Harmonia General Discussion

[cjlim2007]

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.

[therationalpi]

I would like to explore something a little deeper that @cjlim2007 touched on briefly. I believe that Harmonia is a meta-commentary on bishoujo games and visual novels.

As most people probably know, Japan has one of the lowest birthrates in the world, with a quickly aging population. Not only is this a problem in Japan, but throughout the developed world, birthrates have largely fallen below the rate of replacement, leading to shrinking populations in the absence of immigration. The apocalypse of Harmonia is precisely this sort of apocalypse, not one caused by overcrowding, but social and economic collapse as birthrates fall to zero.

Otaku culture and NEET behavior have taken some of the blame for this. Rather than interacting with the culture and the economy, these people are staying home and investing more and more time in frivolous pursuits like anime and gaming. Harmonia’s backstory takes this to its logical extreme with Phiroids, robotic partners so advanced that there’s no real reason to risk real relationships. If NEETs are a growing portion of the population, then the release of Phiroids shows every man and woman essentially becoming a NEET.

Visual novels, especially bishoujo games, fill a similar role. They offer a safe simulacrum of emotions, without any real risk for the reader. Rather than pursuing real love with another person that might reject you, you can simply pull out your favorite game and follow a set of pre-programmed responses to get whatever ending you want. Just like how you can’t fail at love with a Phiroid, you can’t really fail in a visual novel. Moreover, Phiroids end up being emotionally one dimensional (Shiona mentions this as an unavoidable weakness). I believe this reflects that characters in visual novels, no matter how complex, will never be as deep and nuanced as a real human.

In the end, though, Harmonia is not entirely critical of Phiroids. While the Phiroids lead to the loss of emotion in humans, they still offer a way for humans to regain those emotions. For visual novels, I believe Key sees themselves in this role as redeemers. The stories that Key produces emphasize the importance of different kinds of connections, like childhood friends and family. Rather than replacing these bonds, Key seeks to celebrate and help their audience to appreciate them.

As readers of Key stories, I believe Harmonia encourages us to let their stories “die.” Rather than dwell on these stories and obsess over them, we should internalize the lessons they teach and apply them to our own lives. Naturally, as a member of this community devoted to dissecting Key’s VN’s, I’m not really going to let these stories go. But I do feel like this is a solid call to action to consider not just what these stories make us feel, but what they can teach us.

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I had something else to say, but I didn’t want to double post. Harmonia fits the classic form of an allegory. Specifically, Madd, Shiona, and Tipi form a Freudian Trio representing the id, ego, and superego of Freudian psychology.

First off, I really think Harmonia is an allegory. As others have pointed out, Harmonia is a relatively straightforward story with flat characters, and it’s much shorter than other Key stories. All of those point toward this story being an allegory, a story where every single piece of the story stands as a metaphor for something else. While I’m not sure what the smaller details stand for (like the music box or the song), I do have a pretty strong feeling about the three primary characters that Rei interacts with.

In Freudian psychology the psyche is broken into three interconnected parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is the subconscious mind motivated by base emotions. The superego is the analytical mind, strictly bound by rules. The ego stands between the two, mediating between the cold analysis of the superego and the uncontrolled id. I think Madd, Tipi and Shiona stand for these three parts of the psyche, and the story shows Rei gaining mastery over each of these sections of his own mind to become a whole person.

Madd seems obvious as the id. Not only is his primary emotion anger, the basest of all emotions, but we actually see Shiona directly mediating for him. Madd is incapable of being honest with himself of properly conveying his feelings. While you could say he is a tsundere, I believe this is better reflective of the fact that the id is subconscious, making itself known only through vague feelings, dreams, and other oblique means. Moreover, what Madd wants is actually self-destructive, another feature of the id.

Tipi would then be the superego. She knows so much information and is clearly analytical. Not only that, but she is bound by the promise she made to draw a picture every day, showing that she’s bound by rules and social expectations. I think this is further reflected by her being battery powered. Unlike more advanced Phiroids that can ingest food, Tipi is more like a traditional computer, powered only by electricity. I even feel like Tipi’s lack of understanding of death is appropriate for the superego. While she’s capable of making preparations for her own demise and understands it on a clinical level, the emotional understanding of death forever evades here.

Shiona would then be the ego. While most stories would have Rei as the ego, Shiona takes this place as she teaches Rei how to be a full person. Shiona is shown to understand both Tipi and Madd better than they understand themselves, and to be very realistic. Shiona understands the world that she’s in, she understands the perfect world that Tipi wishes for, she understands the hidden desires that Madd cannot voice, and she knows how to mediate between all of those things. In the end, Shiona is the one that reveals the truth of the world to Rei.

