Welcome to WordPress. This post contains a PV you must’ve seen or else you’re a bad egg. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
Edit: Animation ver.
Okay, so I was asked about ‘Hello, Planet’ and think that an elaboration is probably due, as it is quite ambiguous.
My take on the PV is that Miku is given in the past a potted plant that hasn’t sprouted yet. This boy that gave her the plant is stored in her ‘cache memory’ and referred to often. She waters it constantly to no avail, and despite waiting for his letters to arrive, awakes each day to find an empty mailbox. She thus decides to journey away from home to see him again. As literally shown she loses most of her health along the way, at some point receiving aid in the form of a plastic umbrella (to stop acid rain? Plastic is difficult to break down, so as a defense from ‘raining debris’ this would make sense.) from an apparition of this boy. At this point, the audience can probably already guess what happened to him.
At the end of her journey, rusted and weary, she arrives at his grave, of course to discover that he had passed away. In woe at this ill-fated event, she cries a single tear that causes the plant to sprout into a towering stalk that, carrying her along with it, rises to heaven. There she sees the boy again and shows him the sprouted plant. At the conclusion, we are shown that Miku had in fact ‘died’ in front of his grave. Miraculously, she is shown to have new mail; a memory, or perhaps something else…? I am inclined to believe the latter, as the song’s last line ‘to you, a newborn, good morning’ suggests so.
There are those fans who believe Miku didn’t die, and it was more metaphorical, but I feel as if it’s only a forced outcome because they can’t imagine such a fate befall her. As much as it pains me as well to say, rusted, lying on the floor and with a depleted life bar, the evidence that she had died is conclusive. She’d gone to a better place already, after all.
This post has now grown from a poke at wordpress’ introductory autopost to something that deserves my text-signature, so.
Ningyo
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December 7th, 2009 at 4:36 am
Oh WOW. This is puuuuuuurrtty. xD
December 8th, 2009 at 8:01 am
After reading LightningSabre’s first comment about this song. I watched it again, but with a different mindset this time.
Still a little lost.
To summarize… In the end, she only get to see her loved one up in heaven? Or are there hidden meanings I fail to grasp?
December 8th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Well, you could say that’s more or less it, blur. Look above, I’ve extended the post for the sake of explanation. Or really, my opinion of what happened.
And dammit blur, I promised myself never to see it again ;-;
December 9th, 2009 at 7:21 am
“she cries a single tear that causes the plant to sprout into a towering stalk”
Ahh… *enlightment* Lol.
Sorry about making you go through it again. :p
March 3rd, 2010 at 11:11 am
Not sure if you’ve seen this, but here’s a newer, flash-styled PV of the same song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geUeWJfoLJE
It loses the 8-bit charm, but the sequence when she rusts at the end of her journey is given a lot of emotional appeal in the newer version.
This video makes me cry at times — literally cry. I think I have some sort of fascination with android characters. I am guessing this is because they often possess an innocence that is absolute in their programming, which contrasts with the not-so-pleasant images of the present and future, as well as the less sightly facets of human nature.
Planetarian (which turns my face into a loose water faucet every time without fail) is definitely within the same vein as this song, especially in their environmental message. Disney’s Wall-E also deals with a similar premise (lonely robot on a ruined Earth), but although I enjoyed the movie very much, I couldn’t help but to be irritated by the ending. Before I go any further into spoiler territory, have you watched Wall-E?
March 3rd, 2010 at 3:53 pm
@Chag
Darnit man, I promised myself to never watch a Hello, Planet PV ever again, and both you and blur have breached my comfort zone!
I’m a big fan of that 8-bit charm, so I may not have enjoyed this new version as much as others – still, you’re right, the extra dimensions does highlight some things in the PV much more dramatically. And of course, it moved me again, 8-bit or not. This PV makes concrete the effect of the letter she receives in the end, as well as what you said, the damage she sustained in the end. Heart-rending.
I understand your fascination with android characters; it stands much the same for me. They do have that unchanging innocence, and moreover, they try their best, often futilely, to carry out what they were programmed to do no matter what. Such powerlessness yet selfless determination really resonates within me. I say, if there ever comes a day where robots will become smart enough and advanced enough to mirror and serve humans, the world will become a very sad place.
Time of Eve presents an alternative that’s a bit more comforting, though.
There’s always two things at the top of my mind that I employ every ani-fan to do: watch Tengen Toppa, and read Planetarian. Of all things, that KN simply struck me the hardest. Gentle Jena breaks me down even today.
