Planetarian - General Discussion

As I have been doing for most of this bookclub, I’m analyzing how planetarian uses some of the ideas presented in the Bible in its own story. Here’s part one and two if you want to check it out. Also definitely talk to me or reply if there are parts of my writing that aren’t easily understood as I am trying to do my best to write in a way that provides all the necessary context.


It’s been said many times by me and by others that Yumemi is like Jesus in this story. I still am going to continue pointing out all these instances because I think they are interesting and explain certain aspects of the story’s design and especially its rhetoric. The rhetoric is definitely one of the reasons why I love this story so much so in this post I will be explaining how some of the biblical Old Testament prophecies pointing to Jesus appear in planetarian and the role of waterproofing in the story.

First let’s look at a prophecy that seems to relate to planetarian. In Genesis chapter 3, right after humans have sinned, God issues his punishments towards the offenders. Verse 14 and 15 say, “The LORD God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field… I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.’” This is the first prophecy written in the Bible which tells of a person who will conquer Satan but at a certain cost. This is of course, fulfilled in the New Testament with Jesus’ coming, death, and resurrection. His death was the cost to triumph over evil but in the end he did.

In my last reading of planetarian, I noticed some of the wording in during the fight with the fiddler crab that I hadn’t noticed before. As the Junker readies his last shot, Yumemi steps in between him and the fiddler crab. The fiddler crab starts its machine gun and the text reads the following, “The line of 13mm machine gun rounds kicked up a path of water towards her like a murderous red serpent… The fiery serpent continued to track toward her delicate body, as if to eat her alive.” I think you can tell where I’m going with this. In the same way that Jesus had to die, Yumemi also was killed by the serpent. But there are still more prophecies I want to mention in regards to his scene. But first let’s take a slight tangent.

One thing I haven’t really seen mentioned or discussed yet is waterproofing. In the story, we know that the Rain is extremely destructive, painful, and blocks out the stars. It’s been essentially established that the Rain is a representation of sin as it was a direct result of human action. Because of this, the Junker has to use a waterproof cloak to protect himself. But when the Junker begins to leave the planetarium, Yumemi tells him that she can last through the Rain because she has class II waterproofing. The Junker has her wear the waterproof cloak anyways. Now here’s my theory. If the Rain is sin, then the waterproofing is protection from sin. Perhaps we can call it righteousness. We see that the cloak can’t completely protect the Junker because early in the story, it says that he had some pain from being in the open air and in the Rain for a long period of time. Meanwhile, Yumemi has an inherent resistance to the Rain that the Junker does not. Even when she falls into puddles of water as they walk through the city, it’s not as if the Rain actually damages her. The point here, I believe, is that Yumemi is exposed to the Rain in a larger amount than could be withstood with just the cloak. Her waterproof righteousness is being tested in this manner, which I believe, is not unlike how Jesus was tempted by the devil. This story is detailed in Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, and Luke 4:1-13. The gist of the story is that Jesus intentionally goes to the wilderness to fast for 40 days and be tempted by the devil. By the end of the trial, Jesus has proven that he can withstand the most temptation any humans will legitimately face and thus be completely righteous and perfect. It’s in the same way that Yumemi even points out the places where people are susceptible to falling into puddles yet still does so anyways to show that even when tested, she will not be ruined by the Rain. We’ll address the rest of this line of thought in a bit.

Coming back to prophecies is Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12 which describes a suffering servant. Christians, including myself, believe that the servant of God detailed in this passage refers to Jesus. Extrapolating off of that, some of the elements here also describe Yumemi. I’ll pick out a few verses that are most relevant here but this whole passage is generally really interesting and I highly recommend reading the whole thing.

Isaiah 52:13-14 (and part of verse 15) says, “Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you – his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind – so he shall sprinkle many nations.” From chapter 53, verses 3-7 and 11 say, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned – every one – to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that is before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth… Out of anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.”