Throughout the story, Rei comes to incorporate each of these parts of his psyche into himself. Rei first experiences emotions like fear and anger with Madd, and shows his mastery of the id when he realizes that Madd really wants and provides it to her. Rei then shows his mastery over the superego when he takes over Tipi’s library and knowledge. Finally, once Shiona has entrusted Rei with her realistic history of the world, he shows his mastery of the ego by going out and self-actualizing his ideal world.

[cjlim2007]

I haven’t tackled analyzing Towa no Hoshi e until now because I thought @HeliosAlpha covered most of it but there is more that I want to point out. First of all, as @Bacon41 said, the “Let’s return” probably means “Let’s return to the world in which humans knew love.” It is important to remember that in chapter four, the unknown man said that he knew the song Shiona sang and he himself used to sing it. Towa no Hoshi e is not a song that belongs to Shiona, her brother, and Rei, but rather the entire world. At first, I thought of it as a kind of theme song of the humans who still loved but I think more than anything, it’s a hymn. And with a hymn, there is also a religion. Since religion doesn’t necessarily require a god, this world’s religion could just be in the belief that all people (including Phiroids) should love each other. Hymns are also usually peaceful, so Towa no Hoshi e fits. The melody of the song itself is very peaceful, tying into the title, Harmonia. Now onto the actual lyrical analysis. Like Helios, I will be using Shiranehito’s translation because I don’t know Japanese.

The first four lines seem to take place after the song. It describes how a bird would see the Earth and then passing on the song to the next person, which would continue on for eternity.

The next eight lines describe the Earth from that same bird’s view. It is very peaceful in it’s description. The most important parts of this section are “A single breath of this planet.” and “Now, let’s return.” First of all, the melody of Towa no Hoshi e matches Halitus. As @BlackHayate02 noted, Halitus means breath, so we get a direct tie in there. The significance of this line combines with “Let’s return.” The fact that all of this peaceful, then tied up with “A single breath” shows how normal this view of the Earth should be, because a breath is something that is naturally and repeatedly occurring. Then “Let’s return” is saying that we should return to a world where daily life is described with this peaceful scenery.

The next four lines are harder to analyze. Parents talk to their children, the rain… is there…? Not really sure here. Then we have hope bringing about a new era.

The next eight lines are a bit easier. They describe how humans share their love through emotions, with joy, sorrow, the wounded fist probably representing as anger, and healing warmth which is a little different but nonetheless still love. And the fourth line is basically the singer saying to spread more love. The rest of the section details how love will continue no matter what, and that love is the ultimate force.

The next eight lines are basically the same as the first eight line section except for “Blazing life, the comings and goings of people” being replaced with “Blazing life, the raising of people.” I’m not sure about this change honestly.

Finally, the last two lines tell of how love will always follow life for as long as life exists. Then “Let’s return” again. That second to last line might seem kinda off seeing as the humans no longer know love but basically I see it as “there will always be some who still understand love.”

Basically, the song is saying that we’ve come to a point where the normal is not normal. We need to bring back harmony and love within all people. The eternal song is love. That’s why the world, when given time, can change back to normal in the epilogue.

[nemoma]

Just finished this novel.

For some reason, I get a huge Kingdom Hearts vibe from this one. As the last numbered entry of that series is 11 years old, most of those spoilers will be unmarked and I’ll avoid them unless it’s needed.

One key theme of Kingdom Hearts is “What is a Heart”, in that series, Heart is an awesome concept that forms an existence/person (somebody), together with body and mind (memories). On first glance we can already know that Heart is not equal to one’s personality or memories in the traditional thing since that’s Mind, so heart should be something else.

While the initial game didn’t explain what a Heart exactly is (aside from the fact it’s Light), soon 358/2 Days made it clear by shifting our narrative to a “Nobody” called Roxas - he is in a blank state at the beginning of that story, not unlike our Rei here. It’s also his time spent with his caretaker/friends that allowed him to gain emotions such like joy, sadness and anger.

People are always arguing, both in-game or fandom, that if we can treat “Nobodies” as beings (one character in-game directly stating that they shouldn’t exist didn’t help) if they cannot experience emotion. Are those so-called emotions they express a result of they actually gaining emotions, or they’re just repeating something that is but a fragment of what they once was? The argument finally stops when in the newest story (KHDDD Spoilers)That indeed Nobodies could grow a Heart and gain real emotions from nothing from just being interacting and building connections with others and it’s implied that Heart is more like a connection, or in other ways, love than any other physical or corporeal matter. (Though in KH’s case, it’s more friendship love instead of romance).

