Planetarian - General Discussion

So I have a bit of a strange answer to the question of who Yumemi is praying to. Now although we can basically see that Yumemi is supposed to essentially be a representation of Jesus, it’s not going to be fully accurate nor is it supposed to. So it can still be just that she prays to the God of robots because that’s just what she believes in. I would say that even though there isn’t exactly theological evidence for this, I believe that even in the real world the God of the Bible as well as the God of robots can be one in the same. My line of reasoning is that if I believe that God is the God of all creation, he is also the God of all knowledge and therefore all individual subjects. Then I can conclude that he’s also the God of robots, God of mathematics, accounting, biology, or whatever, as long as that is not his limitation. He created those things before humans discovered what those things actually were. So I guess I’d agree with you though I don’t think it’s in the same way haha.


@42Megabytings you brought up an interesting point. I was thinking specifically about how the Junker talks about the war robots as game that humans created to hunt. It’s distinctly different from humanoid robots like Yumemi who can be viewed more as human. Instead these war robots are just creatures and I mean, the point is that we shouldn’t actually need to care too much about them. Interestingly though, Yumemi does care for it in that she tried to communicate with it before it finally kills her. Although I guess, what else was she going to do?

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Another argument that could be made about that is that humanity is becoming more roboticized because of those efforts for improvement and perfection. If robots are used to symbolise the hope of humanity and it’s development then it follows that while robots become more human, humans become more robotic, until the balance between those two elements become blurred.

If we consider the Junker in the beginning of planetarian, he’s incredibly cold and tactical, similarly to how the Fidder Crab is shown at the end. He does everything he does all of this because of a basic urge to survive - he even came to the sarcophagus city to find more resources to survive. Because of the world the Junker lives in, he has lost a lot of his humanity to become robotic, because that’s what’s needed to survive against the robots, so I would say that Yumemi’s humanity is juxtaposed by the Junkers robotic nature, and throughout the novel Yumemi slowly returns it too him. A good example of the Junker’s humanity returning is during the end when he’s trying to destroy the Fiddler crab. During the beginning of the novel he emphasises how difficult it was to get into the city and describes everything he has to fend off. So it shows that the Junker was skilled enough to get through what for many others was a deadly situation. However, during that situation he had nothing to lose except his own life. However during the fight against the Fiddler Crab, he fails to take it out, fair enough he says it’s a 50/50 chance of hitting or missing, but in that scenario the most logical thing to do would be find another route. He doesn’t do that because his humanity makes him care about Yumemi, which leads him to go into combat with the Fiddler Crab. So in that regard, it could be said that faith restores humanity.

@cjlim2007 One of my original thoughts on the matter was that the God of Humanity created the God of Robots - as man created robot it would be only natural for the God of Humanity to create the God of Robots, so Yumemi might believe in the God of Humanity, thus allowing for belief in the God of Robots, but I do also like the case that you make. Considering that planetarian references Christianity specifically, and not another religion, it makes sense that as the Bible says there is only one God, then in the world of planetarian there is only one God as well, so your argument holds a lot of ground.

Also, while yes it’s not possible for Yumemi to be a fully accurate representation of Jesus, we could consider what aspect of her allowed her to become that figure. If there are two Gods, and Jesus is the son of the God of humanity, then it makes sense for Yumemi to be the daughter of the God of robots - but if there is only one God, then why does Yumemi symbolise Jesus? I mean yes there’s so much evidence which supports the idea of Yumemi being a Jesus figure, but in terms of the actual story, what made her like that? I would argue that considering her strong love and faith in humanity, it naturally follows that she would work to become as perfect as possible for humanity. Now whether you argue Jesus as a perfect figure or not is a different conversation entirely, but he’s still considered a figure that humanity should aim towards and should try to have the same values and beliefs as, so I think it naturally follows that if Yumemi only wants to help humanity and make them happy, then she would aim to gain those same values.

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See, me being non-religious I have a different take on this: that Yumemi is simply behaving with a childlike innocence and purity whereby she is not even able to recognise evil or the evil that men do because it hasn’t been programmed in. Just like a very young child can’t understand why an adult is trying to hurt them.

My suggestion of evidence is the lack of understanding Yumemi has about what’s happened to the city and the lack of people in it. Whereas in Abrahamic religion at least the recognition of and fight against sin in an effort to create an ideal order is fundamental to its existence.

When Yumemi confronts confronts the Fiddler Crab she’s treating it as a broken machine, not an evil entity. She tries to “turn it off”. So for me the religious subtext in planetarian is more allegoric than literal.

Of course I haven’t yet read the side stories so perhaps something there will instruct me why Yumemi philosophises about heaven. Naturally I also recognise that sci-fi is full of religious allegory from Star Wars and StarTrek to Bladerunner to the Battlestar Galactica Re-imagining.

It’s an interesting question to consider if AI can develop its own sense of ethics or something that has to be inbuilt by its creators, this to be considered from the Terminator series, in this case The Sarah Connor Chronicles:

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1198&context=facsch_papers

The parallels between the case of trying to bring up a child, and to “bring up” an artificial intelligence, are in plain view in the series, “Sometimes they go bad. No one knows why,” could also be said of human children. And the creator of Skynet attributes the apocalypse that unfolds to the fact that his creation was insecure and frightened, and despite his efforts, he was unable to reassure it. As the story progresses, religion is brought into the picture explicitly: the machines, as they exist at that time, are said to be unable to appreciate art or commune with God. But the possibility is raised that these things can be learned.

If this can be accomplished, it is suggested, then the machines will not have to destroy us. “They will be us.”

Alright, just finished reading Planetarian on Switch.

To briefly outline my history with the novel, I read it initially with the old fan translation back in 2012-13, and then read it again when it released on Steam, and I now I finished my third read with the Switch version.

I took notes as I was reading so to make this easier for myself I’m going to provide a tl;dr, followed by longer explanations under 2 subheadings to segment my key points.

tl;dr Planetarian is great, don’t read it on the Switch.

  1. User-Interface (UI) and narrative integration.
    The standard PC version of Planetarian (PC Planetarian) is the version that I would recommend to anyone reading Planetarian for any given playthrough first time or not, and this mainly has to do with the UI changes in the Switch version (Switch Planetarian).

    I say this because the UI of PC Planetarian is an important part of the experience. What made PC Planetarian compelling from the get-go is it’s unique presentation of the dialogue and the scope in which you view the world. It challenges your expectations immediately by letting you know it is not a normal ‘visual novel’ experience. You view the world through an enclosed rectangle which you quickly find is significant because it reflects the main character’s view making you think he is probably wearing some kind of visor or goggles which is telling of the situation he finds himself in. In other words its not entirely safe for him to be walking around normally unprotected. It impacts his peripheral and overall vision. I liked this because it was clearly an intentional artistic choice for displaying the story through, it tells the reader plenty without having to explain through dialogue what is going on and why we have an unorthodox point of view (POV).

    While Switch Planetarian does maintain the same rectangular POV it takes up most of the screen and the purpose of the smaller enclosed view becomes much less apparent. Therefore I would make the argument that the original design choice became blurred in the transition to a new display format. It’s not a huge big deal, but I feel like the original UI was a clear artistic choice which is reinforced by the dialogue box.

