Last I checked, Charlotte is called Charlotte because Nao is a planet/Yu is a planet/The comet is a planet/The Camera is a planet/Hitler is a planet and they’re named after some obscure dwarf planet.
Harmonia probably has a music theme with a name like that.
Harmonia makes me think more about, well, Harmony as a term.
A collection of similar or different things coming together to form something new and interesting.
Or something like that…
Think of the protagonists search for emotion as adding flavor to his world. Color to gray. The right seasoning to food. It’s creates a wonderful harmony~
Speaking of which, in planetarian at first I thought it’s a corruption for planetarium, and I never knew that “planetarian” is actually a legit word (I thought Key just made up random words yet again like in CLANNAD case). I’m sure I’m just being slow and dumb here…
According to thefreedictionary, planetarian means 1. a staff of a planetarium (that’s Yumemi) and 2. inhabitant of a planet (that’s the Junker… or humans in general). So I think the title is really fitting for the whole cast (well there are only two characters there duh)
I suddenly got interested about the title when I listened to planetarian drama CD: Hoshi no Hito. The popular translation for “Hoshi no Hito” is “Man of the Stars” but when I think about it, Hoshi can also mean planet and it struck me: maybe the most elaborate translation to Hoshi no Hito is actually… planetarian. And I wasn’t completely wrong, I guess…
Wow I totally did not learn this until today, and just realized how fitting this was. Nice find!
And thanks for reminding me that I should really listen to Hoshi no Hito >_<
Which is one of the reasons behind my argument that “planetarian” refers to Junker, maybe even before it refers to Yumemi. The other being:
Or maybe Hoshi no Hito is meant to show how “planetarian” originally refered to Yumemi, and now refers to Junker.
I always just said that Yumemi was the inhabitant of the planetarium so, yeah, planetarian. lol
I’ve been meaning to ask this for a while now. The answer might be simple, but I’m still not as sure.
Does anyone know what the purpose of the names were for certain routes ? Such as “After Story” or “Refrain” or “Ecstasy” or “Terra” ?
After Story is pretty much self explanatory, but what about the others ?
Also, CLANNAD, Kanon, Air, LB, Rewrite, Charlotte and all that had meanings in their names, but what’s the meaning behind the names for Angel Beats! and Kud Wafter ?
And one last question that has to do with Saya and parts of Refrain, which I still don’t understand. If Saya died in the real world, how was her soul wandering all those years until the LB crash happened ? In the first place, did Saya actually die ? If she didn’t die, would that have meant that the Little Busters! gang would have never had Riki, cause Saya would have been there for Riki ? These stories are intriguing. I wouldn’t have minded if Saya had her own VN spin-off. Would be much more interesting.
I believe that Little Busters! Refrain comes from the fact that in music, a refrain is something that is sung repeatedly (iirc) which would definitely fit with all the stuff that goes on in Little Busters. Also, refrain has another definition. To refrain from something is to “stop oneself from doing something. (according to google)” This is definitely relevant as you could say Kyousuke refrained from helping Riki bring the Little Busters back together in Refrain. These might not be right, but I will continue to believe these because they seem to fit so perfectly.
I haven’t played Little Busters! Ecstasy but I will assume that the Ecstasy part comes from the h-scenes. Sha la la la…
On the other hand, Rewrite has Terra and Moon which REALLY FKING BOTHERS ME BECAUSE WHY IS IT NOT LUNA AND TERRA OR MOON AND EARTH?! I guess Key had to mix it -.- I bet there’s some real meaning there but I haven’t really bothered to figure it out.
Angel Beats! is because if you didn’t notice the ridiculous amount of cardiograms (don’t worry I didn’t know the first time either) the series has a lot to do with the heartbeat. Specifically Kanade’s heartbeat. Kanade = tenshi = angel. Heartbeat = beat. Therefore, Angel Beats!
