Discussion topic for the “Jerusalem” light novel & drama CD of planetarian. Feel free to refer to the entirety of the original planetarian and this story without spoiler tags, but please tag references to any other content with [spoiler], providing adequate context in parenthesis.
You can find Kazamatsuri’s English translation here.
What would you rate this story?
0 voters
To get the discussion started, it really took me by surprise how dark this short story was. Where planetarian and Hoshi no Hito present a more hopeful outlook in a bleak setting, Jerusalem is all about that crippling despair. Maybe this small story didn’t change anything for anyone, but I appreciate that it was told nonetheless. It shows how perverted the world can become when selfish individuals decide to bend something like fate to their whim. They created killer robots by tricking them into believing they’re eradicating demons. There’s so much analogy to the blurred line between hell and heaven here, where one man’s paradise is built upon greed and bloodshed. I guess the saving grace of this story is that the man earned his just deserts, as when his paradise truly became hell, his broken nun lovingly returned him to the hell he created in the final moments. While our protagonist may have also received a shity end, you get the feeling that if there is an afterlife, it’s made very clear who went to heaven and who went to hell.
But really, there’s so much to talk about here. It’s still all sinking in.
The interesting part really is that they took they time to incorporate the “killing demons” idea. It would have been simple to make killer robots. But they deliberately went beyond that to make the robots into a part of this “paradise”.
Thats really whats so messed up about it: not that whoever ordered the robots to be made, or Salinger, or anyone would want to seclude himself from this terrible war forever with an army of robots to protect him. But the fact that all of that comes laced with the corruption of this religion and with the murdering of people who have nothing to do with it.
Obviously, I’m quite far down this rabbit hole at this point, but it was really a single moment that made Jerusalem amazing to me. That moment being Murdock’s final line and the lead-in to Brave New World. Even leading up to it, Salinger has been reduced to a one armed squealing bitch, then my blood froze when the final robot is revealed. I just think the ending is extremely beautiful with Salinger being pulled back down to his kingdom while Murdock sounds like he finds peace in his final moment. Alongside that, there is also the ambiguity of whether the Sister is just acting based on some logic tree or if she actually is supposed to be some messenger of God. All of those feeling are condensed into that final line. A man who’s gone through so much shit and done many bad things is–on his deathbed–being offered forgiveness he thought impossible. It’s just fucking good.
That was Salinger’s way of circumventing the three laws of robotics. They couldn’t simply be ignored. I haven’t read I,Robot so I can’t confirm if that would actually work in Asimov’s world.
This really was so much darker than the rest of series. Religious symbolism throughout planetarian is a lot more prevalent here and the way it was used in this story was brilliant. The use of a Rosary to influence the robots’ identification systems and the “Kingdom of God” being under a church was well thought out. It had the most fascinating combination of future technology, religious symbolism and mystery in the span of the CD track. I like to think that Salinger being taken to his death in the burning bunker purely symbolized as “Hell” and the robot with Mordock expressing that he can be forgiven even despite his past actions ties in with the undivided Heaven idea, that “Hell” is purely symbolism.
Any ideas on how I would go about using the translations with the physical cd’s?
Just play each track individually like you would on Itunes.
So what 2015 Helios didn’t know is that I, Robot isn’t exactly about explaining the intricacies of the three laws and whether they can be broken with a given method. The three laws are more a vehicle for exploring and criticizing human behaviors. The idea is that the laws work perfectly, unless someone fucks with them. And who fucks with them? People do, greedy and/or stupid people do.
The story Lost Little Robot centers around a special robot which has been made with a modified version of the First Law. it has had the second part about inaction removed.
A robot may not injure a human being
or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Dr. Calvin, the book’s main character and expert on robot psychology, theorizes that this modification to the law might allow the robot to drop a weight that could crush a human if it’s within a range where the robot itself could save the human. However, as soon as the weight drops the robot is not an active agent anymore and therefore doesn’t need to act. At the end of the story it even looks like the robot would’ve been able to eventually strangle Dr. Calvin due to the remains of the First Law eroding from how the robot has been treated by humans. The robot is destroyed, and we don’t actually learn if it could go through with it or not.
So it’s not that the Achtneun units could or couldn’t exist in Asimov’s world. It’s more about how a bunch of fucked up rich people were planning to survive the apocalypse protected by killer nuns.
