Planetarian - Jerusalem Discussion

Aspirety 2019-03-31 12:09:51 UTC #21

kyuketsukimiyu 2019-04-04 12:34:45 UTC #22

I really liked listening to this one. It was a pretty big departure from the other two Planetarian stories I have experienced so far, but in that way it was kind of refreshing I suppose. Plus it was good to have a story that more closely shows how messed up the world has become.

They did a great job on the audio design for sure on this drama. I liked the tension of the sniper scenes, and when Murdoch encountered the multiple robots and they are all praying for him in unison as they hunt him was pretty eerie feeling.

I have to admit that I never read iRobot. Honestly this bookclub has catapulted it up the priority list quite a bit. I was familiar with the laws of robotics before Planetarian, but only vaguely. I really liked the detail in this that robots had to be tricked into thinking that humans were something other than that in order to be able to kill. Though practically it is hard to think of how someone working on the software for a robot directly, and had control over the hardware, would need to resort to that as opposed to just being able to just being able to design them as desired to begin with.

I generally process stories that center around robots as reflections on human nature. After all a robot’s otherness is defined in contrast in their lack of humanity. The “artificial-ness” is contrasted with “natural” human. The main visual novel plays to this a bit more as Yumemi is a real character, and the robots here are more of a force to antagonize Murdoch. But the image of the mal-programmed (misguided) robots who wont stop until literally shot in their faith (the rosary weak point) was still pretty powerful.

stupid 2019-04-04 13:01:21 UTC #23

Completely agree with your thoughts on the audio design, It really had an uneasy atmosphere when there was no music from planetarian like there was in the game and a snow globe. It really is quite eerie and unsettling. The audio was the biggest things that made me feel that it wasn’t even planetarian but an entirely different IP. Also nice pickup with the “artificial-ness” and the “natural” contrast. I hadn’t thought of that but the fact of how the robots talked and acted really lacked character and made them feel artificial. The story really does imply that they are fundamentally different from Yumemi and the fact of Yumemi being of “natural” personality really does contrast with the “artificial” robots. Good job on the pickup.

Aspirety 2019-04-05 08:16:21 UTC #24

Aspirety 2019-04-15 10:26:53 UTC #25

One aspect of this I find confronting is how, this story is largely the antithesis of the rest of planetarian. At times, it almost feels aggressively anti-christian, a world where even nuns can kill humans in the name of God. It’s left up to interpretation how to take the final scene. Is he receiving forgiveness from God, or is the killer robot just recycling the same speech as always?

This gets even harder with regard to Hoshi no Hito, as this reveals that the goddess was in fact one of these killer robots, and the reason she bowed before the Starteller was because he had the rosary in his possession. It offers a godless explanation for an otherwise miraculous scene

But I guess that’s the thing. It’s meant to be confronting, much like how Christian faith confronts people to believe even when the option to not believe is just as a valid. It’s hard to swallow, but I suppose the true form of miracles is that they exist in that razor’s edge superposition of meaningless and meaningful, and it’s up to the individual to accept them as truly meaningful experiences.