So after actually typing that out I’ve realized, wow that was pretty long (and probably should be a block quote), but there are a few significant points I want to make which make it all necessary. One is generally that this servant had to be so badly afflicted and destroyed that he would not even be recognized as a human. Two, that he was rejected and despised by men. Three, he would die for our sins and mistakes. Four, he would not complain but rather take the punishment willingly and silently. And finally, five, because he was righteous, many would be made righteous when he would take on the sins of the many.

So lets take each of these one by one in planetarian. First, Yumemi was so badly destroyed by the fiddler crab that her body was essentially ripped in half. I think it’s safe to say that she would not exactly be recognized as human. Second, we see that Yumemi (or someone similar) was also rejected and despised by the older Junker who said that the robot was the most irritating thing in the city. Third, Yumemi essentially died because the Junker could not overcome the fiddler crab alone. Fourth, when Yumemi stepped in front to sacrifice herself, she did not make any noise but rather silently sent a force stop signal to the fiddler crab. She also willingly did this because of the promise that was put in place long ago to never harm humans. Finally, for this last point, we will bring back the theory on waterproofing.

We established earlier that Yumemi is resistant to the Rain just like how Jesus was resistant to temptation. In the greater story of the gospel, the whole point of Jesus dying was to become a substitute for sinners. Because he was righteous, he could take on all of the sin of the unrighteous. In 2 Corinthians 5:21 it says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” In a similar way, when Yumemi was completely destroyed, her body became completely exposed to the Rain, to sin. Her waterproofing is gone, but she willingly allowed this to happen. At the cross, Jesus took on all the sin of the world and was judged by God. He not only suffered the physical pain and humiliation, but he also experienced the hell meant for us when he was forsaken by God, his Father. It’s absolutely impossible to wrap our heads around this. Again, in a similar way, we can’t really know how destructive water is on Yumemi’s body. I think it’s pretty safe to say that the damage from the Rain is greater on a robot than it would be on a human. So basically with all this, Jesus conquered sin. But what about Yumemi?

When Yumemi dies, the Rain still continues. Is this theory completely BS then? Well I sure hope not because I spent a pretty dang long time writing this. I think that while canonically it doesn’t make sense for Yumemi to be the direct cause, the symbolism still holds when at the very end of the credits, the Rain changes to snow for the first time since the Rain has been falling.


I do have a bit more to talk about regarding this topic but I might have to wait til Hoshi no Hito to get there. In the meantime as always, feel free to ask questions because I can’t tell if I exactly explained everything in a way that is easily understood by everyone. I’d also like to ask if you think there are any other functions of waterproofing in the story. If so, what might the purpose of that be?

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That was an interesting read I didn’t even notice the waterproofing parallel with righteousness well noticed, I need to post up more on planetarian as I havent posted anything for the last 5 days might see if I can bring your waterproofing idea up.

This is a really good post. Not only does it approach some of the subtleties in language, but I also loved the way you approached the ending of the story. It’s really easy to say something along the lines of ‘rain represents the despair in the world’, which is also a valid concept, but the amount of detail you go into to show it represents sin is incredible.

The one thing that you didn’t mention is the Fiddler Crab. Now it’s unclear as to what extent the Fiddler Crab and all other potentially deadly robots in the world are affected by the rain - they could be waterproofed, they might not be though. If all these robots are waterproofed, then that presents an issue with your argument, since that would mean these robots are free of sin, which isn’t very likely since their main goal is to kill people. So what’s the alternative? Well my theory is that the armour of each of these robots is so thick that they are basically unaffected by destructive force of the rain. To me, this means that the robots are basked in the sin of the rain, but they are unaffected because they have already embraced sin. Since Yumemi’s cease and desist message fails, that shows that the Fiddler Crab is too far gone because of how much sin it has embraced. However, during Yumemi’s death she says that she believes that the Fiddler Crab didn’t mean to do any wrong - she forgives it. Not only is this emphasising Yumemi’s forgiving nature, but it also emphasises how she is able to forgive sin, similarly to God and Jesus.

