Planetarian: Chiisana Hoshi no Yume
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- "Planetarian" redirects here; the word is also used to describe a member of the professional staff of a planetarium.
| Planetarian: Chiisana Hoshi no Yume |
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| planetarian ～ちいさなほしのゆめ～ (planetarian ～Chiisana Hoshi no Yume～) |
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| Genre | Drama, Post-apocalypic, Sci-Fi |
| Game | |
| Developer | Key |
| Publisher | Visual Art's, KineticNovel (PC) Prototype (PS2) |
| Genre | Visual novel |
| Rating | CERO: All ages (PC), A (PS2) |
| Platform | PC, PlayStation 2 |
| Released | November 29, 2004 (PC-for download) April 28, 2006 (PC-CD) August 24, 2006 (PS2) |
| Light novel | |
| Authored by | Yūichi Suzumoto |
| Artist | Eeji Komatsu |
| Publisher | Visual Art's |
| Publish date | April 28, 2006 |
| No. of volumes | 1 |
Planetarian: Chiisana Hoshi no Yume (planetarian ～ちいさなほしのゆめ～? lit. planetarian ~The Reverie of a Little Planet~), is a Japanese post-apocalyptic visual novel. It was released on the Internet in 2004 by Key, a Japanese software studio whose previous works include Kanon and Air. Unlike those two games, Planetarian did not contain adult content, and was the second of Key's products to do this, the first being Clannad. It was later re-released on April 28, 2006 on CD-ROM with full voice acting for the female lead. A limited edition version was sold for pre-orders and early buyers; in it included a 243-page book of short stories set in the world of Planetarian and some included a bonus shitajiki, or pencil board. A PlayStation 2 port published by Prototype was released on August 24, 2006.
Key defines Planetarian as a "kinetic novel", since it offers no choices or alternate endings. Instead, the player proceeds through the story solely by reading. In that sense, Planetarian, unlike Key's past works, is not a game. In addition, Planetarian is the first Key production not to use Itaru Hinoue as the artist, using Eeji Komatsu instead.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
[edit] Setting
The game is set in a post-apocalyptic world. It is said that due to the depletion of natural resources, overpopulation, and the failure of the Space Exploration Project, mankind has virtually eradicated itself through biological and nuclear warfare, turning a once prosperous civilization into complete ruin, cast in darkness and poisoned by constant rain from nuclear fallout. Thirty years later, machines manufactured during the war have taken over, continuing the bloodshed in a dystopic world, killing any remaining humans who trespass on their territory.
The main location where most of the story takes place is the fictional Flowercrest Department Store in a derelict city. It is based on the real Matsubishi Department Store of Hamamatsu, Shizuoka in Japan, though the planetarium on the rooftop is purely fictional. [1]
[edit] Characters
In the kinetic novel version, Yumemi only has voices for the beginning and ending scenes, while other characters have no voices at all.
- The junker (屑屋 Kusuya?)
- A nameless middle-aged human soldier, living the life of a "junker," scavenging useful items among the ruins to survive. He enters a derelict city searching for undamaged goods, and goes into hiding after fleeing from an encounter with mechs. Rather than retreating and resupplying himself, he heads deeper into the ruins and enters an old abandoned planetarium. Voiced by: Daisuke Ono
- Yumemi Hoshino (ほしのゆめみ Hoshino Yumemi?)
