about.

[quote=“EisenKoubu, post:30, topic:3261”]
Do you think the strong emotional labels each of the major characters other than Rei held made them compelling and essential to Rei’s development? Is there any way you think could have been improved in this approach to storytelling?[/quote]

I believe it was necessary given the story’s length and also in order to drive the point home that we can become dependent on a single feeling to the point where we would break if we were to lose it.

I did get LB vibes, but not the ones you did.(Little Busters spoilers) You see, what Kyousuke did to Rin was dragging her out of her comfort zone in order to make her stronger. Shiona, however, acted purely in order to preserve Tipi’s current fragile state. That’s almost the opposite of your example. I think the same as @cjlim2007 onthis one: What Shiona did to Tipi was the same as (Little Busters spoilers) how Kanata acted in front of Haruka. She fuelled Haruka’s negative emotions, which were one of her few pillars of support, while taking away her new-found hope, which Kanata believed would destroy her sister in the end. All the while, Shiona/Kanata acted as the bad guy.
And it’s precisely because I remembered this that I decided not to be hasty and make the same mistake as I did back when I was reading that particular LB route: Hating the “evil” character before knowing their true motive.

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I understand there was no real reason for me to have such expectations. However, Gen Urobuchi tackled Christianity and the implications in following it in Fate Zero, so I was a tiny bit hopeful.

Pretty good visual novel! The atmosphere conveyed through music alone was incredible, and the whole thing was just really pleasant to read. I feel like hitting my head against a wall for not seeing the human-phiroid twist coming even though Shiona, Tipi and Madd were all such hilariously obvious caricatures of their respectively represented emotions and I’d been questioning the need to make Rei “that” close to a human instead of keeping some of the advantages from being a mechanical being from the start. Though having it suddenly click into place when Shiona’s hand is revealed was a pretty satisfying moment.

I didn’t really have a problem with the ending. Of course it’s not satisfying, we weren’t given the journey towards it after all. But it does show that a journey that leads to that conclusion can exist, leaving us with an optimistic feeling. It’s not a climax; it’s just showing that bringing the warmth of the original world back is not a hopeless endeavor.

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So I wanted to answer @EisenKoubu’s question: What do you think of message behind Harmonia? That question can be interpreted many different ways, but I assume it means “What do you think is the meaning of Harmonia?” Before I answer this question though, we need to talk about parallel universes the four types of love. The types of love I will be talking about come from ancient greek. They are agape, philia, eros, and storge. Agape love is usually referred to as selfless love or charity. Philia love is usually referred to as brotherly love or the love equals and friends. Eros love is usually referred to as sexual love but also includes the act of falling in love. As expected, it is the love experienced between lovers. Finally, storge love is usually referred to as love between parent or parent-like figures and a child. So the real question now is, does a scuttlebug know love? If so, which type? And now for the main part of the post, I present to you, the meaning of Harmonia.


Many people like to experience Key because it induces emotion. I know I do. Harmonia, however, takes a different, yet “Key-like” approach to these emotions. That is, writing characters based on specific emotions. At first glance, Harmonia may seem like it is about the different emotions, but in reality, it is about the love that causes all emotions. In Harmonia, love is the most powerful force as it influences others’ ability to love, the discovery of emotions, and can change the world. Over the course of the novel, the main character, Rei, with the help of the phiroids, grows from an emotionless, powerless robot to a real human.

For the first half of Harmonia, Rei sees and experiences love of different forms from the people around him. Right from the beginning, Shiona finds him, a stranger, on the road and takes him in. Even though there are dangerous humans out there, she displays agape love by risking her life and the town, trusting that Rei is a good person. As it turns out, he is a good person and she grants him food, shelter, a name, and the song, all of which are forms of love. They are all things that Rei would not be able to obtain on his own, yet Shiona gave them to him expecting nothing in return. In chapter two, after Rei fixes the music box, Rei experiences eros love. This is in the form of the lewd hand holding scene. Rei received this love from Shiona “all night long.” Later in the same chapter, Rei notices that while Madd seems to hate his son, he still keeps the chip he sent him. This internal conflict embodies Madd’s storge love for his son. He still cares for his son, but he cannot see his son’s final message in order to know that his son still loves him back. He is scared that his son may have sent him the movie as to say, “look how much I can do when you aren’t in the way.” In chapter three, after Shiona and Rei perform in the town square, the Rei experiences philia love. This type comes from all the townspeople banding together to help Rei build the projector. This comes as a form of gratitude for performing the song for them. Then, Rei notices storge love, this time from Tipi’s story. Tipi’s parents showed her storge love in the form of books, information, and protection. During the happy times, she was showered in love as her parents always read her books. But at the end of those happy days, her parents’ final gift for her was protection. They knew they were going to be in grave danger and left her to live her life. Unfortunately, this love, while having good intentions, makes way for despair. From the start of Harmonia, Rei learns love from all the people he interacts with. Through Rei, it becomes clear that humans cannot give love if they have never received it, which becomes very relevant in the second half of Harmonia.