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Yeah I definitely agree with you here. The fact that the Rain is mentioned so often during the fight leads me to believe that the Rain has contributed to the brokenness of the fiddler crab. The Junker mentions that the point of the fiddler crab was to protect the city and its inhabitants but it has gone mad, possibly due to the Rain. There’s also another thing I was thinking about which is how the Junker does wear the cloak whereas the other robots do not. To me, its like how the Old Testament Israelites would make sacrifices to take on their own sin. They were commanded to do so by God in Leviticus because no humans are without failure and because the direct result of sin is death, something else had to die in the place of their sin. In the same way, the Junker does his best to resist the rain with the substitution of his waterproof cloak but in the end the Rain can still mess up his body.

In the New Testament though, Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. By being the perfect sacrifice, his followers, Christians no longer required any of the old sacrifices. Then as I concluded earlier, the waterproofing isn’t as necessary as it was before because now the Rain has changed. So, I think that the active resistance of the Rain by the Junker is an indicator of at least trying to be righteous, but he would not be fully protected until the Rain actually stopped.

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Well, I finished it. I kinda feel awful being a downer though, because it didn’t really capture me?

Maybe it’s just because I struggle to get invested within the pared-down runtime of short stories, but while there were definitely a couple of places I liked, ultimately I just didn’t get that much out of it.

Honestly, the strongest moment in my opinion was pretty much smack-dab in the middle, with the special projection; that contrast of optimism about humanity reaching for the stars even in a world after the end was fantastic, to the point of being almost spiritual, and it honestly did touch me.

I… kind of struggled with the falling action in the streets afterwards, though. Ultimately, I just didn’t really get much out of it? I guess that seeing the ruined world with her own eyes was kind of necessary to set up Yumemi’s little speech at the end about having assumed she was broken when really the broken thing was the world, but I dunno.

Also, even though normally I’m fine with the “white lie in a dying person’s final moments” thing in fiction, here it just kind of left a bad taste in my mouth how right after realizing that nobody had told Yumemi the truth until him, the Junker goes right on to lie to her. Kind of made the optimism feel weaker to me, with it ultimately seeming to be tied with delusion rather than seeing the world with open eyes and almost spitefully hoping at it anyways? I dunno, I get that Yumemi’s thing about having come to the conclusion that nobody was coming and rejected it sort of tries to address that, but it falls flat for me (maybe partially because we never quite see anything that sets that up until the final sequence where she says that? I don’t know, Yumemi honestly did feel kind of like a computer program to me with how we basically never see her in any state other than her default of rejecting any contradictory information until the very end.)

Anyways, I hate being negative like this, so I’m at least going to try and end on a positive note: I really did like the little comparison in the final fight of realizing that the Fiddler Crab is just like Yumemi, a broken machine clinging to its purpose even though everything that made it matter has long since washed away in the Rain. Poor thing…

But yeah, that’s all I’ve really got on Planetarian. I kinda wish I liked it more, but what can you do… Well, I hope that the book club will be able to change my mind.

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There’s been one thing that has made me incredibly curious for quite some time now – why a Fiddler Crab? Of all the possible robot designs to go for, why that? One could argue that the writers just wanted a design to contrast Yumemi’s humanoid figure, but what would a fiddler crab in particular achieve? There are many different popular mech designs so why go for that one in particular? Cljim mentioned how the Fiddler Crab’s gun fire is described similarly to that of a snake, and how that has religious connotations. I’m about to ask a very blunt and quite obvious question – if they intended that symbolism, why not just design the robot as a snake?