    Moreover, the dialogue box in Switch Planetarian has been changed to accommodate the widescreen display of the tablet/TV screens. PC Planetarian opted for a large rectangular box which provided a constant stream of dialogue as the text played out with a smaller POV. Switch Planetarian keeps the dialogue within a smaller rectangle at the bottom of the screen much like a normal VN with a larger POV. Now I want to reiterate this is not a huge big deal but it once again shares the same hiccups as the change to the POV, in that it opts for a large field of view to give the reader more to look at. At first glance its not so bad, since the artwork of Planetarian is quite nice to look at, but I feel that this takes away from the purpose that its PC counterpart established. Specifically having a larger text-box using up most of the screen created the impression that the dialogue was more “diary-entry” like, and reinforced the more limited POV emphasising the view of the main character. This is particularly noticeable when you get the projection scene and the field of view drastically opens up when the Junker is using his imagination to vividly “see” the night sky in his head. I feel that this particular section was supposed to reiterate the limited view point to send a clear message to the reader how evocative the projection feels to the Junker.

    Essentially, Switch Planetarian gives you the same story, but PC Planetarian incorporates some deliberate artistic design choices which I feel is important to the narrative experience.

  2. Preservation of the Past
    I wanted to add more to the discourse with input that has not been extensively discussed yet, but so much ground has already been covered so instead of delving into the content of the story, I want to give my input on a particular theme that I enjoyed from reading this novel again for the third time.

    Consider that that one thing that Yumemi provides to the Junker as a parting gift is a memory card.

    I feel that this is an interesting point to dive into because it emphasises the importance of preserving the past in order to learn from it without allowing things to be destroyed. Often in the present day we find instances of things we experience in the past either being no longer accessible or completely extinct. This is because they were recorded on degradable material which are eventually lost with the passing of time.

    These are things which tend to disappoint us deeply because we want to pass it on to the next generation but do not have ways to preserve things we once had. Some examples of this can be seen with things such as old video tapes on VHS with movies (Famously Star Wars), and copies of old video games no longer in print, or even with closing of online servers making content on the internet permanently inaccessible.

    I feel like preservation of the past plays an integral role in the story of Planetarian. Yumemi very much represented to me the desire to preserve the once good things we had in the past in order to pass it on to the next generation or as many people as possible. People or in this case, the Junker may forget the joys of things such as the night sky, but if there exists something to remind us that these things did exist then its enough to bring a sense of intrinsic joy. It’s easy for us to make mistakes and feel like everything sucks because the current climate of our life is troublesome, but the past teaches you that there is is a silver lining. Destruction brings despair, but your memories of times gone by are often the only thing that gives you solace in life during hard times.

The moral of the story is: Save often, and hold on to your memory card.

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So Yumemi’s model number is SCR5000Si/FLCapelⅡ. This stands for:

S - references to the company/factory where she was made
Companion
Robot
type 5000
Standalone intelligence
/Female Little
CapelⅡ - Capel is a name derived from Karel Čapek, the Czech writer known for popularizing the word ‘robot’

Source Tweet


Suzumoto has actually thrown out a ton of stuff on Twitter in the last two years (pretty funny as he was completely off the grid for several years prior to 2016) so I might as well go over some more.

He’s talked about how Yumemi is quite heavy, as one might expect a metal human to be. This is why the Junker can’t really to help her up when she falls over. https://twitter.com/SuzumotoYuuichi/status/784634711750676480

I couldn’t find the tweet for this one, but I remember him talking about how Yumemi is mostly built with her upper body in mind, and her lower body is pretty shit. She’s only intended to move short distances on a flat floor and similar.

He points out that Yumemi’s ribbon turns yellow when she’s trying to access the main database. She has multiple different yellow ribbons though, so I think it’s only referring to the one with the barcode going around. https://twitter.com/SuzumotoYuuichi/status/784620993570570244

Here he makes a brief remark on how a robot under the rule of the three laws can be seen as a slave, but also a perfect human. Extra Credit talked about this too, and it’s not an uncommon idea. Someone who puts others ahead of themself like a robot does might just be a good, selfless person.

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Okay here’s my main post that I was planning on doing from the start:

planetarian may be short, but it has so much meaning with the amount of subtle details it implements. The themes of hope through religion are prominent throughout this story and it’s amazing how subtly it’s woven in. One thing that I don’t think people generally realise is how well the music is crafted in the novel. Not just from the perspective of it suiting the mood of its relative scene or being nice to listen to, but from a thematic and symbolic point of view as well. While yes there are quite apparent cases of planetarian’s music being quite thematic to the story (such as the use of Hoshi No Sekai and the motif used in Hoshi Meguri no Uta), but those are far from the only cases. Every piece in planetarian has meaning, and is constructed to emphasise certain plot points and concepts. In that regard, it’s probably one of the best visual novel soundtracks ever. I’m going to be covering each track used in the vn in order:

Hoshi No Sekai: This piece has the obvious religious symbolism due to the piece’s melody originating from ‘We have a friend in Jesus’. So with that said, let’s consider the instrumentation. This uses bell like sounds for both lines within the piece. This sound is often associated with stars due to its very clear sound, but this type of sound is also associated with other feelings such as hope. Many visual novels usually contain a music box version of the theme using this type of instrumentation, such as Rewrite which has a music box version of ‘Philosophiz’, or Air which has music box version of ‘Tori no Uta’ called ‘Hane’. These versions are usually used to emphasise dramatic, significant or thematic moments of visual novels. If we consider this piece the ‘music box’ theme of planetarian, then this emphasises the importance of Yumemi’s opening and how her asking people to come to the planetarium plays into a very significant theme of the visual novel. Obviously this is clear throughout, but this opening foreshadows this immediately due to the ‘music box factor’, which when combined with the melody of ‘We have a friend in Jesus’ only causes the themes of faith and religion to become emphasised. Now one could argue that music box pieces are usually based of vocal tracks, and aren’t usually as high pitched as this piece, which is valid, but I believe the generally principle still holds due to the bell like instrumentation. Another aspect of the music box element is the mechanical nature of it. While in turn a music box is a piece of technology, it also produces a natural sound – it’s not synthesised or anything along those lines, but the instrument is still very mechanical, and very fragile. This is a really interesting thing to note when considering Yumemi and how she acts as a robot, but I’ll talk a bit more about this later. There’s also the contrast with the other pieces. This high pitched bell like instrumentation is only used in two other pieces, A Winter’s Tale and Itsukushimi Fukaki. I’ll discuss the significance of this later when approaching these pieces, but this instrumentation is very thematic and helps to emphasise certain elements and concepts later. I also want to mention how it’s reasons like this that I believe the original planetarian OST is better than the anime’s, because while the anime focuses on a theme and variation of this piece and Hoshi Meguri no Uta, it doesn’t use instrumentation to its advantage too much. Take the animes opening scene – it uses a very techno sounding synth instead of this track, and while yes it does emphasise that Yumemi is a robot, it doesn’t convey anything about the hopeful themes in planetarian, and there’s not much in the anime that does that, which is my biggest issue with its soundtrack.