As Rei experiences different types of love, it becomes apparent that he can also spread love to others around him. As a result, he also learns the main emotions, joy, sadness, and anger. His first act of love is repairing Shiona’s music box. He does this because he understands the importance of what Shiona has given him. With this in mind, he overcomes his fear of Madd and shows his seriousness by apologizing for what seems like a long period of time. The power of Rei’s feelings show through and Madd then gives him the information he needs to find the broken clock and repair the music box. When Rei finishes fixing the music box, he discovers a new emotion, joy. More specifically, the joy of helping others. His second act of love is quite similar to the first: showing Madd his son’s movie. Like the first act, there was nothing for him to gain by fixing the projector, yet he did it with the intent to help others find joy. Again, he overcame Madd’s anger to borrow the chip. And again, he searched in the junk pile to find the projector. However, things change when the projector is completely broken and Rei has no tools. Because Rei and Shiona performed for them the previous day, the townspeople come and help Rei fix the projector. This demonstrates the unifying power of the eternal song. Later, Rei shows Madd the movie, but none of this could have been done without Rei first getting help from others. This second act helps him further understand joy, the type of joy derived from working with others towards a common goal. In chapter four, Rei’s third act of love occurs as a result of the interactions with the unknown man. When Rei finds the man, he goes out of his way to try to save him. While this may seem like a basic human function, it is important to remember that this is a cruel world where most humans care only for themselves. Because of that, helping the man on the road and attempting to save him is Rei’s third act of love. But it fails, and as a result, Rei discovers the second emotion, sadness. The fourth act of love is a bit different from the rest. While all the others may be considered agape love, the fourth one is more likely in the range of storge love. Since he first met Tipi, Rei has never broken a promise with her. This is especially valuable to her because of how her parents’ promise was broken, leaving her lonely for over two hundred years. In chapter five, he shows this love again by trying to protect Tipi as Shiona bluntly dashes her hopes. Rei’s paternal instincts kick in and he discovers the last emotion, anger. As the story progresses, Rei’s urge to help others leads him to his original goal of learning emotion and becoming human.

Love is the center of all things that make us human. Love comes in many forms: emotion, gifts, resolve, and more. In Harmonia, the most prevalent form of love is emotion. “Love was the origin of all emotions. Because of love, we feel happy when we interact with others. Because of love, we know what we want to protect and feel anger when it is hurt. Because of love, we feel sadness when we lose something important. Because of love… we can feel the same emotions, share them, and know enjoyment.” Yet, the other forms of love also make an appearance. Gifts can be a form of love, therefore, the knowledge Tipi gives to Rei is a form of love passed down from her parents. The eternal song that Shiona gives to Rei in the form of the music box is also love passed down from her brother. When Tipi and Shiona die, their final gift is the resolve to change the world. At the end of Harmonia, Rei finally understands love. He knows firsthand how even a robot can become human through emotions, and he knows that the eternal song can invoke happy and loving feelings in people. With the tablet and music box in tow, he now has knowledge and tools to make humans human again. Love has granted the power to bring about a harmonious world.

In the first half of Harmonia, Rei learns to love from the people around him. As he sees and experiences all four types of love, he can then reciprocate those feelings, granting him emotions. In the second half, he is given strength to change the world as parting gifts. Harmonia as a whole reveals the true power of love. Love is the origin of all emotion but no one can find love on their own. Humans need to receive love before they know how to pass it on. Rei is a representative of humans and as he learns love, he becomes able to change the world. Harmonia teaches that as humans we should never forget where our true power lies, for that is what makes us human.