Wow, so this story is still pretty confusing in regards to how exactly to interpret it. Of course like the rest of planetarian’s stories, it has a bunch of biblical themes, although I can’t actually tell if all the ones I saw were intentional. I’m still wondering about the lines that the robots repeat and the one that Murdock repeats a few times. I don’t know if the nuns are saying made up that sounds generically like a Christian thing or if it’s like some kind of Catholic saying. As for Murdock’s lines… well that’s where the name Jerusalem gets dropped. I was thinking it could possibly be a psalm but it doesn’t quite sound like one but maybe it would be more obvious if I had the original text to compare to a Japanese version of the Bible. This also possibly could be a different traditional saying that I have no knowledge of.
The main themes I saw over and over again in this story were of sin and judgement. In the Bible, sins are often committed when humans believe that they know how to judge right and wrong, especially when it is contrary to God’s given law. An easy example that many people would know is the story of the Fall from Genesis. God strictly commands Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve see that the fruit is “good to eat” and so they do, violating the command of God. Upon doing so, they know the existence of good and evil and as a whole, humanity from then on believes that they know the right way to live rather than living by the commands of God. Another way to put this is either humans put themselves in the place of God or they place an idol in the place of God. And here are examples of that.
Salinger makes an easy example of one who puts himself in the place of God. He programs the robots to see everyone else but him as demons. There are of course, many instances of this in the Bible. One (or I guess at least four) of these is in the New Testament Gospels when the Pharisees accuse Jesus of being a demon. Over the course of all four of the Gospels, the Pharisees continue to exercise their power in jealousy which results in their plot to kill Jesus. Similarly, that story ends in Jerusalem… But anyways, back to planetarian’s Jerusalem.
The last thing I wanted to point out was the result of judgement. Again, Salinger essentially killed everyone else by judging himself righteous. He also thought that he was essentially untouchable with his army of robots. And so he got what he deserved; he was forcibly pulled back into the hellfire of the “Kingdom of God.” Meanwhile, Murdock, while maybe not exactly righteous, accepts the forgiveness extended to him at the end. The way this is written though lead’s me to believe that the reader is given the decision to decide but it’s pretty implied that he died righteously for whatever that’s worth. Thinking about this, a Bible passage from Romans 2:1-11 came to mind. The passage essentially describes God’s judgement in comparison to ours. Verse 8 says, “but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.” I think it’s safe to conclude that happened.
I think another interesting idea to analyze would definitely be the depictions of heaven and hell in the story, especially in contrast to how they appear in the original VN. I still have a bunch of things that I’m thinking of in regards to Revelation but that will have to be for another time.
It’s a modified version of William Blake’s poem And did those feet in ancient time. Suzumoto removed the mentionings of England and such.
The sisters’ thing isn’t detailed in the novel, and I don’t believe we ever found anything on it.
Further to what HeliosAlpha wrote, I found this, although I don’t know what short story it relates to
https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/isaac-asimovs-laws-of-robotics-are-wrong/
For example, in one of Asimov’s stories, robots are made to follow the laws, but they are given a certain meaning of “human.” Prefiguring what now goes on in real-world ethnic cleansing campaigns, the robots only recognize people of a certain group as “human.” They follow the laws, but still carry out genocide.
Definitely seems to me that Salinger is enacting his own warped form of ethnic cleansing here.
It’s a pretty damn bleak story all told, and quite a surprise to me coming from Key.
It seems to be from the Foundation series which is a much bigger work than I, Robot which is really just a short anthology. Actually it seems The Naked Sun is where the planet with the racist robots is introduced. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics#Definition_of_"human_being"
Wow this was more in depth than what I expected. This was a fun one to look at because while the religious connotations are a lot more literal of the surface, but there are still some elements which are well hidden.
One of the key things that I picked up from this was the concept of sin, and how it’s presented and feeds into everything within the story. Throughout the audio drama, the seven deadly sins are presented through the interactions between Murdock and Salinger while inside the kingdom of God. I’ll go through each of them:
Gluttony – Salinger states that the kingdom has enough food and electricity for 500 people for 10 years. He even mentions how there the kingdom has high quality liquor, so not only does he emphasise the amount of resources, but also the quality of the resources. He is fully aware that everything presented in the kingdom is more than enough to satisfy two people in their lifetime - thus gluttony is presented.
Pride – Salinger takes pride in the development of the robots, and how he was able to get around the 3 laws of robotics. He even says ‘Even now I at least think I worked very well for what I was payed.’ He even wanted to test the capabilities of these machines to see if they could be stopped.
