I got a chance to play watch the kinetic novel tonight. With the exception of dinner (and it was hard to pull myself away), I didn’t think I would finish it all in one sitting. But I shouldn’t have underestimated a Key story. It’s a relatively short story at 4 hours (depending on your autoplay speed), but it will still be a memorable four hours spent. It’s longer than a standard movie after all; I wonder if it will be a movie or OVA when Kyoto Animation starts this project sometime in the future (oh you know they will).
I enjoyed planetarian very much. With the recent discoveries on Mars in real life and my multiple playthroughs of Metal Gear Solid 4, I continued to be in the mood for stories of the future, of new technology and discoveries and conflicts. planetarian’s post-apocalyptic world almost devoid of hope caught onto me well, and the main characters had me laughing with them and soon in suspense hoping for their safety.
Synopsis
In the future, natural resources became scarce and humanity sadly began warring amongst themselves in a panic, taking the destruction to a nuclear and biochemical scale. As a result, the world’s population was reduced to mere thousands, and an endless acid rain (called the Rain) covers the skies.
Although the war has ended, fear continues as the unmanned weapons deployed by the now-dead warring states are still operating, now killing aimlessly without any central command to stop them. This has gone on for about thirty years…
Our main male lead is a Junker, a scavenger of sorts, who travels from one abandoned city to another, raiding homes and stores for supplies to keep alive. They fight other Junkers in addition to the war machines. With the Rain neverending, there seems to be no future hope for humanity but to live like this.
But our main character stumbles upon a planetarium, miraculously yet strangely kept intact for the last 30 or more years. He encounters a robot named Hoshino Yumemi (Reverie Planetarian), and here is where the story starts.
She was built maybe 10-15 years before the war and lived a happy life greeting and tending to customers. However as the war and the chemicals spread, customers stopped showing up (while she remained immune and undamaged). But she was innocent and naive, not programmed to understand war or death … and she just knew within herself that customers will visit the planetarium again someday…
Impressions
Like Kurogane, finishing the story left me a little bit gloomy — well, no, just very thoughtful about the events that transpired and the meaning of Reverie’s life and how the Junker was affected. I’m glad that he found reason to live again .. or he has a definite goal to seek now rather than to roam aimlessly wondering if he would stay alive another day.
Was the ending predictable? Maybe it was, but I didn’t find myself sitting there calling it all the way. It’s no fun like that, so even if I have something in mind, I still try to believe the opposite .. because you never know. And even when it does happen, you’re not necessarily disappointed. I had inklings of what would happen, but I ended up being wrong .. and such was the story’s impact on me when it all finally transpired.
I was sad; who wouldn’t be? But fortunately out of that sadness came the hope that was so missing in this one man’s life. And it’s totally not over for her either, which is good to know. It’s a sad ending yet not necessarily so. And I’m searching for the drama CD now to get some more information about the story.
Reverie is a darling. Very cute, very innocent. She’s got a bit of dojikko in her, and I don’t fault her programming; she wasn’t meant to know certain things. And she still doesn’t quite comprehend most things, but she sticks true to her ideals — ideals with at first annoyed our Junker but soon really made an impact on his life. And it’s that kind of change in character that makes for a great story.
I’m being all vague in this entry, since I don’t feel like talking about spoilers (Impz is a bit more direct). If you’re generally new to Key (say, via Air, Kanon, and Clannad through KyoAni), then give planetarian a lookup and you’ll find a story very much worth your time.
orz goes in-depth with a religious analysis of planetarian and Reverie’s parallels to Jesus Christ. I’m not a really religious person myself, but the article looks very well done, and I really hadn’t thought about the novel possibly having religious references.
…I do hope that the Rain does eventually stop (and it should someday when all the dust settles and the planet can begin restoring itself), and Reverie can be reborn in a world where people will love her once again.
~Crisu
Links
- Planetarian Fansite
The first time I read through Planetarian, it was raining outside. So after I finished, looking outside made my pretty depressed and sad.
i was rather disappointed with Planetarian’s ending, but its the journey that made it fun overall. Reverie’s little nuances were great. Still importing it soon nevertheless.
I played through it… and the ending was enough to leave me feeling a bit depressed for some hours. I didn’t find it disappointing – it was ambiguous, and suggested that it wasn’t going to end well for anyone, but the little ways Reverie acted to… inspire the Junker, perhaps, were rather nice. Especially since you knew she wouldn’t fit in with the outside world, but.. well…
I know I said it last night, but I’ll say it again for completion’s sake. I really did enjoy Planetarian far more than any of Key’s other works that I’ve played- which actually is just Kanon, so I guess I’m saying I find that Planetarian is better than Kanon. But enough of that, time for actual info. I never heard that KyoAni was doing anything Planetarian based. What I have heard is that there has been news of a Planetarian movie in the works for ages, although it’s all under wraps or is still just a rumor. With Key’s recent popularity surge, it would be logical to think that a Planetarian movie or tribute of some sort would be upcoming, but considering it lacks Key’s distinctive artwork and isn’t particularly recognizable to the casual gamer, I’d say the name weight doesn’t come into play as much. Let’s not forget as well that Planetarian’s release was relatively hush hush, with only an online version of the game available until a year or so later when the full retail was released. Frankly, in terms of adaptations, I’m putting my money on Little Busters getting an animated series soon. Now that one is a steamroller.