When I first finished Harmonia, my thoughts were kinda scattered all over the place. After a week of mulling it over I finally organized my thoughts and figured out what Harmonia means to me personally. For me, Harmonia left me with the urge to get out into the world and explore the different types of love. It gave me the push to go and learn about myself. Immediately after finishing, I had the thought of, “I want to seek the powapowa feelings of other humans.” Simple stuff, like just holding hands or hugging another person. I want to feel those things. For the four hours I spent playing Harmonia, I was completely disconnected from the world. At the end, I had returned with a new outlook on life. The reason I thought this more than any of the other Key works I have experienced lies in the genius of the narrative. I was able to relate to Rei much easier than any other Key protagonist because he starts from zero, his name literally means zero. Because he is a clean slate, he learns everything from zero, so if I never learned something before, I’d be learning it with him. As @SuikaShoujo mentioned, Harmonia demonstrates growing up from childhood to adulthood. I felt very connected to Rei because sometimes I just feel like I am emotionless but I want to find those emotions. For example, I read all of the English localized Key works without ever crying. I have the feeling that I want to cry but I just don’t. But Harmonia taught me that it is ok to discover my feelings at my own pace and for that, I recognize Harmonia as my favorite Key visual novel. In my first impressions, I rated Harmonia at 9/10. Since then though, my feelings have changed. The amount of impact that Harmonia has had on me is just too great not to rate as 10/10. That is how much I love Harmonia.

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Hmm, Harmonia. I don’t really know. It felt somewhat more average than the other Key-novels I have read up to this point. For one, it didn’t quite reach me on an emotional level, although I do see that that is of course not the only point or purpose of such a novel. However, kind of because of that, I can’t really do a thorough examination of the plot either, because it didn’t quite compell me to gush about it as much. So I’ll only put my thoughts that did come up while reading here. Those might be a bit disordered.

First of, about some of the twists of the story. The twist that at least several characters are Phiroids is one I saw coming around chapter 2. Tipi was just too young (looking) to know the library this good, this was the first thing that got me curious. Well, and the other character’s behaviour just strengthened my suspicion. Rei being human, however, I didn’t see coming.

Now, for the one thing I did think about, though, and I’d like that maybe addressed in the podcast as well, is the background-story of humans gradually forgetting how to love because of the Phiroids’ existence did seem to me as a jab at the tendency of some to not bother with real-live relationships but instead taking the “easy way out” in form of virtual girlfriends/boyfriends and what have you. So do you think this might be a critique toward computer programs emulating lovers? At the same time, this novel comes full-circle and reconstructs the same idea with its optimistic ending. Kind of a “This problem exists, but if it comes to the worst-case-scenario, we’re still able to again make the best of it and solve the problem without getting rid of the original cause of it”

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I don’t think so. The part with Shiona trying to get close to Rei might suggest this, but that’s not really what the story as a whole focuses upon. I know there are books, movies and other such forms of media that touch upon this subject in much greater detail, but Harmonia doesn’t focus on the aspect of romantic love so much as the bond between friends, family and communities. It’s an idea Key has been running with probably as far back as AIR (maybe even Kanon), and Harmonia was probably written this way to safely appeal to fans of Key. If Nakamura was left alone to do the story, it might have turned out differently, but we don’t live in such a convenient parallel universe. :stuck_out_tongue:

Huh, several days later and there are new thoughts popping up. First off, my earlier post sounded more negative than it had to be. I think the disappointment of Harmonia not reaching the level of Planetarian, Clannad and Tomoyo After for me spoke through me there. So, to clarify, Harmonia is a good VN.


Now the thing I thought about: Several posts already made clear that a major theme of Harmonia is love and emotions. What I saw at several places in the novel was a background theme of change versus stagnation. So naturally, there are two things to show here. First I have to show how this theme of change versus stagnation is visible, and second, how this works in relation to love, the major theme.

So, where do I see change? Well, Rei’s struggles to resolve the problems of Madd and Tipi definitely is the force of change at work here, as after resolving these issues both of their situations change: They cease to work properly anymore. Even him helping that human brings change, as that is what leads the other humans to the village. Now isn’t that interesting? All these changes seem to be negative. I’ll come to that later. Now, that’s the change, but what about stagnation? Well, as ironic as it is, that comes in Shiona, as she tries to more or less actively stop Rei in helping those other two. I mean, everyone remembers the scene in the library, but even with Madd there were moments in which she tried to stop Rei. And while one might say that she did that in concern about Rei’s health, her words were more along the lines of “Give up.” and less along the lines of “Try again tomorrow.” There’s another big stagnation, but I’ll come to that later as well.