Hoshi Meguri no Uta (Honkey Tonk): One thing to note about this piece is how certain notes change in pitch after being played, causing them to be a tiny bit out of tune, hence the subtitle ‘Honky Tonk’, which refers to a Honky Tonk Piano. Now what’s interesting about this is how you consider the creation of a Honky tonk piano. Honky tonks can be created by either having a normal piano naturally go out of tune over time, or by taking a normal piano and making it go out of tune by force. This has the clear relation to Yumemi and how she’s ‘a little broken’ and infers two potential things. 1. She naturally broke down over time, or 2. She chose to be broken. Personally, I think Yumemi suffered a bit of both of these things. I believe that with no-one visiting the planetarium for years caused her to mentally break down as she couldn’t accept that people wouldn’t come and see her. As a coping mechanism, she chose to believe that there was something wrong with how she was processing information, and thus denying the reality around her. She chose to be broken to avoid the harsh true around her. This piece also acts to contrast the situation when the Junker first meets Yumemi, where he almost kills her – it acts as comedic relief to show that the situation isn’t as dire as it could be originally perceived. Another thing to note is how this is the first piece you hear when the Junker meets Yumemi, so it naturally follows that this is how the Junker initially perceives Yumemi during their first encounter. This is also the first piece where the melody of Hoshi Meguri no Uta is presented to the listener, so it introduces the motif used in many other pieces.

Hoshi Meguri no Uta (Metronome): This piece is used in quite generic scenes where the Junker and Yumemi are conversing. I believe the use of the subtitle ‘Metronome’ refers to ones awareness of the constant passing of time. This could be referring to how the Junker is aware of the amount of time that he’s losing due to not having enough rations to keep staying with Yumemi, but it could also refer to the passing of time with knowledge that Yumemi is soon going to lose all power. Either way, this emphasises how both Yumemi and the Junker have a limit to the amount of time they can stay in the city.

Ame to Robot/Rain and Robot: Unlike most of the other pieces used around Yumemi, this piece doesn’t contain the motif in Hoshi Meguri no Uta. One potential reason for this is during all the other times the motif is used, the Junker and Yumemi are inside the planetarium, while this plays while they converse at the entrance of the planetarium. Unfortunately ‘A Winter’s Tale’ plays later when Yumemi is walking with Junker outside in the rain, so that theory doesn’t hold through the entire novel. Now onto the actual piece: The instruments presented at the start are constantly changing in pitch. There are two parts, one part holds long notes in the bass (which has subtle changes in pitch at random intervals), and another part has lots of high notes (that change pitch during fixed intervals of time). I believe these represent the forces or the wind and rain respectively. This is due to the name of the piece (Rain and Robot) making the context to that representation fit, and also the scenario. This piece only plays when the Junker is at the entrance of the planetarium and not in it, so this music is used to emphasise the conditions of the world outside of the planetarium.

Hoshi Meguri no Uta (Winters Tale): First of all, bit of an interesting fact about this piece for all you musicians out there – this piece has a time signature of 5/4. Now, onto the actual significance of this piece. First of all let’s consider the subtitle, ‘Winter’s Tale’. Why does this piece have this title? It’s never clear when in the year the visual novel takes place so it might be hinting at that. But if we consider potential religious symbolism again, then it might be referring to the birth of Christ, which is typically told as a winter’s tale due to Christmas Holidays. Let’s consider when this piece is used. When this piece is first used, Yumemi discusses her praying to the God of Robots and the concept of heaven. The second time it’s used, Yumemi has finished her projection and the Junker is reminiscing about the time her spent in a refugee camp. One thing to note is how during that scene he says ‘I think it was on a late midwinter’ – so there’s one potential title link. The third time, she’s walking with the Junker outside in the rain, and she mentions praying to God again and that heaven should not be divided in two. In terms of the subtitle, one could easily say it’s called ‘Winters Tale’ because of the Junkers memories, however, I don’t think that’s entirely it. As shown in Ame to Robot, the placement of music in planetarian is very specific, so why not use another track for when Yumemi is talking about God and heaven? I have two potential reasons for this, both of which feed into one another. The first is that this music is used to convey Yumemi’s beliefs. The naturally holds for the case where she’s talking about God and heaven, but it also holds when you consider that it’s also used straight after the projection scene. At this point, the Junker is reminiscing about his past and his mother looking up at the sky and the stars. This is quite a happy memory, which contrasts all the other memories the Junker has had in the novel. This emphasises that Yumemi’s beliefs about humanity and the world have reached him, and so the music is used to convey that. Some of the techniques in this piece reflect that as well. The bells imitate the main melodic part, which can be interpreted as the melody echoing into the distance, or someone gaining the properties of the melody (in this case, the Junker gaining Yumemi’s beliefs. Now for the actual name – if we consider all these things, the ‘Winter’s Tale’ could refer to the tale of how the stargazer began to exist, and the moments this piece is used in represents the pivotal moments that starts to put that seed of thought into his mind. Plus the bells once again emphasise the idea of the stars and hope, which is what the star teller wants to show the world.

Gentle Jena: Oh this piece. This piece. Originally when looking at Gentle Jena, there wasn’t much I had to consider. It’s a simple, nice, beautiful piece with instrumentation that emphasises the beauty of the world and stars. It’s simple, quite minimal in parts, and has a singable melody line. It’s used to convey Yumemi’s beliefs similarly to A Winter’s Tale but in the context of the stars. Then I tried playing a reduced version of this for fun on a piano (with chords instead of a moving bass line), and I realised something really obvious. This piece essentially acts as planetarians hymn. Unlike Hoshi No Sekai, which is based on a literal hymn, Gentle Jena is a unique composition, but it has a lot of hymn styled properties. The chord progressions are very classically written - the melody line has quite a bit of classical ornamentation, there are very classically prepared dissonances which also resolve as they should, and the melody is very memorable and singable. I honestly wish I had access to an organ just to see how much of a hymn this piece truly feels like. Now if we consider the context of how this piece is used, that has several implications. Hymns were originally written to convey and strengthen beliefs, so the entire projection scene conveys Yumemi’s belief in the stars and humanity, so it very much is used in the same context as a hymn. I also believe this is one of the main reasons why this theme is commonly used when representing planetarian, and not ‘Hoshi Meguri no Uta’. It is a song that is meant to make others believe, and thus is naturally used a lot to spread that belief. Why is this used in the title screen and not Hoshi No Sekai or a piece with the motif? Because the VN wants you to remember the projection scene. I think many of us can agree that the projection scene is one, if not the most memorable scene in planetarian, and that’s the only time this piece is used, so every time you listen to this track, you will naturally associate it with the projection scene and the beliefs and hopes Yumemi presented in it. In that respect, this is probably the most important track in planetarian because not only does it represent Yumemi conveying concepts of hope to the Junker, but also the reader – it’s trying to make the reader believe in humanity and the stars – and it’s absolutely fantastic.

Human Warrior: This piece contrasts the previous pieces a lot due to instrumentation. While isn’t used in the VN, it is used in the anime during the fight against the Fiddler Crab. When I mentioned the music box back in Hoshi No Sekai, I mentioned how it’s significant to Yumemi, and it’s because of the nature of what the different sounds are trying to achieve in planetarian. For the most part, planetarians soundtrack is comprised of synthesised instruments that try to replicate a natural instrument. However this piece is in a completely electronic style – there aren’t any conventional instruments that can make equivalent sounds to what this piece is producing. I believe this use of instruments symbolises the contrast in emotion of the robots. Yumemi has a wide variety of expressions and can convey many feelings, which is expressed through all the different instruments. The Fiddler Crab can’t, it is programmed to kill and nothing else, and this piece of music is stylised to emphasise that concept. This piece also contrasts the rest of the soundtrack significantly. It isn’t written to convey a ‘good’ feeling either, unlike the rest of the soundtrack. It’s written to make you feel tense, to remind you of what the world is like and how there will always be something to fear. The title could also refer to the Junker since he’s having to fight off a lot of machine, and the electronic style could emphasise his cold tactical nature.This could be one of the reasons it was left out of the VN, because as I mentioned in a previous post, during the fight against the fiddler crab, the Junker has something to live for, causing him to be less tactical than what he previously was, all because of Yumemi.