Lust – This one was what gave away the use of the sins – from everything I’ve seen so far in the world of planetarian, this is the only time where anything of a sexual nature is implied that heavily, so this stood out to me a lot and got me thinking about why it was included. It’s when Salinger states that if Murdock stayed in the kingdom of God then he could do whatever he wanted with the robots to pleasure himself. He specifically says ‘There are also women you could want. They have such functions. You can choose any of your liking and have your fun.’, so it’s pretty clear that lustful intentions are implied here.
Envy – While discussing how he came about the kingdom, Salinger states ‘It’s been my dream to once visit this nursing home. Half of it was jealousy of the poor though’. Now, while yes there is a subtle difference between jealousy and envy in general, in this context I believe that the words are interchangeable.
Wrath – This is presented when Murdock attempts to burn down the base, turning the kingdom of God into a hellscape. Salinger’s yelling and screaming at Murdock during this is more than enough to emphasise uncontrollable anger and rage, which can be interpreted as wrath.
Greed – It is clear that Salinger wants the power of the robots, and the resources presented in the kingdom of God to himself as that is the entire reason he joined Murdock on the mission – to check the robots capabilities and to go and enter the kingdom, only for it to be sealed off to others later.
Sloth – Given the amount of robots presented within the kingdom, it is clear that Murdock would have many servants to assist him over the years, and given the amount of resources in the kingdom, he would never have to do any work with maybe the exception of robot maintenance. However, given how many robots there are, it wouldn’t make much difference if one broke down – he even states ‘I wouldn’t mind it if you destroyed it when you grow bored’
Now I think the use of sins is significant when you consider the significance of the base. It’s deep underground, very deep underground. One would naturally associate the concept of heaven with the sky and stars, anything above us by beyond our reach, but by contrast, hell is generally presented as being below us, in this case, deep underground, and I think that’s what the kingdom is representing – hell itself. Now, while this point of the kingdom representing hell isn’t entirely new in itself as several other members have already pointed this out, from what I can tell, most people interpret it as the kingdom becoming hell only when the fire happens, and I personally interpret it quite differently. I would like to introduce the interpretation that the kingdom in itself was always hell, and that Salinger is a representation of the devil. First of all, there’s the previously mentioned use of the sins, which are all mentioned or expressed in one form or another by Salinger, but then there’s also the fact that he helped to develop the robots that would kill people. This is symbolic of sin being introduced into the servants of God, making them become fallen angels, and servants of Satan, which is only emphasised by having the robots named after famous saints.
Now let’s consider the kingdom. While in general, the kingdom is presented as a haven for people to live in, the context of how it was established has quite a few unfavourable details. First of all, there was the original religious group that was set up there and bought the robots that were built by Salinger, and they most likely knew they had protocols to kill. As far as I can identify, it is never made clear why the religious group chose to do this, but my best guess would be to punish people for their sin. This introduces the concept of groups of people wanting to do Gods work for him, causing them to punish people for one reason or another, all in God’s name. This argument follows to the robots created by Salinger – they believe they are killing demons in the name of God, but because of the way they perceive what a human is. This is a very extreme argument of why one should not punish in the name of God, because at the end of the day, one’s perspective of sin is only defined by ones perspective of the world. So, to have all these concepts surrounding what is believed to be the kingdom of God only emphasises that while the kingdom may have association with God, it is under a false pretence, which God would most likely disapprove of. This concept extends to the idea of using religion as a false pretence to perform certain actions. A simple example of this is Salinger’s use of rosary, which he originally states is used for protection. While one would naturally associate this with religious protection, in actuality it’s what allows him to be seen as human, so the false implication of religion causes this item not to be questioned, and since it’s that rosary that allows him to partially control the robots actions, this item also emphasises the idea that religion under a false pretence can be used to control the actions of others.