I have watched Wall-E, but I didn’t find myself as captured as everyone else, mainly because there was a bit of silliness and Wall-E himself wasn’t quite personified enough for me to be able to relate and feel for him like I could with Hoshino Yumemi. I’ll never forget her name, by the way. Impossible.
I don’t quite remember the ending of Wall-E though; I recall them colonizing the Earth again. Why did it irritate you?
March 3rd, 2010 at 6:30 pm
I was pretty irked by the fact that Wall-E survives in the end. I mean, they are dealing with pretty grim issues in the film, yet despite the magnitude of the ruin on earth and the inevitable ordeal to be faced by the returning humans, the audience is led to believe that a ship full of pampered pigs who have never worked a day in their lives would somehow succeed in their quest to reclaim the earth.
That much I can take, since most the of audience probably don’t want a DESPAIR ending. But when you think about it, there is a disturbing lack of a sense of consequence in the film: humans lay waste to the earth, escape to space where they live shallow but blissful lives, and eventually return to fix things and everything will be a-okay. Why bother giving a damn about humanity’s destructive habits when everything works out in the end?
Here is where Wall-E’s death comes in. He and Eva are the only characters in the entire film from whom the audience is able empathize with. In other words, they are the only pathways through which emotional response can be achieved in the audience. The “death” scene is the perfect opportunity to make the audience feel the pangs of consequence for the actions of humanity. Even if he is just a silly junk robot, his death would be a sacrifice from which the viewer would be able to extract some meaning. Yet what did they do? COMPLETELY UNDERMINE the opportunity to take the film’s message to a higher level.
There’s no question that Disney has produced a great number of classics over the years, but their insistence on sugar-coating everything really bugs me sometimes. Hell, I bet Disney would somehow make Romeo and Juliet live if they ever decide to adapt Shakespeare. LITTLE MERMAID DIES — that’s what makes the story powerful! Would it kill them to have actually have tragic, or at the very least a bittersweet ending?
A professor I once had called Disney the “Evil Empire” and Disneyland a tool of mass deception. While few people took him seriously, I’m starting to buy into the crazy old coot’s argument. Disney’s Panglossian optimism is like a drug targeted at children to make them see the world through rose-tinted goggles. However, escapism from reality can only take you so far before the road runs out.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:11 am
True, Wall-E does sort of compromise its own theme there. If you look at it that way, the film does seem ultimately pointless – But well, I think it was communicated to the kiddies nonetheless, because it was rather emotionally powerful for a kids’ movie. That’s the thing, here’s where that media concept of intended audience falls in. Wall-E dying wouldn’t be very ‘Disney-like’. The message there would be too strong – Remember the outrage of there being a penis-like gold protrusion on the Little Mermaid cover? If Wall-E died you’ll have unsatisfied people all over the place complaining about how the movie presents a bleak outlook on the future of humanity. It’d be outrageous. Even though our civilization will likely crumble like every other civilization before us, Disney’s not actually allowed to make a point of it. I don’t think Disney was seeking storytelling perfectness, but instead the perfectness of catering to the demographics and doing what’s expected of them. We would’ve enjoyed such an ending, yes, but generally I’d think it’d have an adverse effect on demographics. First and foremost, before the environmental message, Disney’s in it for commercial reasons.
When I think about it, Wall-E was clever – not the usual Disney good and evil, but a little tribute to the truisms of mankind. Disney seems to have moved with the times – a smarter audience calls for a smarter movie, something I really commend now, as compared to such stuff as Yatterman. Which one could actually call precocious as well, but for all the wrong reasons.
Sugar coating is really what Disney does; you’re right, it’s ridiculous, but people expect it from them anyways. To call it mass-deception would mean there’d be political implications; Disney is less that and more of a bona fide cash cow. People like love and cheeriness and good prevailing over evil, and thus Disney prospers. With how modern-day media perpetuates a ‘culture of fear’, with so much violence and war coverage, I don’t think many are being caught up in a fantasy utopia.
The Ariel Little Mermaid? When does she die O.O?
March 5th, 2010 at 8:01 am
Haha, I suppose it would be troublesome for parents to answer the question “Do robots go to heaven?” Still, whether it’s the fault of the audience or the fault of Disney, I wish the movie didn’t dull its critical edge — I liked the movie, but I feel it could be so much more. But you are very right: it’s not about how good the story is, bur rather about how well it would sell. This relates back to the Yatterman movie and the entertainment industry as a whole… Bah, at this rate I’ll end up ranting about capitalism, so I’ll stop there =)
And yes, the little mermaid dies in the original story — she dissolves into sea foam. This was of course absent in Disney’s version.