Mattaki Hito/Perfect Human: This plays when Yumemi dies and we start bawling our eyes out in tears. This is also the one time where we truly see Yumemi as a machine due to her entire lower body being basically torn off. This is significant because of the way the different parts are written. There isn’t much of a melody, it’s mainly different harmonies changing, but there are very sparse moments where a few short high notes are played. These sparse lines are symbolic of Yumemi being broken/of her slowly dying, as they can be interpreted as the sparks of electricity leaving her as she starts to fail. The long held notes are akin to what you find in a requiem mass, and it once again has very classical chord progressions – this is Yumemi’s death song, it’s written so that the reader can mourn over her, which only makes it so that the next piece has a greater impact on the reader. Now as for the title, ‘Perfect Human’ – this title is quite a strange one given the context of the situation. The only thing I think it could be referring to how Yumemi is perceived throughout her life, because while she may be a robot, she was very human – so despite that contrast in nature, she still behaved like a human in many ways, and I think it’s the idea that she was able to maintain that identity until her death. Again, this piece is written so you can mourn over Yumemi, so it makes sense that the title is reflective of how Yumemi is perceived as a person.

Itsukushimi Fukaki/Deep Affection: This is the ‘reprise’ of Hoshi No Sekai. Now, here’s one of the biggest things to consider with this piece. Is it a sad piece? All the chords fit with the traditional version of this piece, so it should be no sadder with the exception of instrumentation. It’s by no means ‘happy’ either. What it is, is hopeful. Let’s consider when this piece starts playing, it’s when Yumemi is talking about the stars, and heaven and humanity. Obviously the clear relation to the opening is a good enough reason to bring it back, but it’s more than that. While similarly to Perfect Human, this piece uses long sustained notes, and is used in the context of a death, the notes generally ascend in pitch, which could be representing Yumemi’s ascending to heaven to live and help humanity. This piece symbolises that even in death there is hope. Personally, when I listen to this piece, I believe that everything is going to be okay. This is significant when you consider the original material. The title, ‘Deep Affection’ emphasises that even in death, Yumemi still holds onto all of her beliefs and faith. This piece, and it’s entire scenario emphasises the concept of faith, more specifically, the faith in life that Yumemi believes in, and the novel aims to convey that to the reader by using this piece.

Hoshi Meguri no Uta/The Star Circling Song: This piece was originally composed by Kenji Miyazawa in the early 1900’s and has been used in a lot of works. The entire piece (lyrics, melody and chord progressions) are taken directly from the original version of the piece. I think the fact that both the motifs used in the VN are taken from very old pieces is something to note. It could represent how one should not forget the past despite how much the world may have changed, which is something also presented by Yumemi, since she is essentially stuck in the past - not acknowledging how the world has changed. The lyrics of this piece focus on describing the different constellations in the sky. This piece is also used in the credits to signify the end of the story, however it’s possible that this song actually foreshadows some of the later events in the world of planetarian. One could naturally think that it’s Yumemi singing this song, given how it’s describing the stars and how that was one of the focuses in the story, however, there is the possibility that what we’re hearing is the Junker, after he becomes the stargazer. If we consider the fact that in terms of story, it makes no sense that what we’re hearing is Yumemi, since she is shown dead at the end of the story. While it could just be symbolic of how Yumemi’s beliefs are echoing through the Junkers head at the end of the novel, it’s entirely possible that this theme becomes the theme of the Junker post planetarian. So what does this mean for all the other pieces that use this theme? Well what they symbolise doesn’t actually change that much, it’s just the context which is affected. Honky Tonk could refer to the Junker originally being confused about the nature of Yumemi, or the Junker himself being a bit broken due to the loss of his humanity, Metronome could still refer to the Junker knowing how time is running out for him and Yumemi, and a Winters Tale symbolises the star tellers tale beginning, most of which were mentioned in their relative section. So the motif used in this piece can be interpreted as either representing elements of Yumemi, the Junker, or even both. All in all though, this piece emphasises the hope which Planetarian presents throughout since similarly to the last two piece, even though Yumemi has died, her hopes and dreams are still persevered.

So that covers all of the tracks used in the visual novel and anime. But there’s still one more piece I want to address…

Gentle Jena Extended: While not actually appearing in the VN, this piece actually has a lot of connotations. Normally what would happen is you read the VN, find the soundtrack and realise ‘there’s an extended version of Gentle Jena?! I need to listen to this!’ By this point you would have finished the VN. If we consider all these points, this piece can be considered an epilogue of the VN. So how is this significant or symbolic? Well for starters, in contrast to the original gentle Jena, which is a very minimalistic piece in terms of texture, this version is much grander. It has a lot of instrumentation, the most in the entire soundtrack actually. I think this is symbolic of more people believing in Yumemi’s dreams. Again, if we consider Gentle Jena a hymn, it makes sense to believe that as more people sing the hymn, the parts change, or more parts are introduced, and if this piece is an epilogue to planetarian, and the junker becomes a stargazer, it naturally follows that more people start to sing the hymn of the stars. There’s also the context of how this piece is labelled within the soundtrack. Most unused pieces in a visual novel usually get labelled as ‘Unused track’, or they have a specific label attached to them (e.g. Little Busters Jumper Vers), but this piece is called the extended version, while in reality the feel of the piece as well as instruments used are so different that it’s weird that it’s called that. It could have been labelled something else besides extended, so why was it labelled that? To me, it’s called extended because it’s what the Gentle Jena grows into, it adds more voices into each verse to represent the idea that Yumemi’s beliefs are being passed on, and this is actually symbolic of the reader. If you looked up planetarian’s soundtrack, you must have liked it a lot, and considering that the entire story mainly focuses on Yumemi, it only makes sense that if one liked it a lot, one would want to share her beliefs, so by looking up the soundtrack you’re actually become a part of what this song represents, a collective group of people that want Yumemi’s dreams to become reality. So even though she may be dead, that message is continuously passed on after the novel ends, and it will keep on being passed on so long as there are people who love planetarian and Yumemi.

So that’s every single piece in planetarian – I was only able to look at the music this in depth because of the main thing I was working on for this bookclub – a planetarian arrangement album. For more details go and check out my post in Key Music Fan Covers

EDIT 1: cjlim’s reply made me think more about this and I’ve added more to the ‘Human Warrior section’

EDIT 2: Forgot to hide a minor Hoshi no Hito spoiler

EDIT 3: Added some more details in regard to stuff talked about on the podcast, and I also did a similar analysis on the Planetarian - Hoshi no Hito Discussion

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Wow… just… dang. This is such a good post. I super agree with you that there is just so much to gain from analyzing the music and I’m glad you could do that because I don’t know who else actually can. I want to point out one more thing to supplement your analysis which is that the soundtrack never plays if Yumemi isn’t there… with one exception, but we’ll get to that later. Yumemi has to be present for the soundtrack to play. When the Junker first enters, there is no music before he opens the door. When Yumemi is practicing her invitation while the Junker is repairing the projector, there is no music. No music plays when the Junker talks about entering the city or in his dreams, nor does music play as he readies his grenade launcher for the mech or during the actual battle. Finally at the very end, we get the last few tracks and Itsukushimi Fukaki plays as she recites her final invitation to the planetarium. When Yumemi dies, the track still plays. This is the only exception which may not be an exception if we consider that Yumemi is still alive and still present in the Junker’s heart.