Now I want to discuss how Murdock fits into this entire thing. To me, this story is about Murdock going to the depths of hell, fighting off the devil’s temptation, and Murdock being forgiven by God. Clearly if the kingdom of God is actually hell, then the first part of that structure makes sense. As for fighting of the devil’s temptation – Salinger tries to convince Murdock to stay in the kingdom of God with him since he has taken a likening to him. It is at this point where most of the deadly sins are presented because he’s trying to make Murdock give into temptation, and commit sin. However, Murdock sees Salinger for all the crimes he has committed and refuses the offer immediately. It’s shortly after that the kingdom of God is set on fire by Murdock, which is representative of hell being presented in its true form. While escaping, Murdock manages to fight off Salinger, but he doesn’t kill him, which I believe represents the idea that the devil cannot be killed by the likes of man, since sin will always remain in the hearts of man. However, shortly after, Salinger gets dragged back to the burning kingdom of God, which if you consider Salinger as the devil, it makes sense that he’d get dragged back there, as it is the place where he belongs. I also really like the fact that it’s the rosary that causes him to be sent back there, because I feel like it’s symbolic of God wanting to keep him in hell, which is also fitting considering the title of the part in which this happens is called ‘Bell Chimes and Atonement’. Also, it is around this time when Murdock recites/sings ‘And did those feet in ancient time’. This is the single most contrasting thing in the entire audio drama in my opinion, because while every other use of religion is used falsely, or misguidingly, this is used legitimately by Murdock to give him the strength to keep going. It suggests the idea that even during dark times, one should not give into darkness, and there is a promise land awaiting for you– hence the use of Jerusalem. It is because of this contrast why I think this story is called Jerusalem, because it wants to emphasise the legitimate belief and power of religion when perceived correctly. As for the very end, one of the robots tells him that God forgives all sinners, and Murdock takes this in shock, because he doesn’t believe he can be forgiven for everything he’s done. Now, like I mentioned previously, if one perceives these robots as fallen angels under the devils hand, then it follows that with the devil defeated and sent back to hell, some of the angels are free of his control, so I think this is symbolic of an actual messenger of God telling Murdock that he can be forgiven. This is also emphasised by the use of church bells at the very end, since church bells are used to repel demons and unclean spirits, and in some cases, also cleanse sin. I also think this once again expresses the concept of atonement mentioned in the title of this part of the drama.
This was a really good listen, it had so much to pick apart that it’s almost at the same standards of the original VN in my opinion. Definitely my favourite of the audio dramas.
This is my favourite of the drama CDs. I don’t have any analyzations on it, just praises to sing. Excellent use of audio all around, intriguing setting, compelling story, thoughtful themes, and just action packed. I was rooting for Murdock once it was clear that he was the protagonist. Wish I could have more of him being awesome and fucking things up for selfish bastards during the war because he’s best protag and boy material easily.
I didn’t think I was going to actually going to try to analyze this, but now while I’m typing it out I’m thinking of stuff about the nun robots. Planetarian shows us that robots are people, so the fate of the nuns seeing anyone without a rosary as a demon is kind of sad. Could robots be seen as angels and demons? The corrupted robots definitely are demons in a sense, and the sister at the end of the story telling Murdock he could be forgiven could be an angelic messenger of god. Angels were created to serve humans, just as robots were, but robots were made by us while angels were made by God the creator of everything. Angels are immortal and much more powerful and competent than humans - robots have good memories and lots of skills built into them. But at the end of the day it’s humans themselves who are better because we have the passion of humanity. We weren’t born special with superpowers like how angels and demons are. We love, we create, we wonder at the world, we feel. So while Jerusalem has a different message and theme from Planetarian, I love it all the same. Maybe even more, because this kind of theme about humanity and badass action appeals to me more naturally. @Idiology 's post on this thread is my favorite interpretation about the themes of Jerusalem other than my own.
A bit surprised with just how the story changes from a snow globes really cheery atmosphere to the really dark atmosphere of a Jerusalem. I also noticed that robots can be angels and fallen angels like Dora and what seems to work well with the bible as well. We have Satan (Salinger in this case) who actually corrupted a large portion of the angels (1/3 if your interested) and they just like Satan cause harm to the Human race instead of protect humans like they are tasked with. This also explains why the three laws of Robotics are ignored as the fallen angels don’t follow their design, the robots don’t follow the design. I haven’t read Asimov’s I,Robot since mid 2015 (yr10) but I do remember all of the short stories are actually all heavily linked to at least one of the his 3 laws if not more than 1. (Its not like the movie, the book is just a bunch of short stories). Another Interesting thing is that if these sisters are fallen angels its interesting how they reside underground instead of earth as all the fallen angels reside on earth instead of heaven. I am not to familiar to the Catholic church to notice any parallels between this story and the church but it would be interesting to find out.