And thus, to answer this question, I did research into crabs. Unfortunately I couldn’t find out much on the symbolism of the fiddler crab specifically, in general though I did find a lot of interesting information out about the crab species as a whole. First of all, crabs can be seen as a sign of protection due to many of them having hard shells, which is significant when you consider how the Fiddler Crab was originally guarding the city, not allowing anything to come close to it. The main interpretation of a crab though is along the lines of ‘one’s path will not always lead to their own personal goals’ (which is possibly due to the fact that crabs mainly move sideways instead of fowards) (links: https://www.spirit-animals.com/crab-symbolism/, https://trustedpsychicmediums.com/spirit-animals/crab-spirit-animal/ , https://www.whats-your-sign.com/crab-animal-symbolism.html). It can also be used to let one know to explore and nourish all their curiosities by doing things such as explore the world. This is really significant when you consider the ending of the VN. The Junker wants to take Yumemi out of the city and help spread hope across the world once again, but he fails because Yumemi dies at the hand of the Fiddler Crab. To me, the crab was used because it emphasises how even with a new perspective on life, the Junker’s goals may not come true. As for the second part, when considering Hoshi No Hito, it is clear that the Junker does explore the world, and he has tried to pass on Yumemi’s dreams to other people even though she’s no longer with him, so the Fiddler Crab foreshadows those events through its symbolism.

Now I want to discuss how the Crab is significant in terms of fate. Many of the events in planetarian are very coincidental, The Junker meeting Yumemi during the one week she’s active, the planetarium losing all power at the time of the projection, the Fiddler Crab appearing when the Junker is leaving, but not when he’s appearing etc… All these coincidences have a very low chance of happening individually, so when you consider how they each occur one after another it is only natural to consider concepts such as miracles and fate. Now I’m going to talk about how the Fiddler Crab helps to represent this. Crabs are depicted in two significant fortune telling medium, Tarot Cards and Astrology. In Tarot, the crab is a moon tarot card, which when considering planetarian’s constant use of the stars, only makes its use appropriate. This can be used to represent one’s pilgrimage to carry out a divine purpose. If we bring in planetarian’s religious connotations, and the concept that Yumemi is the robot Christ, then it follows that this could represent how the Junker wants to make Yumemi’s dreams come true, thus he’s carrying out a divine purpose. It could also represent how Yumemi wants humanity to grow and flourish, which could be her carrying out God’s work.

Second, in astrology, the symbol of the crab is used to represent ‘Cancer’. Now for a bit of information on what it means to be Cancerian. Cancerian’s are ruled over by the moon, a force that rules over our soul’s deep desires and urges. The moon can cause one to reveal parts of them which are less commonly seen. I think is significant when considering Yumemi’s death scene – she reveals that she is aware that she is not broken and in fact the world is broken instead. This wouldn’t have happened without the Fiddler Crabs actions – her death is the catalyst for that information to be revealed, so the use of the crab design once again serves to emphasise that.

Now what’s interesting about this is that we the concepts of fate are introduced into the argument of why a Fiddler Crab was chosen, all the symbolism mainly affects Yumemi, and doesn’t really say much about the Fiddler Crab itself, however, I would argue that it just depends how one perceives it. When we see the Fiddler Crab, it’s broken, damaged by the rain and out of control. However, we do not know what the Fiddler Crab was like before the events of the novel. I would argue that as a robot, it would only want to help man – Yumemi even says that the Fiddler Crab didn’t mean to do any harm. Once you consider that, then concepts such as the Fiddler Crab wanting to help man improve may be valid, since all robots are created to help man in some capacity.

In general, because of all of these small details involving the Fiddler Crab and its relation to the concept of fate, I cannot help but think that the events involving the Fiddler Crab were always going to happen, either by fate or some kind of divine intervention. The Crab design feeds into so much of the different aspects of planetarian and it just shows how even though this is one of the least important characters in the novel, it was still incredibly thought out.

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Some others think that Yumemi was trapped in some sort of delusion or a fake optimism and hope in humanity, about how people and her co-workers will someday come back to planetarium etc. and made me really think about faith. Someone probably already told something like this, but I feel like sharing my own thoughts here.

This is what Yumemi had towards with the humanity, stars and in the world, generally speaking.