Actually now that I’m thinking about it… this is reminding me a little bit about Jesus’ Great Commission at the end of the gospel of Matthew. I’ll probably talk about this more later but here’s just one thing I’ll say about it. Matthew 28:18-20 says the following, “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’” The first and last part of the quotation is sometimes kinda ignored but I think those are super important, especially the last part. As Yumemi tells the Junker to take her memory card, it’s like she’s emphasizing that she will always be along side him. She may not be charging him to go and tell of the stars but it seems as though he fully intends on doing so anyways. And the reason I think this is because of the music and how it continues despite her body being powered off.

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Yep, yep, absolutely agree with you there, it emphasises the contrast between the colourless, destroyed world and the world of faith and hope that Yumemi presents, which is full of expression and emotion. I think the use of music at the very end is also representative of the Junker finally being able to maintain that expression without Yumemi anymore, as well as symbolic of how Yumemi is still in the Junker’s heart.

If I have bad grammar at sections apologies, its 12:54 at night at the moment for me and I am a slow writer and have been writing this for 2 hours now after a 9 hour day at Uni (3 hours break in there,) Enjoy.

Not so much discussion material but though I might as well mention why planetarian is so important to me.
So for years (at least 5 years) i have been wanting to get good at things like drawing and other things but motivation was always an issue. I would spend 30 minutes drawing something or trying to practice a piece that was not for my music exams for 20 minutes and within those times i would generally always give up. There were exceptions but were very seldom. Anyway this was happening for a very long period of time and i would just spend my free time playing videos games or reading manga just anything to fill the time. I wasn’t doing it because I was depressed or anything its just because it was stuff I liked doing. Think of me as Tomoya as that described me pretty well.

Anyway around 9 months ago I got Clannad during the steam summer sales. (Clannad [Anime] actually being the 1st or 2nd most important media that changed my personality, planetarian being the other 1st or 2nd, maybe ill mention why in the future.) I got Clannad on sale that i had been wanting for a considerable amount of time but never got because until that year I only got around $300AUD a year (from Christmas and Birthdays around $200USD) and couldn’t justify the $80AUDish that it would cost as that would be nearly a third of my yearly income until last year. Anyway I got Clannad and that got me into reading reading visual novels and thus I bought every key visual novel on steam at once (except Little Busters whcih I got later.) The first out of those visual novels I played was planetarian.

If you exclude Doki Doki Literature Club, which I didn’t like, planetarian would be the first visual novel I had read without knowing what the story was as i had already seen the Clannad Anime and thus that wasn’t really new. On top of the fact that planetarian was the “first” visual novel I had played it also had some really old windows 98 like interface which was the operating system from my first computer which gave back lots of nostalgic memories. These two things are just the beginning impressions I had of the game.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the Atmosphere of the game at the beginning with the friendly banter between the Junker and Yumemi and even the interesting war backstory but it was only good nothing exceptional, at least until chapter 4.

Just for a recap of the begging of chapter 4 its where Yumemi is standing in the office room exit/entrance door calling for people to come to the planetarian. What really impressed me was how this scene was executed. The only thing you see at the beginning was the office room and the rain outside with the sound of rain. After just a few bits of dialogue, Yumemi shows up on screen and at the same time “Rain and the Robot” starts to play. This is when i thought that this game may end up in the masterpiece category. As Idiology mentioned earlier, I had the same thoughts about how the timbre used represents the force and wind which sound quite a lot like raindrops falling on the metal roofs for all the high pitchs and the even the echo on some of the lower notes which is how big pieces of metal react to rain. Also the high pitches are a lot more common and with slightly different pitches which symbolises the randomness of raindrops but the variation in the pitchs for the lower notes are much less random as you would expect as they are lower down and have more shelter. However in stead of just using timbre really close to what you would expect for water falling on metal it has a more of a xylophone sound. It still sounds like water hitting metal but it also sounds like “hmm” falling stars maybe? This is a nice symbolic of how Yumemi’s presence changes the atmosphere towards the stars. When does this music come in effect? That’s right as soon as Yumemi appears on the screen and her presence is known. THIS SCENE IS EXPERTLY EXECUTED. This scene was so good my impression of the story flipped from, Meh to Masterpiece. The golden takufumi award has been given.

Next of course is the entire repairing Jena and the projection but ill do my analysis of that when I type my religious thoughts of planetarian so ill just skip to my reaction to the scene after the build up. So as I mentioned at the very beginning i had motivation problems however the entire time Jena was being repaired it somehow felt like i was the one repairing Jena. I can’t explain a logical reason why it felt like that for me but i can say props to the writer. Either way once the projection started the work which i felt like i did, had such an impact that the payoff was insanely worth it. Either way since then I have had motivation to spend all this time on study on not mandatory work and have even drawn over 12 hours in a single day which before was impossible. If anytime I start losing motivation I just boot up planetarian the “Gentle Gena” sound plays and suddenly i have motivation pretty cool.

The next major scene is the one which is what causes floods inside your house and I have read planetarian 3 times now (My second play-through was the first game I played as soon as I got a good computer [Surface Book 2] and my third was at 1 in the morning for the switch release.) No matter how many times I read this last scene tears result and I am someone who does not get emotional about anything as it is insanely rare to get me to cry but this scene hits you hard.
Yumemi who you have spent your last few days with is pretty much the only selfless person you have probably experienced in your life, who also showed you the stars and has does not judge you but rather thinks she is wrong not someone else, goes and sacrificed herself for just the purpose of saving you from harm, humans own creation to cause others harm. I’ll ignore the religious stuff here as most of it is really easy to understand but ill mention a few things. If you kill someone, you’ll have inner turmoil at your actions and if you keep sinning you end up completely warping your soul, resulting in psychopaths who don’t even feel emotions from killing and have closed themselves off to reason and away from God. If the start of the war is sin the later punishment that ensued being the rain, as the rain closes off reason it thus obstructs the truth. The truth about what? The truth about the stars.

Either-way all the reasons listed above, including more reasons such as; environmental, religious, etc, on top of only being a 3 hour read (4:20 if on auto) has so many things packed that this game must be a masterpiece. As someone who things about this game daily which has only ever happened for over 6 months three other times really makes this game special, along with how this game has given me the skill of perseverance and motivates me really makes this game special.

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As it dictates my career, I’m an enthusiast of Psychology, and one of things I feel was a huge underpinning of this story was memory when it came to the distinction between Yumemi and the Junker.

On the topic of memory I believe this is one of the key points the dialogue attempted to establish to make us feel how these characters are physically on two ends of a spectrum.