Translate that into Harmonia’s case, the same argument still applies - We already know that Phiroids are man-made, artificial beings, yet they can display all kinds of emotions, but are those emotions just programs, being subconsciously drawn on and constantly applied to mimic the real deal?

The story telling of the first few chapters of Harmonia seems to disprove this theory. As we see the main character, supposedly a Phiroid, Learns emotions from Shiona, Madd, Tipi (in that order) quite naturally. (Shiona’s tendency by relating the emotions to colours could also helped as well, I almost thought she has synesthesia right before the reveal chapter) And his tears and nightmares all points to that he does have, or developed real emotions, (as KH’s Sora puts, “You must have a heart to cry.”).

Which is what makes the actual reveal so amazing. It turns out that Rei is actually a human with his emotions forgotten, and the people he adapted those emotions from are all Phiroids. In a way, this novel throws its prior statement out of the window by pointing out that yes, the Phiroids’ emotions are limited programs and if they didn’t cling to them, they’ll break. Returning to the KH Analogy, We are first led to believe that Rei was one of the Nobodies, but it turns out everyone else but Rei are the actual Nobodies. Which in reality, put the argument to another perspective.

Instead of “Are Phiroids capable of showing real emotions”, the question now becomes “What exactly decides if the emotions are real or programmed” because we can all admit those characters are more human given their actions and interactions. Especially Shiona’s actions in Chapter 5 when she is willing to go to the extremes to act towards her goal. Super Clever AI or real emotion? No one will know.
(Well, in a way you can say because Shiona is quite advanced so she does have super clever AI but still.)

What qualities make emotion real? Even if those emotions are a result of programs that need to be cling to, can we really call those fake if you can’t tell the difference? and if we can’t, to what extent did the line finally blur?

Also, Will humans cease to become human when they lost emotions? And if they do, since when? But the answer to that question is already given within the story.

Now, I’ve seen a lot of works that talks about Androids and how they can mimic human qualities, Blade Runner being the first one that came to mind. In those cases, they mainly talk about “Can they” while Harmonia is more towards “How can they”.

That’s why regarding the arguments to the post-credit Ending, I still find the ending quite necessary. Yes, the story can pull a planetarian and just end at the point Rei decide to rebuild humanity, there is nothing wrong with it. However, the post-credit ending really is the novel’s own answer to the above question. Thus is a necessary addition.

Case in point, Shiona’s song, which was passed down from her brother, is then passed to Rei, too all the townspeople and eventually to the entire rebuilt world. Time and damage may washed away Shiona’s memories, reduced her to a nearly blank stage, but the emotion behind the song is the real deal, as shown by her reactions upon hearing it. Echoing the tagline, “You taught me how important feelings are. There is an everlasting song.” While both the existence of Shiona and Rei gone, their connection, their Heart remains, IMO That’s the meaning of the post-credits scene - Emotions starts to hold meaning when connections are formed and pass down.

[Mogaoscar]

Harmonia review and analysis

Well well, here we are. After finishing the VN relatively late considering that I got it the day of release (thank you @Aspirety for that), I’ve been either busy or not in the mood to read it. So two weekends ago I finally decided to start it and I finished it on the following Monday night.

Sincerely, I don’t know where to start at. Well, to be honest, I know a couple of things that I want to mention, but going ham on them wouldn’t be wise. I’d like to develop my ideas little by little, so I’ll instead start off giving my general impressions, without overanalyzing things.

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Harmonia is a short VN. In fact, it’s a Kinetic Novel, a KN, which means that we don’t get to choose some things for our protagonists. I normally expect KNs to have a better characterized main character to compensate for the lack of decision making. I felt a bit sad when I discovered that our main character had amnesia and that he had a pretty plain personality that stood that way during the whole VN. Even then, it wasn’t that bad. At this point, I think I should compare it to Planetarian. Planetarian was almost like a monologue full of metaphors and a solid message to be conveyed. It was, therefore, very well written, but it was a bit dense and difficult to fully enjoy by a casual reader. Harmonia, on the other side, I think that didn’t achieve the same level of profundity Planetarian did, but, on the other hand, it was a lot more pleasing to read. It wasn’t as dense. While the writing wasn’t the best ever, it seemed like the story kept flowing and, while some plot twists and situations seemed a bit forced at times, they never radically broke the pace established, so even without digging the surface of the KN, one could enjoy a nice and relaxing experience while discovering a decent story.

Long story short Harmonia was a nice read, but it didn’t have a message as powerful as I expected.