So now how does this stand in relation to love? Well, it’s simple, really. Love brings change. It’s through his love to Tipi and Madd that he wants to help them and therefore brings that change. It’s through his kindness that he wants to help that human and inevitably brings the other humans to the village, therefore changing everyone’s lives there. Now, I mentioned earlier that all those changes seem negative. But I ask you, are they really? Would it have been better to never resolve Madd’s and Tipi’s problems so that they could keep living? It might be bad answering my own question here, but I am of the opinion that this wouldn’t have been better. Sure, they’d be living, but they wouldn’t really be alive. They would have been kept in their stagnation of emotional baggage as they were in the beginning of the story. Madd still wouldn’t know if his son really liked him. Tipi would still wait for her parents alone, drawing a picture every day, crying. This would not change. Now the third one (which technically happens earlier, I know) is arguably the most negative. After all, it forces Rei and co. into hiding and brings a lot of Phiroids to slave labor. And yet it was important, as it showed Rei that humans have changed and stagnated (that’s the big one I mentioned last paragraph) in a state of emotionless animals. This then causes Rei to show these humans love and change them for the better. And we see that he succeeded in the Epilogue. So what is the bottom line here?

The bottom line is, or the messages I took with me are: “Love brings change.” and “This change, while it might be scary, is ultimately a good thing.” Especially the second of these sentences is the reason why I think the Epilogue is important. Would it be ambiguous, it might work, if we would have seen Rei ultimately failing, it would destroy that message, but as it is, it works best.


Huh, just two days ago, I did not see me writing such an analysis, but here I am, having written so many words. Guess that’s another proof that Harmonia is a good story that still brought me to think about several things.

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I totally agree with what you said. I think it makes an easier question when rephrased as “Is it better to live a long depressing life or a short happy life?” While the answer is subjective, I would say that it is better to live a short happy life. Therefore, it is in Rei’s best interest to help Tipi and Madd accept the changes, even if it kills them.

Focusing on just the change vs stagnation aspect, you could also say that only change harbors a chance of improvement, but no guarantees, while stagnation will eventually bring about guaranteed deterioration.

All things are finite after all. Even for the long-living Phiroids.

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Is that really a question: the novel answers it on its own with a resounding no. When Rei asks these questions, he barely flinches before making a decision. The epilogue also gives the phiroids a life with a complete emotional spectrum, so everything points at one answer.

I also think the point about “change” is little more than a coincidence. Yes, phiroids are conservative by nature rather than progressive, but them preserving pieces of humanity is clearly made to be a good thing in the novel. I think it’s practically impossible for a conventional story to promote conservatism, so most stories will encourage change and evolution (see Campbell’s monomyth). But when it’s so common, there’s no point in giving a story credit for having a peripheral progressive theme.

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I agree with a lot of what you said in response to this question. It really establishes how indistinguishable Phiroids are from humans in this respect. Still, it does make me wonder if, for the purposes of this story, it makes the Phiroids too human. There seems to be a noticeable lack of artificiality in each of the Phiroid characters’ appearance and mannerisms. I’m pretty sure someone said before that there was a lack of rules regarding how Phiroids treated humans (i.e. Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics). It makes me wonder if the story would have been any different if there was no concept of robots in it, if humanity wiped itself out through war and excess industry and Rei was simply an amnesiac kept in a cryotube in the hopes that he could become a second Adam. It could make for an interesting story, something Key has never done before, especially if Rei was given more time to develop.