Overall, its really hard to think of this as planetarian but its still really good and would recommend to anyone (Unless they are on a heavy budget as the pricetag is quite high for an hour.) I don’t remember there being any conformation in the story about Murdock surviving or dying at the end but it would be interesting if he is the Junkers friend that he mentioned died in planetarian but it would be interesting if its true although I do think it implies that Murdock dies. Eitherway great story.
Seem like this Jerusalem part have many confusion about many its parts that fans still need to understand more.
Okay let’s talk about Jerusalem’s music. For those not aware, I did an analysis of planetarian’s entire OST on the Planetarian - General Discussion, and while the majority of it doesn’t feed into Jerusalem, I still thought I should leave a link to it.
Just like many other aspects of the audio drama, Jerusalem significantly contrasts how music is used within the original VN as well as the side stories. For one, this side story doesn’t use any of the tracks from the VN, with the exception of Human Warrior, which while was in the VN’s audio test, it was never used in the novel. Another thing to note is that (spoilers for all the other side stories) this is the only side story with no Yumemi. Now in my other music posts I talked a lot of how the majority of the soundtrack can be associated with Yumemi and the Junker and concepts they present, so in that regard, it makes sense that the majority of the OST isn’t used. However, what is interesting is how there are still several music tracks (besides Human Warrior) used, none of which has been officially released by Key, which honestly makes this analysis a bit of a pain since I can only listen to the tracks through the audio drama, and I can’t use track names to infer anything, so this analysis is going to be a bit weaker than the others in some regard, but there’s still quite a bit I want to talk about.
First, let me discuss one thing that is really apparent in Jerusalem – the majority of the audio drama lacks music, however, despite the lack of background music, there are still constant atmosphere sounds produced to help fill the silence. Examples of these background sounds are the wind and church bells while outside the church, and the sounds of a fire and an electrical humming (which I assume is a radiator) when inside the church. This is actually quite similar to how in the original planetarian, there was no music playing during the battle against the Fiddler Crab – the only sound that could be heard was the rain and gunfire. In the VN, for the most part, there was always a lack of music when Yumemi wasn’t present. This story is meant to be taken seriously. This isn’t a happy story, and it wants to convey that, which wouldn’t be possible given the fact that much of the soundtrack in the VN is quite playful and or hopeful. In real life, there isn’t a constant background track that plays to suit the mood, so the lack of music combined with the sounds created by the environment help the listener to be immersed into the audio drama. The lack of music also emphasises how this story is a contrast to the VN.
The first piece of music that plays is during the beginning of ‘Mission Complete’, when some of Murdock’s troops are being shot at by the robot in the church. It’s a very heavy, rock styled piece, with the electric guitar driving the melody, and a heavy drum beat driving the pulse. It’s a piece written for action scenes - it’s meant to help raise the intensity of fighting. This type of piece comes up a notable amount during Jerusalem. One interesting thing to note about this piece is how it stops as soon as the audio drama turns to Murdock’s perspective during this scene. It emphasises a disjoint between how the fighting is being perceived and what’s actually happening. This is also emphasised when Murdock says that it looks like everything is going fine, while in fact on the battlefield, one of the troops got shot at, despite it seeming like it was impossible.
The next track that plays is during ‘Sister’. It’s an eerie piano track that plays when one of the robots first speaks to Murdock, and Murdock realises that Salinger is involved with the robots. The track comes back when Murdock finds the trees in the underground shelter, and Salinger’s footprints. This track is used to emphasise mystery - before Murdock entered the church, the focus of the audio drama was fighting, but now several new elements have been introduced into the plot, and that causes the direction of the audio drama to shift, and this track emphasises that to the listener.
The next track that plays is ‘Human Warrior’, which plays during ‘Sister’, where Murdock fights one of the robots. This track comes back later in ‘Kingdom of God’, when Murdock is fighting against several of the robots. Similarly to how it’s used in the planetarian anime, this piece is used during the battle between man and machine. It is an electronically composed piece – there are no conventional instruments that could be substituted for the sounds produced, which emphasises the cold and emotionless nature of the robots that Murdock is fighting. One could argue that this isn’t the case because the first piece used in Jerusalem used an electric guitar, which is a very conventional instrument, but during that scene, no-one except Salinger knew that they were fighting a robot – they thought they were fighting a person, so the use of conventional instrumentation during that scene helps to maintain that façade.