What did I think about the characters other than the protagonist? Well, they were flat, we can’t deny that, but that doesn’t mean that they were bad. Shiona was a greatly designed character for her purpose. She was a great example of the potential a robot could have. Also, she is always cheerful and gives that pleasant vibe that helps you keep reading.

Then we have Madd. I found him to be the typical tsundere early on. And he was the typical tsundere after all, only that in the end he also worked as a plot device or plot justification (call it as you wish) to demonstrate how when the last emotion of a Phiroid disappeared, it ceased to function.

And finally Tipi. A fucking strange character when you compare plot and personality. She’s completely sad at the beginning, sad in the middle part but, when raiders come to the town, she radically changes and doesn’t give a fuck about anything (well, she does, but don’t even compare to her previous self), about the people being “disposed of” even though she knew what death meant because she saw that man die and understood it, so fuck the plot, Tipi knew what death was about. Even if she didn’t know, I mean…

Insert @Eisenkoubu ’s error code here

So yeah, her development was weird and, in my opinion, very badly done just because it contradicted the plot, or at least made the whole “understanding death” affair a lot more difficult to grasp than it could have been.

However, she’s still my favorite character by far. And how’s that?, you might ask. The answer is simple, but also unusual. Voice acting. Just purely voice acting. It was greatly done. Her voice was on point and showed both how young she was (appearance-wise), how sad and insecure she felt.

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And with this I think I’ve covered my first impressions, so it’s time to move onto something a bit more relevant. Let’s tackle the post credits scene.

I sincerely hoped that there was something to come after the credits, because otherwise it would have felt as if they were repeating the ending of another VN (name of the VN in spoiler tags. I can’t provide context, open at your own risk). Planetarian . So when I saw that there was indeed a post credits scene, I felt quite happy. Anyway, this happiness faded out as I saw that both Shiona and Tipi were alive (because I don’t like bringing characters back to live unless that greatly contributes to the meaning or a message). However, it wasn’t all that bad.

I think the ending, more than a conclusion to the story, was the writers’ answer to the topic that @Therationalpi brought up. Harmonia might be telling us that by escaping to these fictional universes and experiencing emotions in them through their characters might cause the ruin to society, but this doesn’t mean that we have to abandon them. The writers’ might want to say that living in a world that balances living both in real life and experiencing those fictional worlds is the best solution and the one we should aim for. In the final scene, we can see that human beings are learning emotions from the Phiroids (the fictional worlds), but at the same time, Phiroids are machines created by humans (writers, artists…). So Humans and Phiroids are both contributing to each others existence, and that’s what makes that utopia viable. It’s the retroaction. And that retroactive flow of emotional knowledge creates the Harmonia between Humans and Phiroids (fictional worlds created by humans).

Now I’d like to speak some words about love and @cjlim2007’s Greek love in Harmonia. To start off, what is love? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me no more. Is it just a emotion that ties people together to give birth to new life? Or is it something more. Personally, for me, love is an emotion that bonds people together, an emotion that creates an excuse to approach others and chat, and, thanks to that, exchange information. Here, Rei’s love towards Shiona allows him to learn about emotions, and it allows Shiona to learn first hand how humans can regain the emotions they used to have. If you think about it, my definition doesn’t fall under any category of the “Greek love” that CJ presented. However, that’s because I focus on the final utility of love. Those Greek definitions focus on between which people that attraction or urge to talk occurs rather than on what purpose it serves.

There are more purposes for love, however. As much as it allows us to access information from others, we feel an urge to protect that source of information, which means that we want to protect those who we love. Eros also naturally allows us to choose good partners that will be able to have and raise a child.

There’s much more I could end up saying about what purposes love serves, but overall, all of them seem to fulfill a single major role. It helps with human survival. And I think this is why there’s this concern about preserving love during the latter part of the VN. Love appears to be an essential key to human survival. And this idea is also, as brought up in the forum, linked to birthrates dropping down to zero, which is a serious event happening not only in Japan, but in many other countries too (although love isn’t the only culprit here, but now i’m deviating too much).

However, the way I really like to look at this love/survival concept is pretty different to the one brought up. I may have said that love is important to human survival, but what if humankind could find a workaround to survive without emotions?

During a good portion of the VN we see Phiroids as human. They are depicted as an ideal society that values feelings and looks after each other physically and emotionally. Then, the raiders come. They are regarded as assassins and people that don’t care for the life of a single individual. They are beings incapable of feeling that will do everything and anything for the group. What do I mean here? Pretty simple. Emotionless beings are depicted as bad and Emotion-capable beings are depicted as good. I’m not fond of that idea, since to me, both are different paths taken to that simple, yet important, problem: survival.