But on to the question at hand, how I see it is that Shiona and Rei have very different beliefs on personal progression. Rei finds it a strong goal to help others because he seeks to feel strong emotions like the ‘humans’ around him would. Shiona only seeks to make others happy because she believes it’s what her brother would want, and it’s her duty as a Phiroid to maintain a certain level of happiness for when humans eventually inhabit the town. To put it more simply, if Shiona was the shepherd of the town, taking good care of the ninety-eight happy sheep, Rei is the kind of person who would leave the sheep to go search for the two lost lambs. Granted, Shiona would likely have brought them into the fold herself if she didn’t know about both Madd and Tipi’s malfunctioning. Still, like you said, if Shiona really was more concerned about the welfare of the town rather than her role of servitude to humans as a Phiroid or her own selfish desires, the town might have seen some change before Rei even showed up. If Shiona really ‘loved’ Rei, she would have understood that sacrifices have to be made for such a relationship to work.

(If this makes it sound like I hate Shiona, I apologize. There’s just a few things she does that angers me a bit, but I think there are far worse characters in the Key multiverse. XP )

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I actually love Shiona because of that. It shows a very human quality, that being good intentions with a twisted result. Her intention to keep Tipi alive requires her to become the bad guy in chapter five and tell Tipi to “grow the hell up already” with a smiling face. I can only imagine the amount of suffering she would have incurred for having to do that. And then on top of that she has to mask that pain with a smiling face. That actually hurt me more than the fact that Tipi couldn’t understand the death of her parents.

Speaking of death, What do you think is the significance of earlier Phiroids being unable to understand death?

I feel like there might be something more to it than just “it causes Tipi to be basically forever sad,” but I cant really pin it down.

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It’s been a while since I’ve played Harmonia so my mind is a little hazy. I’ll try my best to answer some of the questions that were presented in bold when the time comes for the podcast.

I think the ending did feel kind of unrealistic because even though Rei was able to move forward and keep going in finding a way for humans and Phiroids to live together for knowing how long it took for the research he had from Tipi’s tablet and Shiona teaching him about emotions, he was able to gather the knowledge and found hope in that short amount of time. It was almost too simple though the struggles that Rei had came upon had reached up to that goal discovering the true possibility that it might have been possible.

Humans were created with the ability to think as free and moral agents. I come from a religion that basically teaches that God created us in his own image and we serve to exist through him that make us who we are. We are able to think, feel, and act on our emotions as well. We are also capable of expressing love to others and we also grow old and die too. It’s a touchy subject when it comes to acknowledging death because we have fears and doubts about ourselves that we wonder what happens to us afterwards.

When I think of Rei’s dream, his first meeting with Shiona was remarkable as he felt that she was truly angelic from his perspective and wanted to help her out. As you mentioned, he wanted to comfort her but because he thinks he is a robot, it was not possible for him and it made it feel like he was an outsider. This was something that Rei could not have done on his own provided that he had to learn eventually from Tipi to gain that knowledge in order for him to help the townspeople. There’s a lot of foreshadowing in the story that Rei had the potential but he needed to see for himself that he had others to help him progress.

As others have pointed out, I don’t think it would because as you mentioned that they would both be in a state of stagnation and never be able to grow. Madd would still be stubborn about not wanting to know his son’s accomplishments and Tipi would be still crying being left all alone in the library as she would not have been able to move forward with her life despite her circumstances as a second-generation Phiroid. It was really Rei’s decision that made him want to give of himself to help Madd and Tipi as Shiona had taught him those emotions and contribute in any way possible to make them both happy.

This is kind of a tough question. Seeing as Phiroids are not able to understand the eventuality of death would seem that it would feel like that they would never know about suffering and live on as everyone does. With Tipi being a second-generation Phiroid, the years she spent in the library always crying and never knowing that her parents would ever come back is truly heart-breaking. She would not be able to understand the realization that her living on is a cruel fate as Rei had mentioned to himself. It feels as though being bound by Asimov’s three laws of robotics that Tipi would be capable of protecting her own existence. Shiona was really looking out for Tipi though her words did seem cruel and why Shiona had told Rei to stop embracing her as it would eventually put her in a greater risk of stagnation and death.

I wanted to give my own further thoughts about Harmonia though I’m not as analytical as others. I might end up reading Harmonia again because it was a really enjoyable VN that I was able to learn what truly makes us humans, how we are capable of so many things in this world with our emotions, and teaching what it means to love ourselves and others.