Some tend to criticize or mock other people’s faith as some sort of delusion/illusion probably because the concept of faith tend to be taken lightly by others, and that’s also kinda similar to Yumemi’s situation. She has that certain faith that the Junker was sort of criticizing her, like for example, by keep on telling her that no one will ever come to the planetarium. But Yumemi denies or can’t understand it, that it wasn’t in her database or something like that, but it could also mean it’s because of her strong faith that she reacted that way, like she even convinced herself that she was broken and denying the conclusion that humans will never come back to the planetarium again, and that certain faith lingers within herself is the reason why she told herself that she was broken. It’s like those moments when people doubt their own faith, that sometimes they ask themselves that if their faith is actually true, if this faith is a waste of time, why nothing is happening etc. This usually happens when people experiencing challenges and obstacles. But in the end, Yumemi’s strong faith still rise above everything else and is the main reason why she keeps on enduring and keep on waiting forever.

And because of her strong faith is the reason why the miracle happened. The Junker came to the planetarium and she was able to share the stars to this single person.

Even at the end, even she sees the world broken and at her final moments, she still clings to her faith, most of it is because of the Junker’s presence.

So I admire Yumemi’s faith and never consider her as trapping herself in a delusion or having a fake hope and optimism. I do feel bad about her, but above all else, I respect her a lot in so many ways. Not everyone can have that kind of strong faith and belief. Even though she waited for many years and enduring the pain of people not coming back, she still clings to that faith despite her ups and downs and doubting a lot of things, and because of that strong faith, a miracle happened to her, which was the Junker.

And her faith wasn’t a stem from a lie from someone. The co-workers never intended to lie at her. They really do want to go back to the planetarium again and keep on working with her, even that’s just a small amount of percent of truth, it’s still there from the bottom of their hearts. But not everything goes well and no one can predict the future, so they aren’t really at fault there. Also, they want to protect Yumemi’s life and her optimistic nature and personality so they can’t just flat out tell her the truth. Those ‘lies’ were born from their love and protectiveness towards her. And the reason why Junker was blunt about Yumemi is because at that time, he doesn’t care about her so he has no hesitation of telling the truth, not until her final moments, when he told a ‘lie’ to her, it’s because he cares about Yumemi now.

And I think if it wasn’t for these ‘lies,’ these miracles wouldn’t happen, so we could say all of them are ‘blessings in disguise’ to some extent.

So I think strong faith can born some unexpected miracles in life, and that’s what I personally believe and one of the things I see in planetarian.

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Although its frequently brought up that Yumemi is broken one might see that her brokenness makes her more Human. These “Broken” issues bring more emotions into her character instead of being without emotions like a robot (Yumemi maybe a robot she is just Broken). She instead of listening to the Junker 100% does try to see more evidence by checking out a database but still does not trust her own judgement. Over the period of the story we see an evolution of Yumemi’s character just like the Junker. Where she starts trusting her own judgement and thus gets a little more broken. By the end of the end of the story her character which relied on the offline database starts going against that data and instead states that the database is wrong and the world has been destroyed. An interesting character development for Yumemi herself. Its even possible that when she saved the Junker that it wasnt because of her code but her own choice however I dont have information on that. Lets see how my view on that changes as I get through the last though Drama CD’s Hoshi no Hito and the other one.

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I cannot speak for everyone who paused about the revelation, but for me at least I do fault Yumemi or her faith. I do agree that there is a beauty in it. I most certainly do think she trapped herself in delusion, but it is the text itself that points out that no one has ever told Yumemi the truth. To me that makes it feel like she denied the opportunity to be anything else other than what she was by the people around her.

For all we know Yumemi’s faith may have resulted in something even more beautiful had she had complete information with which to act on. Faith in humanity after seeing the truth of it, and faith in humanity based on lies/incomplete information are not quite the same for me.