I dunno about Kud Wafter but I assume its following the Tomoyo After naming convention but playing with it a little. The main character in this case is Kud not Tomoyo so therefore its Kud After and then they add the W to after because wafuu!!! So that’s my guess for Kud Wafter although I have never read the vn so don’t trust me on this one.
As CJ and Pepe have said, the Beats part most likely represents a heartbeat. If I remember correctly, the significance of the heartbeat is that Kanade has Otonashi’s heartbeat, or that they beat the same way (from some episode I forgot the number of).
Mhm. After Otonashi’s death, his heart was donated, and implanted into the body of a young girl with a fatal heart condition: Kanade.
Fair warning: Spoilers aside, this post contains emotionally scarring content.
I remember stumbling upon a Little Busters confession on Tumblr (can’t find the pic anymore because the blog was deleted… idek why) which was something along the lines of how it’s so wrong to abbreviate LB’s name as LitBus. Considering the things that happened in Refrain… I hope this is just a mere coincidence because if it isn’t, well, goddamn, Maeda. I have no words.
Yeah LitBus is pretty fucked lol. I noticed that too. I’m sure none of the Japanese make that connection.
Well one one hand バス straight up is the Japanese word for buss. On the other hand, it might be overlooked more because reducing words to 2 syllables is such a common thing in Japanese slang.
Kanon: Canon is a series of events such as memories that happen, MC has been to this town before in the past but only remembers bits and pieces of it
Air: I think this is a pretty boring title since a lot of things revolve around birds and feathers
Clannad: A clan is a family, main theme of this story is about the importance of family
Planetarian: it takes place in a planetarium after all
Little Busters: busters mean something broken in this case there was a bus accident; the MC and Rin are also broken in that they are unable to deal with the situation so Kyousuke made the world
Angel Beats: Kanade is called Tenshi which means angel, After the MC died irl his heart was given to Kanade
Rewrite: The power itself is called rewrite
Charlotte: The comet is called Charlotte
Harmonia: I think this has something to do with the music box
Summer Pockets: We are trapped in an endless summer and pockets means memories of that summer
Not seen much of Harmonia in this so I thought I’d throw in my thoughts.
While Harmonia may come from the term harmony, and thus may represent different forces or people coming together to create something beautiful, there are actually a few other things in the story to emphasise this concept and the use of the name. In Harmonia, colour is used often to describe how one feels (e.g. orange is happiness, blue is sadness etc…), and each of the main characters are associated with these feelings (Shiona is always happy and thus orange, Tipi is always sad and thus blue). I thought this was relevant because those elements are prominent throughout the story and the term ‘colour’ has some meaning in music.
The term ‘tone colour’ (also known as timbre) is used in music to describe properties of sound outside of pitch and rhythm – it’s what distinguishes the difference between a flute and a clarinet. So if each character represents a different emotion/colour and one considers each of these characters to be a different timbre, then the union of these characters can create a harmony.
On a similar note, there are also cases of people with synaesthesia associating harmony with colour (A famous example is the composer Olivier Messiaen who has literally described elements of his music as a specific colour). So there is a literal aspect of this association between colour and music as well that should be considered.
Another thing that I thought should be mentioned is how music naturally provokes an emotional response based on different elements such as harmony, so if Harmonia has an emphasis on feelings then it makes sense that the title should be related to something that creates emotions. Even the line ‘You taught me how important feelings are. There is an everlasting song.’ supports this idea. The everlasting song symbolises the constant emotions one has and how they can never go away.
So while there may be some musical elements in the story such as the music box, they’re just used as an emotional catalyst. The title of Harmonia is used to represent all the ways of communicating emotions from one person to another and since music (and more specifically harmony) communicates this concept is several different ways it makes sense that it would be the basis of the title.
I heard somewhere that Maeda thought “Clannad” was the Irish word for “family” after listening to Enya’s former band which has that name. Was that confirmed anywhere?
Yes
I think the title “Air” isn’t boring because I see it as a metaphor of the happiness and the dreams that men aim for but cannot reach and it’s quite representative of the story.