- Named Reverie Planetarium in the unofficial English patch, Yumemi is a good-natured but extremely talkative female robot attendant of an abandoned planetarium. Reverie is slightly damaged and completely unaware of the changes that have occurred in the past thirty years, as none of the facilities and databases that she connects to exist anymore. Therefore, she treats the junker like a regular guest by calling him "Okyaku-sama" (Mr. Customer), speaks of the world as it was before the war, and fails to understand any information he tells her, other than things related to her job at the planetarium. The name "Hoshino Yumemi" itself is a pun — "hoshi" means star or planetary body; "no" is a possessive particle; "yume" is a dream or a reverie; "mi" means see. Voiced by: Keiko Suzuki
- Planetarium director (館長 Kanchō?) Voiced by: Yūichi Ishiue
- Elder junker (老屑屋 Okuzuya?) Voiced by: Ryūsaku Chiziwa
[edit] Story
While dodging detection from the killer machines, the junker enters a dome to search for usable supplies. There, he meets Yumemi, who offers to show him a special commemorative projection especially reserved for the 2,500,000th customer, although he is in fact the 2,497,290th customer. Despite his aggravation with her, he agrees to attend her show. However, the projector device, "Miss Jena," has broken down and is in need of repair. Curiously, he tries to repair it himself, and in the process, understands that the planetarium is not a military building but an amusement attraction, and that his arrival is of sheer coincidence, as the place runs on an old power generator somewhere in the city still giving minimal power, which is only enough to recharge Yumemi to operate for just one week every year. After Miss Jena is repaired enough to function mechanically, Yumemi plugs herself in to start the show, and presents an amazing projection of the starry sky, something missing from the outside world because of the polluted skies. Unfortunately, the power finally goes out in the midst of the show, but Yumemi proceeds through the rest of the event with no visuals at the request of the protagonist.
Both of them eventually leave the planetarium, as Yumemi insists on escorting her customer back to his vehicle outside the city walls. It is during this time that he devises a plan to quietly transport Reverie out of the city when her battery completely runs out, and later find a way to re-activate her and obtain a portable projector so that they can travel to various refugee encampments together and show the remaining humans her presentation. When they reach the city walls, he spots a mech guarding the entrance in which he came from, and he tells Reverie to hide. Armed with only a flechette gun, he tries to take down the mech with armor piercing bullets, but is completely outmatched by the mech, breaking his right leg while evading its gunfire. Programmed with the directive to protect human life before performing all other orders, Reverie ignores the earlier request to stay hidden and dashes out to try and electronically command the mech to retreat. Before the protagonist can capitalize on the distraction and finish the mech off, Reverie is literally blown in half by its machine guns, destroying her main battery.
Irreparably damaged from the attack and being further destroyed by the toxic rain shorting her now exposed internals, she attempts one last time to send a distress call to the no longer existent planetarium database. She spends her emergency battery life replaying her pre-war memories to him using a tiny hologram projector on her ear. She visually recollects the day she was activated, cheerful experiences with past customers, and the day the entire city was evacuated as war broke out, with the other planetarium workers unwillingly leaving her behind. When the video fades, she reveals that she had known that the planetarium would never have more customers during the 30 years she was alone, despite her apparent infinite optimism up to this point. She prays to the stars and wishes to serve humans forevermore in heaven as she "dies" in front of him. To comfort her, he lies and makes up a story that he was specifically sent by her human coworkers to pull her from the city and take her to her new place of work, indirectly referring to his own earlier plans to rescue her. In her final moment, she ejects the memory card from her artificial brain for his safekeeping.
Touched and completely shaken by the loss of the beautiful world she left in his mind, he throws away his gun and puts the memory card in his coat, before wandering off with a broken leg as the fallen war mech's automated backup close in on the scene.
[edit] Media
[edit] Visual novel
Planetarian was first released via download over the Internet on November 29, 2004. The game is still available on the Kinetic Novel website for download, and costs ¥1,050 (~US$8.99 as of 2007).[2] The visual novel was later re-released playable on the PC as a CD-ROM on April 28, 2006; this release retailed for ¥2,800 (~US$23.98). The final release was on August 24, 2006 when Planetarian was ported to the PlayStation 2 by Prototype. The PS2 version retailed for ¥2,940 (~US$25.18) including tax.[3] A group of fan translators have translated the download version, as well as a free trial, into English. However, they are not planning to adapt their work for the CD version, due to excessive piracy of the download version. A Chinese fan translation is also available.
Unlike traditional visual novels, no choices are given to the player to advance the story in alternate directions, and there is only one ending possible; this is what Key referred to as a kinetic novel. The player can choose when to go to the next dialogue screen or put the game on autoplay. In this respect, the player does not play the game as if it were a video game but plays it rather more like one would play a music track on a CD or play a DVD movie. The length of Planetarian's story is shorter than typical visual novels.