Really @Aspirety calling her a Time Capsule resonated the best for me. The idea that what the coworkers did was a lie is based on the Junkers jaded POV. I agree that in the moment they were blending what their hopes and what their version of kindness.

But at the same time it doesn’t really make me comfortable with her situation. I cannot help but feel like she deserved to have a chance to see the truth, before the end, and react based on that. Maybe what happened to her is exactly what humanity needed, it certainly is what the Junker needed, but that doesn’t make it more fair to her.

Of course life is not always fair, and beauty can be born from tragedy. It’s not really that I am faulting the story for her situation - after all I had failed to confront this facet of her before the text laid it out. But confronting Yumemi’s situation as having been built on lies right at the end changed the way I processed the ending significantly. Yumemi’s situation became the more poignant tragedy of the story, more than the fall of humanity or the Junkers lost hope.

The way that she recounts the creeping doubt she felt and the air about her as she walked through city with the Junker at the end, and the questions she asked him kind of allude to an idea that was perhaps closer to being aware of the situation then she had previously let on. But coupled with the fact that her overt order was to wait made the fact that she stayed feel additionaly forced upon her.

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Citation needed?

I found where he was probably referencing but I always wonder where the people from those symbolism websites get that information…

At the very least, the crab as a symbol of protection makes a looot of sense. The Junker describes the Fiddler Crab as a protector in many ways. For one, it’s not even a Warmonger, it was built to protect the city. He uses words like ‘knight’ and ‘spearman’ to describe it as well. To this day it’s still following orders out of a sense of loyalty and justice to protect something, it just doesn’t realise that it’s long since lost what it was trying to protect.

I wonder if the appearance of the red serpent in the text is some suggestion that this knight’s meaningless crusade is an incarnation of the devil. Good intentions can still lead to evil.

Or maybe I’m looking into it too much~

Also worth noting Mars and it’s connection to War, as with Mars the roman god of war. (The text even points out this connection in the projection scene) It’s heavily implied that the incident on the Mars base was a catalyst which lead to the war.

I guess one question I have is… Why do you think the failure of the Space Colonisation Project resulted in the war?

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Both Visual novel and Anime are outstanding.
Best emotional of these when I have watch the 5 episodes and 1 Hoshi no Hito.
So keep up your best works when you are processing you Pocket Summers.

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I don’t know a lot about Planetarian universe since I have just seen the anime, the film and read the main VN, but isn’t the Space Colonisation Project a symbol of hope for the overpopulated planet ?
So maybe when humans lost this hope, they fell into despair and prefered eliminating themselves instead of trying their best to reach new horizons ?
I think it could pretty much happen in reality if we learnt that we cannot reach the world of stars and are doomed to stay on the Earth until our ressources are down. I’m sure a lot of wars would take place and the world could become like the one in Planetarian.
So Yumemi’s goal is to give us faith and teach us that we still can have hope in a world of despair and reach the stars. But this is just my hypothesis. :yahaha:

I just found a picture of the Matsubishi department store in the city of Hamamatsu, Shizuoka.


There isn’t a planetarium in this building in the real life but looking at this picture I cannot restrain myself from thinking about Yumemi waiting for new customers. I have done a few researches and the Hamamatsu festival is known for its Takoage Gassen, a kite ceremonial. I suppose that Key might have chosen this city because of this festival with its kites that can represent the humanity going to the space and our dreams and hopes passing to the future with each generation.

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Unfortunately that building was torn down in like 2015. Here it is in 2012, then you can see how it disappears between 2014-2016.

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Ah it’s too bad :sad:

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Maybe they are gonna build a planetarian there?

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It would be great !

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Today’s Easter Sunday (at least it still is in my timezone) so I figured I’d finally get to posting a few things that I wanted to for quite a while. This post idea was from quite a while ago, but I wanted to explore the importance of Yumemi’s invitation because someone asked about it and probably wasn’t expecting me to make this post as a response. But here I am! I just really, really like planetarian you know…

So anyways, Yumemi recites the invitation a lot over the entire story, even in the drama CDs. Some may say it’s a little annoying, but I think this repetition is intentional to emphasize the meaning behind these scenes. Her attitude, her message, and even the music all tell us about Yumemi and what she stands for, and Suzumoto wants to make this abundantly clear.

