I’ve had several things I wanted to talk about from long ago that I just never felt ready to write about but seeing as podcast is coming up soon I’m just gonna post it all, even if it might not be as developed as I wanted it to be. If people ask questions and discuss it I’ll be able to elaborate on my ideas a bit. But first I’m gonna comment on a bunch of things people have said previously that for some reason I simply never thought about replying to. Just like with my other posts, especially in regards to Christian themes, I don’t know if Suzumoto intended it all but I’m gonna analyze it as if he did. I’ll start with some of my responses to other posts and then get to some of the other themes that have not yet been explored.
Considering I just relistened to the drama CD this blog post shouldn’t have surprised me at all since its essentially the same in the audio. There is one difference that caught my eye and it was this description of the scene near the end.
This becomes relevant with the fact that Itsukushimi Fukaki is one of the main songs in this series. I actually was thinking about this a while ago with the vn but this blog entry written about Hoshi no Hito lends more credence to another parallelism with the Bible–the concept of the Bride of Christ. This is a theme that occurs in a few different places throughout the Bible. It becomes most prevalent in Revelation chapter 19 and 21 but it also appears in Ephesians 5, and the book of Hosea among other places. The basic idea is that Jesus Christ is the bridegroom, and typically the Church (the entirety of all saved Christians) is his bride. In Revelation, after all the battles and apocalyptic events, the two are married and become one. This is also mirrored in the unification of Heaven and Earth but we’ll talk about that in just a bit. Anyways, the marriage idea is kinda weird and isn’t often talked about in Christian circles but it is still a very biblical idea. Basically, in Planetarian this theme appears but is of course genderswapped because of all of the ideas presented in the general topic that allow me to just say that Yumemi is like Christ. Therefore, the Junker, now Hoshi no Hito, is like the Church and is to be wedded to her. The added bonus here is that Itsukushimi Fukaki is traditionally a song played at Japanese weddings. I’m honestly not sure why other than the fact that the title is translated as Deep Affection. After all, the Japanese lyrics still practically follow the English lyrics. Aside from that, I would love to elaborate more on those specific scripture references, especially Hosea, but don’t worry, I’ll elaborate on Revelation 21 later.
Edit: one more marriage image in the story is the bouquet. It’s not super solid but considering that the bouquet is the icon for the game, it should be relevant, even if for something small. I initially thought of the bouquet as like an obligatory thing for this landmark customer, and it is. But there’s also a lot more thought put into it then simply that. In Snow Globe, Yumemi suggests something about making a bouquet because a customer will be coming soon. This doesn’t actually make a lot of sense for a robot but that part isn’t super relevant. The relevant part is that Yumemi promises that she will find real flowers for the Junker (if I remember correctly). Since they aren’t real flowers we can’t read into that symbolism but it’s the thought that counts. Yes bouquets are presented at celebratory ceremonies but they’re also a part of marriages. And what better promise exists than a marriage. This symbolism for me explains the usage of the fake bouquet as the icon and ending screen of the original vn and then ties in to Yumemi fulfilling the promise with a real bouquet (this is at least shown visually in the movie) when the Junker arrives in the heaven for both humans and robots.
I’d actually say a better representation would be a missionary rather than a priest. This line of thought is helpful for me but it probably won’t be relevant until I make a post on an entirely different topic.
If you don’t mind me asking, where’s the scripture reference? I just don’t know what translation or where this comes from. The context may be prove even more relevant to the analysis after all.
I’m gonna continue along this line of thought, especially with the kingdom of God because this is super interesting, especially in relation to the prior drama CD Jerusalem. By the way that reference is from Luke 18:17 (or actually Mark has something similar as well). In the drama CD Jerusalem, we know that Salinger believes the church shelter to be the kingdom of God. After all, that’s what the religious organization called it. However, in the Bible, the kingdom of God is not really a physical place. This is a pretty complicated topic so instead of explaining it myself I’ll just put this video here which explains it pretty well. The heaven in this video is essentially one of the main ways of thinking about the kingdom of God.
So as we see from the video, the kingdom of God is not exactly a place we will travel to but rather it will come to us and the end of the Bible story is the reunification of heaven and earth. So Salinger was wrong to believe that the underground shelter was the kingdom of God, but by the parallels given from the vn, the Hoshi no Hito is like a missionary bringing the gospel of the stars to the physical shelter. When the stars are made known to the children, and they believe, that is when it truly becomes the kingdom of God. I don’t know about you all but I feel like this concept is awesome and really ties together the two stories.
One more point regarding the reunification of heaven and earth and the bride of Christ since they are basically the same idea. In Revelation 21:2, the bride of Christ is also described as the New Jerusalem coming out of heaven. Verses 3 and 4 continue this thought of reunification as it continues, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’” I totally forgot about this back in the general topic but I was theorizing that this idea is actually where Yumemi gets her prayer not to divide heaven in two. In the same way that the Hoshi no Hito wishes for the same thing, Christians are taught to pray as Jesus did, that God’s “will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And in this story we of course do see that the Junker ends up in a heaven that includes both humans and robots, just as they had wished.
Finally here’s one last point regarding lost knowledge and the contrast between this story and the original vn.
In my last relisten I found it interesting that during the projection scene, the Hoshi no Hito and children are discussing constellation and he explains that Orion was believed to be an able hunter to which the children ask what a hunter is. I think this is a pretty interesting contrast to the original story where during the fiddler crab fight. The Junker says, “even though we had once extended our reach into the vastness of space, nothing had really changed. Mankind had now even created for itself game to hunt and had equipped itself with fangs that it had not by design been given.” The hunting aspect that was so ingrained in the identity of humans has now fallen away in this age. Whether or not that’s a good thing is up to you to decide.