A new track plays when Murdock finds Salinger. It begins with a constant ticking in the background, keeping the pulse of the piece, which could represent the constant beating of both the characters hearts. It’s a fast and tense standoff. More parts are slowly introduced as Murdock explains his logic. The piece does the same thing when Salinger explains more details about the robots. This is used to emphasise the reveal of the mystery. As more information is presented by each character, more parts are exposed to help to emphasise that which one was not previously aware of. The constant ticking also starts to become less noticeable as the number of parts increase. This shows how the characters are getting more relaxed to the situation since they understand more about each other. The music fades out upon the mention of ‘The Kingdom of God.’ This is a really interesting choice placement for the music to stop. For one, it emphasises the importance of this point – the audio drama wants you to pay attention to it so it makes it more notable by stopping the music. Second, it’s an interesting place to stop because of the connotations it has about the Kingdom of God. During the scene, both the characters are revealing the truth of the situation to each other, so since the music stops when the Kingdom of God is mentioned, that would suggest that the Kingdom of God is a lie, which it is in many regards.
Another track is played during the start of Hellfire. This piece consists of a synth and an electric guitar among other parts. A small thing to note about this piece is that it’s in 5/4 time signature – not much significance there but I thought it was something I should point out. There are two sections to this piece to consider. The first section consists of several notes which are repeated over and over. This plays when Murdock is considering his options on how to manage the situation. This could represent how Murdock is repeatedly going over every possibility in his head – redoing many different scenarios. The second section is a more free flowing and expressive section, with constantly changing melody and harmony lines. This plays when the robots start talking. This most is to most likely give the scene a bit more of a heroic feel to it – it makes Murdock seem like a hero, fighting the villains, which contrasts how most of the other battle music is written. This piece stops when he kills the perusing robots.
Next we have the use of the track ‘And did those feet in ancient time’, which is also called ‘Jerusalem’. This piece is an English Hymn, and many consider it as England’s unofficial national anthem, however the audio drama changes some of the lyrics and removes the mention of England, but many aspects of the original piece remain the same. During the scene this is used, Murdock is talking about how he has nothing left. To me, this song represents his faith, and it holds everything dear to him. The original hymn talks about how one shall not stop until they have built Jerusalem on England. This idea of building a paradise is what’s driving him to keep going despite the loss of everything in his life. The music even stops when Murdock says ‘until Jerusalem is built upon my country’, which only emphasises his dream even more. Another thing to note about the piece is the instrumentation – it’s using sounds that replicate very conventional, classical instrumentation, which contrasts the rest of the music in this audio drama. This makes the music more like the music in the VN – it’s meant to convey feelings of faith, and given the piece’s background as a hymn, it makes sense to use traditional instruments. Also, similarly to the VN, this piece is based of a hymn, just like how Hoshi No Sekai is also a hymn. So the title of ‘Jerusalem’ is used because of this piece – it is the one time the concept of faith is properly presented to the listener, which is significant because faith is one of the main themes of all the planetarian stories.
Finally, there’s the ending song, ‘Brave New World’. This is the only unique ending song in the sides stories, and the way it’s written has a lot of significance, so I’m going to go through this piece, line by line, and talk about how the lyrics are relevant to the world of planetarian. I’m going to make this a separate post just for ease of formatting and reading.
Okay, here’s my analysis of Brave New World:
(Verse)
‘Rain of sadness falls. The world is crying. People are repeatedly fighting, why?’ – Clearly talking about how there is a never ending rain in the VN, and how many people (such as the Junker) have to fight for their survival in that world. ‘Why?’ could refer to a lot of things. Why did it come to this? Why are people still doing this? But all these questions suggest that this should never have happened in the first place, and that humanity should be doing what it can to rectify this.
‘In the cold rain, all alone, I once again recall how you were hurt. Why? As no-one can endure pain in their heart, people are searching for warmth and peace today as well.’ – I believe this refers to the Junker, and how he’s thinking upon Yumemi’s death. As shown in Hoshi No Hito, he has come to the realisation that despite how the world acts, people do not want to live in pain anymore, so he helps people find the warmth and good in their heart by showing them the stars and giving them faith.
(Chorus)
‘Holding countless sins, to find a reason to keep living, we will love people unending tomorrow as well.’ – To me this is basically saying that we must accept sin, both in ourselves and each other, and it is because of our flaws that we must strive to find meaning in our life, and work towards understanding and loving each other for who we are. This is similar to how in Hoshi No Hito the Junker has shown that he has found his meaning in life, and that he shows no negativity to people no matter how hostile they are to him.