So first let’s talk about her attitude. Yumemi takes great pride in inviting people, even when there’s no one to invite. She joyfully practices this speech even when there’s no scheduled projections because of repairs on Jena. This is kind of paradoxical because it assures us of both her human and robotic nature. She’s robotic in that she continues to do the same thing over and over again. But she’s also human in that she’s “practicing.” She can’t be viewed as purely robot or human.

Next is the music, which I’ve already kinda talked about before. I’m specifically talking about the first and last times Yumemi gives her speech. For these moments, the songs “Hoshi no Sekai” and “Itsukushimi Fukaki” play which are both based on the hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” So why is this song in particular connected to Yumemi’s invitation? Well, let’s analyze it shall we? The lyrics go as follows:

What a Friend We Have in Jesus

What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!
Oh, what peace we often forfeit,
Oh, what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer!

Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful,
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness;
Take it to the Lord in prayer.

Are we weak and heavy-laden,
Cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?
Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In His arms He’ll take and shield thee,
Thou wilt find a solace there.

Blessed Savior, Thou hast promised
Thou wilt all our burdens bear;
May we ever, Lord, be bringing
All to Thee in earnest prayer.
Soon in glory bright, unclouded,
There will be no need for prayer
Rapture, praise, and endless worship
Will be our sweet portion there.

This hymn highlights the differences between knowing Jesus and not knowing him. There’s peace, encouragement, protection, promises, and of course, the friendship provided to those who accept Jesus as Lord. There’s… a lot here that I would definitely love to talk about another time or if you message me but for the time being, we can apply these attributes to Yumemi’s character as she invites all who hear to become a friend. Although it may not be immediately obvious, Yumemi can be associated with peace, especially during the light bulb CG. Then, she also acts as a force of encouragement for Junker and (in Snow Globe) her co-workers long ago. At the end, she protects the Junker from certain death by distracting the fiddler crab and taking bullets for him. Yumemi can be associated with promises just by thinking about how she talks about the laws of robotics but another could be (Hoshi no Hito) when both are faithful to their promises as she greets him with a real bouquet after the Junker’s death. Lastly, throughout the entire novel you can see the friendship between the two develop as the Junker learns to cherish her more and more. All of these things are only revealed later on in the story. They only become apparent in the chapters after the Junker decides to stay with Yumemi, and after she has recited her invitation to him.

Finally let’s talk about the message. “Why don’t you come to the planetarium? The beautiful twinkling of eternity that will never fade no matter what. All the stars in the sky are waiting for you.” Again, the first sentence defines this message as an invitation to come to the planetarium. But why should someone come? Because there is something more, something spectacular and beautiful that awaits them that they would not be able to see elsewhere. Not only that though, but this twinkling of eternity will never fade. There’s permanence here. If the stars symbolize a greater hope, say, the gospel of Jesus Christ, it makes sense - this eternity is just like the promise of eternal life with him. Finally, this last sentence: the stars are waiting. The hope is waiting for you to reach out and grab it. This is Yumemi’s wish—that you, dear reader, would see and remember the starry sky you have seen. Even if it’s obscured temporarily, this faithful friend wishes that you may live knowing the beauty of what is unseen.

As we have seen here, many of Yumemi’s goals and personality traits are made apparent by the various elements of her invitation to the planetarium. It’s also important to remember that Yumemi’s invitation was not only to know the stars but to know her as a friend too. What a friend we have in Yumemi, right? Well, although she isn’t quite real, I believe that there is one who does even more than Yumemi and is real. With today being Easter Sunday, you all already know who I’m talking about (if not see my other planetarian posts). But I’ll have to end this post here because this next post works better in a different topic.

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