Yumemi as a Robot has near perfect recollection of any and every event she has ever “lived” through and could recollect the most minor information if need be. This is used as a contrast to our Human main character who exhibits many imperfections particularly when it comes to memory. An example of this can be seen by the fact that prior to the projection scene the Junker has little recollection of the night sky before the Rain and the war. At one point he insists that the idea of a starry sky is ‘crazy’ because he no longer remembers or just has very little recollection of what it was like.
Essentially this is creating a sense of division between the characters by the integrity of their memory being the key characteristic. This becomes incredibly significant when we hear Yumemi’s wish about not wanting the heavens to be split in two.

Whilst what I just said may seem like an obvious point I really appreciate the attention to detail given to the gradual development in the Junker’s perspective, and his memory has a lot to do with this. I want to look at this through a more psychological lens.

Without getting too academic, we as humans do not have perfect memory. As much as we like to think, “I was there so I know I can’t be wrong” our short term memory is fragile and easily influenced usually based on emotional experiences. Whether it be through the context of our circumstances, or due to some misleading information. Additionally, our long term memory of events is episodic because our brains only store the most important information that matters to us because we can’t possibly retain every detail we perceive. When we do recall information we forget, it is mainly because of emotional or contextual cues which trigger dormant memories to spring back to mind.
So why is this important to our main character?

The Junker, prior to the projection seems to barely remember the night sky. When he sees Yumemi’s projection he is completely mesmerised, and we later find that this certainly has a retroactive interference effect on his memory.

Once The Junker and Yumemi leave the planetarium, they walk in the rain and The Junker has a flashback scene where he recalls an episodic memory of his childhood. When he was a child, his mother held him outside at one point, and she looked up at the sky with him amongst the now nuclear wasted sky.

This is all he recalls, but he begins to question if there were stars in that sky at the time. He can’t remember if there were, but the fact that he had seen Yumemi’s projection was powerful enough of a contextual cue that it triggered memories of his past that he would otherwise would have never remembered. But even then his memory is not perfect, and doesn’t recall if there were visible stars or not. But the way he speaks of his memory comes across as if his brain is retroactively trying to reconstruct that episodic memory because his more recent emotional experience is impacting his ability to accurately recall past events.

To put it in a nutshell, he is human, he is imperfect. She is a robot, she is perfect. At least… in terms of memory.

Which is quite poetically ironic at the very end, especially when you consider that Yumemi’s greatest imperfection was the fact her parting gift of a memory card, an imperfect man-made storage device, held imperfect limited information at the end of her operational lifespan.

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I love this point - it’s so significant of the Junker superimposing Yumemi’s beliefs onto himself to live a better life. I mentioned in a previous post about how all his previous memories weren’t exactly ‘happy’ ones, and how this one memory contrasts that. In this particular flashback, there are so many uncertainties about specific details, unlike all the others which he remembers quite vividly - the Junker isn’t even sure if the person holding him was his mother. It makes sense that given all he’s been through in life, the Junker would superimpose any fragment of happiness onto one part of his memory so that he could use that it could be associated with the concepts of hope, faith and beauty that Yumemi presented to him in the projection scene, that way, those concepts become more meaningful and sustained because of the association with happy memories.

Another thing that has to be considered is the timing of when these memories occurred. We generally see these flashbacks during the time when the Junker is sleeping. For all we know, all of these memories might not be proper memories, and might just be dreamt up memories that are created from the Junker’s emotional state and perspective on life. So who’s to say that this particular flashback isn’t just the Junker dreaming something up and believing it to have actually happened?

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I don’t know why I did this but i decided to copy all of your posts for planetarian and A Snow Globe into Microsoft Word to see what you have done as you posted Skyload of Starfish. Congratulations you have posted a total of 9.5 pages with a total of 7813 words (assuming I didn’t miss any.) That would take me about 14hours to write!?!?!?! The King James Bible has a total of 783137 words in it, therefore if you wrote 100 times more posts you have written the ENTIRE KING JAMES BIBLE.

Thus I have gifted you with the Golden Takafumi Award. Accept it graciously along with my Jealously for writing up such good posts. Please Sign up for the Podcast (If you havent already)

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Just a few religious notes on planetarian’s projection scene and its importance. Should mention the point that the Junkers’s name is never given and how the story is written in an almost 2nd person view instead of 1st and thus makes you the read the junker.

At the start of planetarian we have are introduced to Yumemi who is pretty much Jesus for this story. Our first experience is her asking if we want to come to the planetarian to experience the twinkling of eternity without force but invitation for us to come in. We are given two choices to either leave and be left to a world of selfishness and death covered with sin (the rain) or we could come into the planetarian and learn about the twinkling of eternity heaven. Notice before there was no sin (the rain) there was the stars. During the story, the stars are present but not see-able as the rain is in the way. Either way the story takes the initiative and decides to make the Junker enter. When he enters is already with respect where Yumemi puts her value below his and serves him as he is the customer that has the freedom to decide if they want to purchase the truth of the stars. The Humbleness and respect for the Junker is simular to Jesus’s respect for the Human race with how he washed his disciples feet for example. This further shows evidence that Yumemi is supposed to be Jesus. Yumemi keeps bringing up how she wants him to see the projection and learn the truth about the stars but his lack of interest stops him from watching but he still stays in the planetarian as he is still interested unlike his friend who lost interest in the stars and died by other means (but not divine punishment from Yumemi just because of natural punishment of war.) Yumemi never forces him to watch the projection and lets him choice whether he wants him to or not. Overtime he finally decides to give in to experience the truth of the stars and see the projection. In palms 34:8 we have, “Taste and See that the Lord is good”, in context this is talking about experience. Sadly when he decides he is interested we have the issues of the light-bulbs. In order to watch the projection he has to overcome this adversary. Satan literately translates to adversary in Hebrew. This is where the Junker has to start to overcome the adversary and fix the machine. Yes he fails once and considers stopping but Yumemi never complains but just encourages him to complete the machine so he can watch the projection. When he finally experiences the projection after much hard work, he finally sees the truth of the projection with his own eyes and has seen the truth of the stars that Yumemi just invites people to see. This projection scene is the point in the story where the Junkers character starts to change Dramatically. After this point he starts to become much less selfish and more like Yumemi. Through the story, although rude and disrespectful, he slowly warms to Yumemi similar to how Christians come to learn about the knowledge of God. This is a change in character over time and not a instant change. Of course after the projection scene we have the scene of where Yumemi protects him for his own mistake and how that represents the cross but i won’t bother explaining that as its pretty self explanatory.

Do keep in mind that my perspective of god is like this: If you decide to stop breathing and put a plastic bag over your head you will die as you break the repository laws (breathing in carbon dioxide and breathing oxyge.) Its not divine punishment its just thats how humans are built, Similarly if you lie to a human, your going to overwork your brain from trying to remember all the lies and who you said it to and all the stress that will be involved in not being caught. As science shows stress shuts down the immune system and thus lowering your bodies health over time and will result in death (not saying that if nobody lies no one will die.

My view of planetarian really results in this religious view of mine and thus can be a completely different view than someone elses so I love to hear about your religious belief of planetarian (weather Christian, Atheist or even Muslim. Theres alot more of what id love to write on the my regions view points on its aspects in planetarian, but you probably won’t want to read lots of things with bible stories on my viewpoint but if you wanna ask just message me on discord.

Either-way love to hear your religious thoughts on planetarian especially from you Idiology with a few thousand words.