Darwin says (very generalized and plainly put) that life is the survival of the fittest, where the fittest is the species (or mutated part of a species) that is better adapted to the environment. When humans started loosing their emotions, prior to the spark that dynamited the current situation, there were 3 species of major concern: humans with emotions, humans without emotions and Phiroids. Yes, I said Phiroids. They are robots, but they adapt to their environment, they need to eat (or charge) to survive, and they reproduce with the help of humans (you could say that they are a bit like viruses in this aspect). However, I’ll regard them as human beings because even though they are coded, they have a surprisingly high freedom when it comes to making choices. The main thing being that they don’t seem to be restricted by Asimov’s laws, so they look more like cyborgs rather than robots.

So with these 3 species on the scene fighting or cooperating towards survival, let’s analyze the situation:

• Phiroids need humans to survive, and even if it wasn’t like that, they are coded so that they want to help humans and would even sacrifice themselves for them. However, the only humans that are willing to produce them are the humans with emotions, so you could say that Phiroids’ existence is linked to them. They know how feelings are (generally) and are able to convert some emotionless humans into humans with emotions.

• Humans with emotions don’t strictly need anyone to survive, but the environment is very harsh and they don’t have lots of information to help them establish towns and a well founded society. However, with the help of Phiroids, their chances are greatly improved. They can acquire information from them and their enhanced physical abilities are of great value. In exchange, humans with emotions would learn how to repair them and end up living in harmony with them. It would be a symbiosis.

• Emotionless humans are alone. They are antagonistic to both humans and Phiroids, but they still won’t hesitate to use Phiroids as highly efficient slaves. The fact that they are emotionless allows them to work exclusively for the group, allowing systems like communism to work as originally intended an leaving corruption aside. If I had to parallel them with a real life species, it would be with ants or bees. They all have their place in the group very clear, and they’ll work for the group. However, they won’t hesitate to sacrifice themselves for the most important members of the group.
  It’s true that they might have lost knowledge over time, and that they don’t know how to love, but this doesn’t mean that they are stupid. They will gather information from libraries and Phiroids as time progresses and will reproduce as a normal human would, even if the only purpose was to bring a new kid to the world to maintain their species going.

Seen this way, I can’t help but admit that emotionless humans aren’t that bad. They would be the ones with the best survival chances if you asked me. Humans with emotions and Phiroids are mainly pacifists so I wouldn’t be surprised if emotionless humans took over the world and ended up extinguishing humans with emotions.

So this is seen with a more or less objective perspective. However, I’m pretty sure that we all agree upon the fact that a world with Phiroids and humans with emotions would be funnier, but that is of course because we have emotions and having fun induces the emotion of joy or happiness right? Or perhaps it is because we’ve been shown more about how Phiroids are rather than the motivations and situation of emotionless humans. Anyway, the thing is that we shouldn’t wish for an emotionless world, since right now, advanced emotions, communication and intelligence is what defines us as humans.

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Now that I’ve covered the main point I wanted to talk about, I’ll move on to other ambiguous, important, yet almost unnoticeable things: metaphors and message enhancing elements. However, keep in mind that these are my interpretations, I know by no means whether the writers wanted to convey the messages that come to my mind or not. Therefore, alternative explanations of the various metaphors are encouraged, so raise up your thoughts and talk your mind about them. I haven’t seen as much as I expected from you.

I’ll start off with one that seems to be the object that draws the most attention from all of you, the music box. First of all, what’s a music box? It’s a (originally) cubic object, with a handle, and a music-engraved dish or cylinder. When you turn the handle, music comes out, and music is what is really valuable. Without it, it would be a plain box. Here comes my interpretation. The music box symbolizes the human being. It’s got a normal exterior. It’s a body, it’s only purpose is to hold and to protect what’s inside. Then, it’s got the music. This would be the emotions, the soul of the human. All humans, “emotionless humans” too, would be this music box. This would mean that everyone is capable of having and showing emotions, and those who do, are the “humans with emotions”. This would also mean that people who “haven’t opened their box” are still able to learn how to do it. Once they do, they “open their music box” and learn about emotions. This would be the case of the main character, Rei. Furthermore, this interpretation leaves room for one more element: the handle. For a music box to function, someone must start moving the handle. That someone would be an emotion possessing being, be it another human or, in Rei’s case, Shiona, a Phiroid. This potentiates the message of emotions being a core element of the human being, and even if not visible, they’ll always be lingering there in a dormant state.