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Hm…this is a tougher nut to crack. My understanding is that Phiroid AI may just have been primitive enough at the time to act as a bridge between the logic-based computers of our time (as evidenced by Tipi’s immense knowledge stored in both the tablet database and the library in printed form) and the flawed emotional characteristics of humans (which is closer to what Shiona is). But even then, that still doesn’t make enough sense because even as a partially-logical being, Tipi could have still inferred that people stop moving after a certain amount of time or when their systems shut down. She would have then understood death as a natural, logical outcome of long life and excess damage, much like how robots stop working after a considerable age without cleanup or repair. She knew at least that she would cease to function after a while, so why didn’t she just logically infer that her parents’ long disappearance was the human equivalent of robots falling into disrepair? Okay, sure, she had no idea that they had truly died until Shiona told her, and she may not have had anything in her database that discussed the concept of death, but even then, she recognized that the guy who Rei took in had died! She likely had an idea of what death was before Shiona tried to explain that her parents were long dead! It doesn’t make any se-

There’s only one logical explanation I can think of for this confounding phenomena: Tipi was deliberately programmed NOT to understand death, and I can definitely see why that would be. Death is a painful thing for many individuals, especially for people who don’t have an explanation for why death has to happen or what happens to people after they die. Tipi was likely given none of that up front; she had to learn it on her own, and even then her programming only allowed her to understand so much, since her primary function was data storage. Perhaps it was later that the humans who developed such robots felt the need for them to understand what death was so that they would be better prepared to face it. As such, it felt unfair to Tipi because even if Shiona told her to grow up in that sense, it’s asking the impossible.

It’s only a theory, though. It’s a means of making sense of the authors’ expository goof-up, so I could just be pulling at straws here. I might be able to come up with something better after I get a good night’s rest. :confused:

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I was thinking about the restriction of emotions in Madd and Tipi and thought of this. In chapter seven, Shiona states, “But we Phiroids have faults too. Like when something unbearably painful happens, and only a specific kind of emotion comes to the forefront… But that’s our last stand. If even that emotion was to vanish, we’d break… We’d die.” So this restricts Tipi to feel only sadness and Madd only anger… right? Well yes and no. There is a definite difference between the emotions we demonstrate outside, and what we feel inside. I wanted to point this out because then it is possible that Tipi is externally sad by crying all of the time, but when she says, “I don’t know why I am crying,” she could be happy on the inside because she is no longer lonely. Same thing with Madd, he may be externally angry but on the inside he is calm when talking to Shiona.

This gets even more confusing when you get into the psychology of feelings vs emotions. Apparently they aren’t the same thing but honestly, I don’t really get it. As a side note, because feelings and emotions are not the same, it is possible that we have been only talking about emotions but not explicitly feelings. Feelings are important to Harmonia too, as the subtitle is, “You taught me how important feelings are. There is an everlasting song.” Of course, this could be just a translation error because almost everyone uses emotion and feelings interchangeably anyways.

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I’ve been avoiding this topic like the plague, having not finished the VN, but now that I have, I can say for sure that I was highly satisfied by this. It’s a short and sweet story, with very likeable characters and, at the same time, complex characters (Shiona and her powapowa especially). I definitely can’t stress how great the visual presentation in this game is: from the textures of the sprites, to the shading in the backgrounds, and using it to highlight Shiona in the dark in chapter 4 was extremely well-done. Major plus points with Harmonia for using the Visual Novel medium to its utmost.

Another thing I’d like to mention before I continue is just how much I loved the setting of this world. Yes, it is post-apocalyptic, but we are left in a town devoid of electricity, and people are forced to use mechanical devices. But, at the same time, we know this advanced technology exists. Tie that in with the very RPG-esque BGMs (especially Oppidum and Cantus) gives the setting a very strange yet familiar feel. I think this VN has just beat Kanon as far as setting goes, in my list.

The story itself is fairly simple; Rei starts out with no emotions and slowly starts to learn all the popular emotions such as Red, Orange, Blue, Pink, and Powapowa. At that point (and for the first few chapters) it felt a bit corny. Most people already know these emotions, and showing how Rei learns these and helps make others happy was fairly shallow.

But what I believe to be the highlight of this visual novel was when they started showing more complex emotions: jealousy, fear, awkwardness, deceit (okay that’s not an emotion), and most importantly, love. At this point I had to hand it to Kai: he really knows how to make the readers feel all these uncomfortable emotions. In chapter 5 especially, there were multiple moments where you just felt “something isn’t right here” without the text having to tell you so. I can imagine many people being distraught over what happens at this point, but I loved every second of it.