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To be fair, I have mentioned quite a few ways religion is used in my previous posts, but here’s some stuff I haven’t mentioned yet:

One thing I’d like to point out is the symbolism of the planetarium in regards to religion. I’m not sure if this has been mentioned by anyone thus for, but to me it’s clear that the planetarium is symbolic of a religious place of worship due to it being a place where many people go to see Jena’s projections, and hear Yumemi talk about the stars, which is similar to how one may go to a church to hear a priest talk about Jesus and God. So to me, Yumemi’s projections act very similarly as a religious talk/ceremony considering how it’s a process that she’s had to do over and over, and naturally the planetarium gives different talks during different days.

Another thing that I think emphasises this idea is the fact that Jena was broken when the Junker first came to the planetarium. At that current time, the Junker had no belief in Yumemi or the world, he just lived for himself. Now in a conventional religious ceremony, there generally isn’t a visual element as prominent as what Jena does, so I think Jena’s projections are used to symbolise a catalyst to help one perceive the stories and messages presented during a religious ceremony, and since the Junker had no beliefs, it is only natural that Jena wouldn’t work. As time passes, the Junker slowly starts trusting in Yumemi, and it’s through this that the Junker is gaining the faith and belief needed to be able to see Jena’s projections. When Jena is fixed, we get the initial projection along with Yumemi’s talk. This is a typical process that anyone who came to the planetarium would go through, but the interesting part is what happens next. When the power goes out, the Junker tells Yumemi to keep going as her voice will be enough. Even without Jena, the Junker is able to clearly see the stars in his mind. This shows that the Junker no longer needs a catalyst to help him believe and perceive what Yumemi talks about. Now, the actual image of the stars used during this scene is beautiful, it’s gorgeous and I love it so much, but if we also consider that it’s what the Junker is seeing in his mind due to Yumemi’s talks, then it shows how strong the Junker’s belief has now become – he has reached a state of mind where the beauty of Yumemi’s beliefs have become manifold. This is very different from how the average person would see the stars if they normally went to the planetarium, as normally they would get the assistance of Jena to aid them as a catalyst, but since the Junker doesn’t need that anymore, it shows that he has become truly devoted to the word of Yumemi. This is also emphasised at the very end of the novel where Yumemi dies – despite her death, the Junker still maintains her beliefs and continues his journey as the star teller, spreading Yumemi’s word and beliefs to the people.

Now let’s consider why a planetarium was used of all things to represent this. To me, it’s very clear that looking to the stars is religiously symbolic of looking towards God/at the heavens. The stars are out of humanities reach in their current state, similarly to God and the heavens above, so it gives humanity a goal to work towards, similarly to how one might try to better themselves due to religion. Yumemi even mentions how she believes that despite all of the issues in the world, mankind will one day be able to fix all of them, and then reach for the stars. To me, this represents the idea of man working to free itself from sin, in which then God will accept humanity and allow them to enter his kingdom. This is why Yumemi believes in the stars, because it’s symbolic of humanity wanting to make amends, and bettering themselves so that they can reach a state that allows them to enter the kingdom of God.

To me, planetarian’s religious elements are used as a means of spreading words of hope, which is one thing many religions do in general. Yumemi’s never-changing state allows her to keep hold of all of her beliefs, which causes them to be spread as soon as she meets the Junker. It lights a spark of hope in a world without any, and causes a world without any beliefs to start to gain faith.

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Suzumoto 3 days ago on Twitter. “No matter the meanings people attribute them, the stars will just remain as stars in the sky, and it’s for that reason we continue thinking about them.”

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I’ve been meaning to give Planetarian a reread. My first time through took me about 18 sittings and I ended up not thinking it was anything special. Hoping my opinions change once I give it a one sitting read.

I read Planetarian for the first time, despite this not being the first time I have bought it. I grabbed the Switch copy, and before I delve into the story itself I will say that the experience of being able to go between portable mode and a more cinematic experience where I turn off the lights and read on my main TV and with a proper sound system was lovely. VNs on the Switch are basically my favorite thing now. I read through most of the beginning in handheld mode, which was intimate and personal - perfect for getting to know Yumemi - but did the final section docked with the lights out and the sound up and the impact was incredible.

There is a lot of interesting and intricate symbolism in the VN, a lot of which has been discussed by those who posted before me. I imagine that a second playthrough would be really good for picking up on a lot of subtleties. But there is a very overt theme of dreams in the story that was really fun to follow. As is often the case with the word, they kind of blur the line between dreams: what you see when you sleep, and dreams: aspirations.

You have Yumemi, who claims repeatedly to be unable to dream as a robot, and yet her given name is basically “Dreamer.” And of course, even if she does not experience the act of dreaming while sleeping, we see her earnest belief that customers will return as a dream. Her whole existence in the Planetarium and within the city is in some ways a dream of a forgotten time. In this way I think the bouquet worked as perfect symbol in the game for Yumemi’s dream. It was maybe not quite authentic, but earnest in its existence.

And the Junker finally accepting the bouquet felt like him finally accepting Yumemi’s dream, and even more than that, the ability to dream again himself. It is after that he starts not just talking about getting out of the city and what to do with Yumemi, but actually planning about a future where they did something besides fight and accept the wasteland world he lives in. It felt like by accepting the bouquet the Junker himself finally fully accepted the ability to dream again, in that important aspirational sense.

Then there is of course the presence of mankind’s greatest shared dream - the stars - used as a backdrop to tie the narrative together. Maybe I have some overly romantic notions about it, but the thought of how the night sky, our understanding of it, and how that has shaped human history across cultures resonates with me. So in the end, when the Junker takes up the dream of wanting to travel and show his world the stars it was a very powerful transition. He has gone from being caught in the selfish and hopeless in the face of his dark world that has forgotten the stars, to being someone who wants to share this dream of mankind with others. He is taking on the mantle of steward of this dream from Yumemi.

Changing subjects a bit: One thing that ended up sticking out to me is, at the end when Yumemi is about to die, the Junker has the epiphany that no one has told Yumemi the truth - and then proceeds to to lie to her without skipping a beat. On the one hand, I do not really find fault with the Junker at this phase for it. The final moments are probably not quite the right time to go over the real state of humanity - in that moment I feel it was the kinder choice. But it made me a bit uncomfortable to really face head on that Yumemi’s dream of people returning was built on people lying to her, not just something that played out because she was a robot in the wrong place at the end of humanity. And you find out here that Yumemi wavered in her belief a bit as she waited, but she still waited. The text doesn’t really treat this as a problem, but it was something that stuck out to me, as it gave Yumemi an additional sense of tragedy in my mind as it felt like in a way people lying to her robbed her of her of some of her agency. I am left wondering what would have become of her if she had more knowledge of the true state of things instead of the lie that her coworkers would return to hold on to. It is not really something to know of course, but it changed my perception of Yumemi at least a bit.

The final thing that really stuck out to me during this was the similarities between the world of the Junker and some of the imagery from Owari no Hoshi no Love Song. There was not really enough in the main story that I picked on that made me think they are expressly supposed to be related, but it is interesting to have the dying planet motif pop up again. It clearly works really well to have stories where you juxtapose the best and the worst of humanity. Of course in Planetarian “the best” is really a robot. I am looking forward to seeing if there are more similarities and differences I see in the two worlds and the themes as I go through the Planetarian side stories.