Next up is the tablet that Tipi had. More than far fetched a metaphor, I like to think about this is an element that makes emphasis in an already existing message. The tablet contains all the information that humans had been gathering during their entire story as a species. In those circumstances, all that knowledge might as well be the key to survival and restoring society as it once was. However, the guardians of this key are the Phiroids, who have all these knowledge stored in their electronic brains. And to access the tablet and all this knowledge, Phiroids are needed, thus indicating that humanity as once known will only persist if they cooperate and live in harmony with the Phiroids.

Finally we have the Plaza. Instead of a metaphor, this is a very important element for the story. Phiroids in the village are, in general, capable of feeling and expressing all emotions. However, without any human around, they seem to stay at their homes and nothing really happens, it’s almost as if the village was also hibernating waiting for a human to come. And one he comes, actually, nothing really happens. It’s only when Shiona and Rei go to the Plaza that the gears are set in motion. Everyone puts their emotions into use. They don’t just keep them to themselves, but they share them. The plaza is the hub that allows the plot to advance, connecting people together. This way, it could somehow be telling us that emotion-possessing beings, like humans or, in this case too, Phiroids, won’t get anything positive from their emotions unless they get interact with each other. And I’d like to link this back to the theory from @Therationalpi that I mentioned earlier, about how we should put into practice what we learn from VNs and not just keep it to ourselves.

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At this point I think I’m done with plot related aspects of the VN, so I’ll finish by changing the topic to technical aspects such as graphics, sound, voice acting…

I already mentioned that I loved Tipi’s voice acting. It was just awesome, and when combined with the soundtrack Library, the effect of loneliness was incredibly deep. It’s almost as if the Library was a completely different world and just Tipi lived in it.

The rest of the voice acting was good too. If I had to highlight something else about it, I’d say that Shiona’s was good too, since it was very soft and sweet, but the a more darker tone emerged in those scenes in which Shiona’s true intentions weren’t as clear as they seemed.

A detail that many might not notice but that for me is of great importance is the effect used on character sprites. I don’t really know how to call it, but it was this effect that made it look as if the whole sprite was kind of an sketch, I hope you get what I mean. I found it to be very well used and gave all the characters a little something that made them look gorgeous.

Another thing I liked was the use of big chat boxes placed in different places. The usual long box placed on the bottom part of the screen can get repetitive after reading for a while, so I like seeing a variety in its placement. The right-click menu was also very stylish, so it made an overall clean and easy to read through interface.

About the music, I liked pretty much all of them, although perhaps not to the level of Tomoyo After (the instrumental tracks) or Little Busters! (the vocal tracks). Still, from the instrumental ones, I found some to be more of my liking than others. These are Pecado, Library and, my personal favorite by far, Tristitia. These three provoked a very deep sensation in me. In Library, it was the emotion of loneliness and isolation. In Pecado, it was the feeling of having lost something important. In Tristitia, it made me think that I was in the middle of some ancient ruins, as if I had just discover a hidden truth. Its sound is incredibly elaborate and the piano complements the voice perfectly. This track is up there with others like hope, A world is born or the piano version of Dango Daikazoku.

One major concern I had when I finished the VN was seeing how they had done something I couldn’t forgive. They changed the menu music. They changed my beloved Tristitia track which I could be listening too for hours before actually getting to read the VN…

Anyway, I’ll be waiting for them to release the OST and incorporate it to my iPod.

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So this would be about it. Overall, I’d say that I enjoyed it, but coming from KEY, my expectations were really high and they weren’t met. However, Harmonia wasn’t far from meeting them. If I had to summarize my opinion in one (long) sentence, I’d say:

It was a nice read, with some decent themes and some plot related problems, but even though the VN had more potential to be developed, the amount of theories and messages that we can extract from such a short VN is so high that makes it worth.

I’ll give it a solid 4/5 overall. However, even though I liked it, it’ll still remain my least favourite KEY VN.

[Pepe]

Seen this way, I can’t help but admit that emotionless humans aren’t that bad. They would be the ones with the best survival chances if you asked me.

And here we have a pretty serious philosophical pickle. You are not wrong: humans without emotions are much efficient, can work much better in a team, and will have higher chances of survival than humans with emotions. However, despite not having emotions, humans still have beliefs. And when their beliefs are akin to that in the game, where destruction is fully justifiable, then I can’t help but see them destroying the world and destroying themselves without hesitation. That, in itself, kind of lends away from the “survival of the fittest” theory. Frankly, I think that theory only works with nature; as opposed to human beings who are rarely affected by nature, I’d say survival of the “fittest” is less of a thing.