[edit] Short stories
| “ | Constellations. Words. God. Robots. A collection of short stories in the key of these four themes. | ” |
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— from the frontmatter of the book
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A collection of four illustrated short stories, including a prologue and an epilogue, based on Planetarian's story were written by Japanese author Yūichi Suzumoto, and illustrated by Eeji Komatsu. The stories were bound in a 243-page book which was originally bundled with the limited edition of the CD version of Planetarian, and was included in the limited edition of the PlayStation 2 version. Two of the stories presented occur before the events of the kinetic novel, and two of them occur during its aftermath.
- Snow globe (雪圏球 (スノーグローブ)?)
This story occurs before the events of the Great War that brought the world to ruin; at this point, Reverie Planetarian has been working at the Flowercrest Department Store's rooftop planetarium for about 10 years. One day, Reverie begins to act strangely, culminating in her simply walking out and wandering around the town. All the staff of the planetarium are bewildered, and one of the workers — a woman named Satomi Kurahashi — is ordered to go follow Reverie and bring her back. Before long, Reverie begins to run out of battery power, and then...
- Jerusalem (エルサレム Ersaremu?)
This story occurs as the Great War reaches its height. The South American Unification Army receives reports of a rogue sniper operating deep in the jungles of Patagonia, and sends a platoon under the command of Master Sergeant Murdock to neutralize the threat. However, the entire platoon is killed off one by one by the sniper, until only Murdock is left. All alone, Murdock catches a glimpse of this mysterious sniper through his binoculars — and is shocked to find that he gazes upon the figure of a beautiful nun.
- Homo Planetariens (星の人 Hoshi no hito?)
This story occurs some time after the events of the kinetic novel, as the human civilizations struggle in a losing battle against the poisonous rain. Three of the last inhabitants of a nearly-abandoned underground fallout shelter — named Levi, Ruth, and Job — find a quaint old man collapsed in the snow outside the bunker. When they bring him down, they are surprised to hear the adults of the shelter calling him "Homo Planetariens". The children grow quite interested about this strange nickname, as well as the fact that they have never seen a visitor from the outside world. The old man recovers a bit, and then has the children help him in putting together a certain device. It is only after this that the story that was begun in the kinetic novel comes full circle.
- Tircis et Aminte (チルシスとアミント Chirushisu to Aminto?)
Tircis and Aminte, identical twins, study alone in a world all of their own. But then, suddenly, a thought comes to Tircis: "What am I studying for? How long will this go on?" This is the story of how the answer reveals itself to Tircis and Aminte.
[edit] Audio CDs
On August 11, 2006, during Comiket 70, the original soundtrack for Planetarian was released. Aside from the songs in the game like "Gentle Jena" and "Hoshi no Sekai ~Opening", the soundtrack included new songs such as the vocal version of "Hoshi Meguri no Uta", sung by MeLL. A majority of the soundrack was composed or rearranged by Magome Togoshi, who was famous for his work on Key's previous game, Air. The musical tracks played at the beginning and the end of the game (track one and eight in the original soundtrack) are rearrangements of the hymn "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" by Charles Crozat Converse, and their titles reflect this as well: "Hoshi no Sekai ~Opening" refers to the Japanese version of the hymn, named "Hoshinoyo", and "Itsukushimi Fukaki" is the Japanese translation of the the hymn's original title.
A drama CD entiteld Drama CD Planetarian a snow globe was released on December 29, 2006. As its name suggests, the CD covers the "Snow globe" story from the limited edition book.
[edit] References
- ^ 「にゃ～こ」Planetarian～ちいさなほしのゆめ～レポート (Japanese). Retrieved on 2007-02-27.
- ^ Kinetic Novel website. Retrieved on 2007-01-09.
- ^ Amazon.co.jp on the PS2 game (Japanese). Retrieved on 2007-03-17.
[edit] External links
- Key's planetarian page (Japanese)
- KineticNovel's planetarian page (Japanese)
- Prototype's PS2 planetarian page (Japanese)
| Kanon | Anime episodes | Characters | Soundtracks |
|---|---|
| Air | Anime | Characters | Movie | Soundtracks |
| Clannad | Nagisa Furukawa | Soundtracks |
| Other games | Planetarian (Albums) | Tomoyo After (Soundtracks) | Little Busters! |
| Pre-Key games | Dōsei | Moon. | One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e |
| Related | Key Sounds Label | KineticNovel | Tactics | Visual Art's |