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Okay this post is going to be a weird amalgamation of things because several different things have been brought up that I want to talk about:

First of all, one thing that was mentioned in kyuketsukimiyu’s post - you mentioned the part during Yumemi’s death where she both wavered her belief and the Junker lied to her. First, I want to address why I think the Junker lied to her. One potential reason for this is that he believes that he will make it happen. The Junkers urge to make Yumemi’s dream come true is made incredibly clear at the end of the novel, so to me, it’s very clear that if she did live, he would help her make that dream come true. However, the one thing that contradicts that idea is that he mentions how her coworkers are out there, which may be true but it’s heavily suggested that they’re dead. However, if one considers the events of Hoshi No Hito, Yumemi is seen in heaven with her coworkers, and people who want to view her projections - this is what the Junker promised her during her death. Now fair enough it’s impossible for the Junker to have known that this is what would eventually happen to Yumemi, but I think the Junkers words at this moment can be interpreted as coming from God.

As for Yumemi’s doubts - this is something that struck out to me as well, and only broke my heart more during the death scene. It’s difficult for me to interpret this as it’s so different from how Yumemi is generally perceived, but I think this moment makes her look vulnerable. Throughout the entire novel, she maintains her mentalities and beliefs, she is seen as an unwavering figure, which is possibly part of the reason the Junker naturally took on her dreams and beliefs. This scene shows that even someone with the strongest of beliefs can be uncertain in them at times. Even though Yumemi is a robot, she acts very humans, and even people with the strongest faiths can be uncertain of them at times, especially in times of death, since one naturally looks over their life, contemplating whether they did good or not as they’re about to die (similarly to how Yumemi played back a bunch of memories during this scene). So in this case specifically, Yumemi has seen the destroyed and ruined state of the world outside the planetarium, and contemplated whether her beliefs were valid considering the circumstances, so I think it makes sense why this part was included in that scene - her dying is the catalyst for the entire conversation.

As for whether Yumemi would have changed knowing the true state of things (Snow Globe Spoilers) I don’t think she would have, because she was told to never change by one of her colleagues, and she took that as a priority, so to me, Yumemi’s continuous optimism and her refusal to acknowledge the Junkers words about how man will never come to the planetarium again are because of that instruction. I also think this influences other traits about Yumemi such as how she refuses to be completely silent when the Junker orders her to - if she was permanently silent, that would make her change, contradicting that order.

Now for the point that HeliosAlpha made about Suzumoto: Despite everything I’ve written about planetarian, there is one thing that I don’t think I emphasised enough - while religious elements are used throughout planetarian, it is not the primary focus of the novel, it is just something that is used to help present one of the many key aspects of the novel, such as the concept of hope. I made a point about the stars and how they can he used to represent heaven which is one potential reason why they’re used - but that was my religious interpretation of why they were used. There are multiple other potential reasons - astrology, the stories behind each stars name, the idea that we are part of an endless world where anything can happen etc… but at the end of the day they are just a constant element. Yumemi’s opening speech mentions how stars are ‘The beautiful twinkling of eternity that will never fade, no matter when’. This only emphasises that stars are timeless, and are disjoint from the world we live in, so no matter what happens here, the beauty of the stars will always be there. How one interprets stars is up to them, but the point is that they will never change, and I think that only serves as a contrast to the ruined world presented in planetarian.

Also, for the podcast - Key Point: I mentioned in one of my posts how Yumemi has a potential belief in both the God of robots and the God of humanity, I was just curious how you interpreted that and how does it feed into the connotations of Yumemi’s symbolism and the overall religious connotations of planetarian?

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Something about planetarian which can only be appreciated now is how this game has become the forerunner for Key’s global presence. The first bookclub was held to commemorate the first Steam release which was huge back then because it was the first time a Key game was available officially in English (yada yada, IOS nonsense, don’t care). Nowadays, between Steam and the Switch, this game is available in 8 languages?! I know depressingly little about this game’s development, successes or failures, but this has to be so far off the map from what they imagined almost 15 years ago. Lotta people’s wishes has gone into growing what was originally a very tiny project, makin sure dem stars stay in people’s hearts.

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Planetarian is my second Key VN and while nothing will ever be as amazing as Little Busters was, it was quite good and left me thoughtful and depressed for a few nights.

The junker introduces us to the hopelessness and the grit of the world through his eyes. Then, we’re introduced to the frozen world in the planetarium and its only inhabitant Yumemi. Her speech patterns and pushiness made her annoying to me, but I also found her charming and she endeared herself to me. I’m a huge fan of her beautiful design in the HD sprites; mainly her silverish/blue/purple hair, her green eyes and her changing ribbons. In the anime her ribbons are shown to be animated and it would have been so cool if her sprites had her ribbons animated and moving their design like that.

Just the general atmosphere of the VN is great and immersive and has a general feel to it. All thanks to Yumemi’s sprites, for example when she holds stuff up, and the lovely music.

The projection scene hit me quite hard on a personal level. I used to be heavily into astronomy as a kid and wanted to become an astronomer. I remember I was obsessed with tracking the New Horizons probe lol. Then my accumulating mental problems while growing up just made me forget about it. Yumemi, thank you so much for guiding me to and reminding me of the stars. I won’t forget them and I won’t forget your earnestness for the sky. LB spoilers Kud’s route did the same thing for me, but Yumemi also says that reaching the stars is a goal for humanity to accomplish together. The idea of people working together to reach the stars makes me happy and sadly if that could have happened in that world then the devastating war might have not taken place.

After the projection is when the themes of humanity vs being a robot begin and the events for the tragedy of Yumemi’s death are set in motion. I have this to say. I definitely see Yumemi as a person, but not as a human. Why? Because of her devotion to serving and helping humanity. Because she was made to serve humanity and was so innocent, she refused to accept that humans could have destroyed themselves and their world even when the evidence was right before her eyes. That made her truly tragic to me. The spot of hope right before the junker tries to take out the mech makes the ending hurt more as well. I was so frustrated with Yumemi refusing to accept the broken world around her right until her sacrifice and accepting the humans who made her and then abandoned her. You deserve better dammit, please! I was also frustrated with the junker lying to her and saying that he came to get her and all of her coworkers were waiting for her. Looking on it now though, maybe lying was the best thing to do because she was so hopeful and naive that learning the complete truth could have destroyed her.

Yumemi managed to restore hope in the junker by showing him the stars and giving him her memory card after her death, so Planetarian didn’t feel pointless. However it left me depressed and now whenever I hear Perfectly Human, the theme of her death, I tear up. Yumemi was truly happy working in the planetarium and in an ideal world I wouldn’t want to take that away from her. But I would have also liked her to also live for herself and not serve humans blindly.

One last thing; I wonder if Planetarian could be interpreted as a love story? Yumemi’s effect on the junker lasted the rest of his life and spread to others in that broken world and some people see that as a metaphor of her being a messiah but I can’t really see that. Key’s next kinetic VN Harmonia was a robot love story, but I didn’t enjoy that VN at all. If Planetarian had been a bit longer and kept all its elements plus added a love story between her and the junker, I would have loved it even more. I’m a sucker for cheesy romance here and it would have made it more meaningful in my opinion.

That’s exactly how I see her! A selfless and charming person whose extreme selflessness became a fatal fault and made her blindly obedient.

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