They changed my beloved Tristitia track which I could be listening too for hours before actually getting to read the VN…

same… Well, at least that’s what the music mode is for

[Kanon]

I finally remembered to finish this.

It was super ‘aight’, I feel like I just read an extended Mr. Men book with these characters and Little Miss Sad is still a dumb character design and dull character, the twist was pretty fun and I did enjoy the read by wooooow this is so nothing.

I mean it’s good but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone or reread it or anything.

[Aspirety]

And plans on listening to the podcast? @Kanon

[Inorin]

This was actually not long, took me around 4 hours to complete the entire story, I liked a lot, however the ending was a bit ambiguous as to how everything became well again, but that I guess is left to your own interpretation

[Totoro_Futaki]

I read Harmonia over a few months ago. And wow, it was a good read.

I do admit that I felt bored reading some parts of it, but that can’t even compare to how bored I felt when I was reading Planetarian. With Planetarian, the inner monologue has world-building and really only 2 characters, so its a bit boring to read. With Harmonia, its more character-driven and has a variety of characters, which makes it a better read (to me personally). And the only time we ever get infodump is chapter 4 or something, when Shiona was explaining things.

Harmonia is definitely Hinoue’s best in terms of art. I can’t imagine how hard it may be to remember all the specific colors in the eyes to keep consistency. Her designs are also great in here. She still has the big eyes (which is her trademark) but, she put the cheeks and chin lower. This makes it look better and more mature. I can’t even express the appreciation for Hinoue for doing Tipi. Her design is definitely complex. She has curly hair (which is definitely hard to draw and replicate) and she also has a loli-dress (which is also hard to draw because of all the frills).

The soundtrack was also very good. It doesn’t have many memorable tracks, compared to something like Rewrite, but its only expected because Shinji and Ryo are making music that help the scenery, and not just to be remembered. I do love Towa No Hoshi E though. I think its one of the most melancholic official Key VN ED’s as the ED of the main/true route. And I really do love thoseelancholic tracks, so when its the ED, its even better.

As for the story itself, it was definitely mind-blowing. Though granted, I was waiting all night for the game to load, so I played it all In one-sitting and wasn’t as invested.

The only thing I still don’t understand is, that it was said that Tipi was in the generation of robots where they only function with one emotion, and will break down otherwise. It didn’t make sense to me, because there were multiple times where Tipi was happy when Rei was with her, yet she never broke down from that. Maybe there needs to be a certain amount of happiness, but its still interestingly flawed.

I do wish that Rei’s backstory was explored more. I mean, why was he in that facility in the first place? Why did Rei have a mechanical arm (other than the obvious fact that he most likely lost of real arm)? Why did Rei wake up at that specific point in time? Why did Rei have no knowledge of his past?

and Shiona’s character and back story. Why did Rei look like her brother? Is it possible Rei is her brother? Why didn’t Shiona stop Rei?

And that part in the middle of one of the chapters when a human came and was badly injured. Why did he know of the song that Shiona played?

I feel like there’s more connections than what is actually connected in the KN. I really do hope we get a drama CD or Light Novel like Planetarian to explain some of these aspects.

I also don’t know why people can compare this to Planetarian. Sure. Robots, post apocalyptic, Kinetic. But that’s it. That’s like saying you can compare Kanon and Rewrite because they have girls, romance, labeled as a VN, and from Key.
The ideals from Harmonia are far different than the ones from Planetarian. I do think comparing these 2 KN’s is Silly though. Harmonia will most likely reach people who didn’t like Planetarian and vise versa. Just because of their different ways of storytelling and ideals.

Story - 9
Art - 10
Designs - 10
Backgrounds - 10
Music - 10
Characters - 7 (well I mean most of them are purposely like how they are, so you can’t really change that).

Harmonia is a great read. I’d definitely recommend it to newcomers. It’d be an easier read than Planetarian (in my honest opinion). Planetarian will feel like a snooze fest to newcomers because of the emphasis between the only 2 characters (that possibly won’t be as relatable), and the world-building.

Edit - So does anyone wonder why the OP was placed as the ED? Or why it was even energetic in the first place?

[cloudst12]

Just finished Harmonia a short while ago. I had to hold on buying it until the winter steam sale since I was a little broke from Christmas shopping…

It didn’t take me long to go through the whole story. Although, it did annoy me that the ctrl button wasn’t working (Apparently, it’s a steam achievement). The whole game took me about 3 hours to finish though I don’t recommend smashing the enter button too fast.

And boy, was it a ride.