Then comes in the assault, which really shouldn’t have been surprising, but took me unawares regardless. At this point of the game, I felt that the prose was quite gripping, and I couldn’t really put it down afterwards (except for small breaks here and there). We learn the truth about the town: which, frankly, was pretty obvious from the get-go, I thought. Regardless, it was nice how they used that reversal of roles, where humans are the ones that have remained emotionless, and phiroids are the ones preserving these emotions. There’s definitely something more deep we can analyze here, but I’ll save it for later.

And then everything just starts tumbling down. Tipi’s battery fails (and she becomes RIPi), Shiona starts to malfunction, and we get our heartwrenching death scenes… if it wasn’t for the fact that it wasn’t very heartwrenching. Perhaps there were too many death flags, or perhaps there was not enough time to bind the characters to their new environment, but despite all that, I think these deaths were necessary to push Rei to the next step: rebuilding the town and, by extension, the world. The ending is what got me, when Alice wakes up and sees the world, the town, and sings along with Dorothy.

They are no longer Shiona nor Tipi, but that’s perfectly fine: because the emotions conveyed by the outcome was perfectly natural. Sometimes, these emotions are even part of our instinct: feeling immense joy from seeing a beautiful world, feeling sadness from a somber song, and starting to cry out when we are happy. And I think that is the final message this novel wanted to give: some emotions don’t make sense, but we should cherish them nonetheless… Because that is what makes us human.


Now to respond to common comments as I read the rest of the topic :stuck_out_tongue:

  • I did not feel, at any point, Madd being Esaka like. He felt more like a tsundere, than anything, whereas Esaka is a kind old man who has a tendency to shout.
  • The story does skip many integral parts, yes. Who is Rei? Where did Shiona come from? What about everyone else’s backstory?? But I think that doesn’t matter in the long run, because their stories are not the stories that Harmonia wants to tell.
  • Madd, Tipi, and Shiona representing the most basic of emotions was good, yes, as they show the best and worst side of these emotions. Being to angry will cause misunderstandings; being too sad will cause pity; being too happy will cause selfishness.
  • Shiona’s confrontation with Tipi did not make me feel angry: if anything, it was quite harrowing! Why was Shiona doing this? Was this really the way it should be done? Wasn’t Tipi wrong for clinging onto false hope? So much complicated emotions in me as this was happening and I enjoyed it.
  • Yeah, it kind of disappointed me when I learned that Shiona did not have any bad intentions. I think that’s one boundary Key will never really cross. But if they do, then I think that’d give them a push to explore a level of storytelling they wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise.
  • In response to @DangoDaikazoku (who I can never seem to agree with no matter the story), I think one thing to note is the vagueness of the ending is what justifies it. We don’t know whether or not the “Doctor” shown at the end of the story is Rei, we don’t know how many years have passed since then, and we don’t know whether or not the rest of the world was healed. It can be as idealistic as you want, or as realistic as you want it to be; which is why I value the vagueness of the ending.
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Yeah, I’m probably a bit TOO stubborn sometimes. Though, on the off-chance you might have thought this, I’m not trying to be contrary :stuck_out_tongue:

If it helps, though, thanks to the many posts on here that have tried to elaborate the dramatic purpose of the ending (including yours), I find myself finally starting to warm up to it.

I can understand being disappointed in the motivation for Shiona’s actions. I imagine it would’ve been more nuanced had she simply believed her rough, tactless method was the best way to solve things. Still, I can forgive it because it’s a necessary kink that ultimately better serves the story’s narrative.

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Have you ever seen any quotes or stories that can be applied to Harmonia? A while back I read a quote by the Nobel Peace prize winner, Elie Wiesel who said, “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” This makes a ton of sense in the context of Harmonia. As I wrote before, Harmonia is about love. It juxtaposes the phiroids’ love with the humans’ indifference. In chapter six, the humans are described as seeing the Phiroids as if they were only rocks on the road. It isn’t so much that they hate Phiroids, they just don’t acknowledge them as anything more than metal.

I don’t know if anyone else notices the specific rhetoric used but I really like stuff like the metaphor of Phiroids as rocks. The story also described humans as moving “with a mechanical sort of precision” and I think that parallel to how robots are usually described is really cool.

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