(Verse)
‘The wind of grief blows. The world dries up. How come people are hurting this planet? Why?’ – This is most likely referring to the constant wind in Jerusalem, as well as how nuclear weapons and deadly robots have had a terrible effect on the planet, but the constant wind could also be referring to the detrimental weather that the Junker has to experience through his life. The use of ‘Why?’ is similar to how it’s used in the first verse.
‘Today as well, we question if words are powerless. While avoiding pain, people are always walking’ – This brings up the question as to whether the power of words and belief have no effect anymore. I mentioned how in Hoshi No Hito, many of the adults refuse to listen to the Junkers words, and refuse to acknowledge the stars he wants to present. In this scenario, words are powerless, because the adults don’t see the practical value in them, and this lyric ties directly into that.
(Chorus)
The instrumentation gets reduced for the next line. It makes the piece feel calmer, and makes the listener pay attention due to the contrast in sound. It helps to emphasise the one of the messages the song is trying to present.
‘In this continually repeating age, let’s live on treasuring the miracle of life always, always, always.’ – This brings up the concept of how time repeats itself. Again, Hoshi No Hito has a lot of parallels with the VN, and it emphasises how acts are repeated across generations, and how information is passed from one generation to another, so this lyric is basically saying that each generation should treasure the fact that they are alive. This is really important when you consider that in the world of planetarian, it is very difficult for children to be born, so as one of the characters says in Hoshi No Hito, it just makes children more special.
‘Holding countless sins to find a reason to keep living, we will love people unending tomorrow as well.’ – Already covered. I just put it here for consistency.
There’s a sudden change in key signature at this point (all the parts shift up in pitch), which usually represents the sudden climax of a piece. One thing to note about the next section is that it’s in English, this means that the song wants to emphasise the importance of the line. It’s also where the title ‘Brave New World’ comes from.
‘Please make us discover the brave new world. I must feel a certain season by recalled heart. Pray for us to shine indefinitely. Somewhere long… long… long…… way we meet for you, for me.’ – I think that this is the Junker asking Yumemi, or maybe God, to look over humanity, and to guide humanity in the right direction, into a brave new world, and how one day, humanity should be able to meet Yumemi or God.
This line is then followed by another key change, with the melody line being sung with only the word ‘la’, and the electric guitar doing what it wants, and the piece gradually fades out into nothingness. To me this ending represents humanity starting to walk along that path – a path to a better future, which is what this song is about.
So while this piece is used in Jerusalem, I think it’s very much a story about how the Junker views the world because of Yumemi, and what he wants the world to become. Despite most of the music not being in the OST, Jerusalem’s music is very well crafted and placed, and it’s worthy of being a part of the world of planetarian.
Jerusalem was a pretty intense story, rife with symbolism and subtext. While that did make the story quite impressive in a way, that also meant that it didn’t quite sit well with me. See, I’m the kind of person that prefer meanings behind stories be told through the motives and emotions of characters, rather than the symbolism portrayed in the environment. And while Jerusalem had an interesting story nonetheless, all of the meaning behind the story was lost on me. And with that meaning lost, it turned out as just one of many examples of how robots of the world were pushed by the greed and of humans to go against their initial purpose. It’s something that was already heavily implied by planetarian, and I’m sure this is only one of many stories in this world like this. Perhaps if we got more insight on the motives of the religious group, or even motives on the robots themselves, it would have piqued my interest much more.
However, there is one emotion I would like to talk about in Jerusalem: Betrayal. In one of the recent VNs I read (not gonna say which one it was because that’d be a spoiler), an interesting topic was brought up. In times of war, only those with wills of steel can continue fighting for lofty reasons such as “world peace” or “justice”. What keeps soldiers going and fighting are the comrades that they fight for. And what struck me in Jerusalem the most was Murdoch’s flashback as he poured the bottle of cognac. We see his round of drinking with his comrades: Manson, Diaz, Chow, and everyone else involved with the mission. But we also see Salinger as part of them, raving about the glories of the Martini. I have no doubt that, during that celebration, Murdoch saw these men as his comrades. And, even in the earlier parts of the story, they show that, while he has a mission, he also continues to fight to defend these comrades of his (Salinger included).
And, after realizing Salinger was the one behind the mission, I feels as if his reason for fighting was all for naught. The man he thought was a comrade ended up as the reason for the rest of his comrades’ deaths. And, at that point I had no doubt as to why he was willing to waste that fine bottle of cognac to create that living hellhole.