To be honest, “Harmonia is probably the weakest game in the Key lineup” but don’t let that statement fool you. [spoiler] Cause you’ll be crying at the end anyway. I nearly did.

Playing this game, you can’t help but draw parallels with Key’s other game “planetarian” based on it’s premise. You know, the post-apocalypse setting.

“Don’t split heaven in two.” - Yumemi Hoshino (planetarian)

This quote seems to ring really loudly in Harmonia. In fact, I think it might as well be the main theme of Harmonia.

Whether we can coexist with robots, and whether we might one day find ourselves learning emotions from them. [/spoiler]

But you know, I like the background on how this kinetic novel came to be. It must have been a fan’s dream come true. You can read that story on wiki. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonia_(visual_novel)#Development_and_release

And the songs from the opening and ending really do resonate once you’ve finished the visual novel and read the lyrics.

(The songs strangely were released earlier than the game)
Todoketai Melody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT4lbs4H8bA&ab_channel=KyouKeiKen
Towa no hoshi e: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7Wfth5gPhA

I guess that’s all from me. Happy New Year’s everyone!!!

[robonxt]

This must be it: a teaser for a new something!

[StarfishBender]

Finished the VN for the first time - I think comparisons with Planetarian are inevitable as it does address some very similar topics. I took it slow and according to Steam I spent 8 hours reading it.

This definitely didn’t give me as much “Orange” as Planetarian and again I didn’t have too much trouble guessing where the story was going and the twists. Beautifully presented though with some gorgeous tunes - the simple but atmospheric Pecado and Rruinus; with Towa no Hoshi e a lovely vocal track.

I’d give it 7/10 and it’s well below Clannad/Tomoya After and Planetarian on my urge to replay list - BUT saying that I don’t begrudge the money and time I spent on it because it was enjoyable although nothing to make me emote this time…

I haven’t read all the previous comments but a few here I have read are really helpful in opening my eyes to the possible themes beyond the obvious, so thank for those and apols for my own rather lightweight thoughts!

[SquallEC]

Harmonia Japanese version physical game will be releasing in Japan on May 26, 2017. That OST, that piano arrangement CD, THAT MUSIC BOXXXXXX!!

Source: http://key.visualarts.gr.jp/harmonia

[Aspirety]

I mean, people are reporting this like it wasn’t already released at Comiket.

But yes, these goods are super exciting! We’ll hopefully have an article up soon.

[Apasher]

Welp, that was one hell of an emotional rollercoaster ride.

I actually fell in love with Shiona during the first half of the VN. She was such a sweetheart, and came off as the older-sister figure to me. Seeing Shiona comforting and encouraging Rei to confront Madd was very moving to me, since being afraid of angry people is something I relate to. It melted my heart.

Then I got to chapter 5. Seeing Shiona trying to keep Rei away from Tipi, and then her verbal abuse at the end of the chapter. Being very attached to this character, having a fear of betrayal and going through it in the past, and relating to Tipi due to the fact that she’s always sad, the scene just messed me up very badly. It made me want to cry.

When I finished chapters 6 and 7, I got the revelation I needed. Realizing that Shiona was trying to protect Tipi (and Rei) the whole time brought a huge sigh of relief to me. I was scared of Shiona being the two-faced type of character who is only kind on the outside, but malicious on the inside. But knowing that she’s still an angel made me feel very relieved.

Humans forgetting love was a very interesting concept in the story to me. It relates to the thoughts I get sometimes about the world having a lot more hate than love. It warmed my heart to eventually see the world become a better place.

Anyway, I loved Harmonia. Great experience.

[octoberpumpkin]

Finished this the other day. Short and sweet. Nothing amazing to me, but well worth the few hours I spent with it. I kept wondering why Shiona was keeping Rei away from Tipi, that was a good mystery to keep me motivated, and the ending was pretty bittersweet. Good read!

[Aspirety]

Finally got my Harmonia Box! Putting aside how blatantly they’re sexualising Shiona, the contents of the box are really something.

In particular, I’m very interested in the context of this short story included inside. I wonder if anyone will bother to translate it…

[Yuzuru_OkaKen]

Whoa… “its really something” hehehe…~

[Shizuru-chan]

I just finished reading Harmonia and I really loved it! It was quite different from Planetarian ( from what I have seen in the film ) and the characters and the soundtracks were great . I was able to feel a lot of emotions and it was a refreshing experience for me. Like Tipi, I used to be alone when I was younger and her sorrow touched a lot my heart. The message that Harmonia gives us is really important I think and shows us the true meaning of life. I hope Key will write some others kinetic novels like that in the future !