Story: 9 out of 10
The story itself pursues a far more unique and bold setting than your typical run of the mill anime series and anime movies as it approaches some key concepts in existential philosophy. It manages to ask all the big questions that most unversed in philosophy tend to pick up on. Such as the meaning of your own life being a common one.
It approaches these fundamental questions that get asked everyday with the WatchMe system which globalizes medicine effectively eliminating disease and aging within the networked populace. This quite easily fits into the meaning of your own life as it calls into question whether or not we value individuality where in this case we clearly don't.
The pacing of the plot is expectedly slow considering we're dealing with a movie seemingly intended to challenge our thoughts of self and society.
Art: 7 out of 10
The art style is fine but the seemingly seamless transition between drawn art to CGI really impressed me warranting at the very least a 7 as so many anime that use CGI tend to have poor transitioning. This of course making it noticeable to the viewer leaving a feeling of want.
Of course in addition to the wonderful CGI the background art is also quite spectacular with such high attention to detail and sweeping landscapes I am hard pressed enough that I don't give it a higher score just for that.
Sound: 7 out of 10
I don't generally pay attention to soundtracks most of the time and this one is really no different. The soundtrack fit the scenes like clockwork and helped to enhance the atmosphere within the movie itself but other than that the soundtrack did little to elicit any reaction from me.
The character voices are actually quite accurate to what you would expect given the character descriptions. This over the soundtrack really enhances the experience but again it simply fit just as well as the soundtrack did.
Character: 8 out of 10
There is very little in the way of character in this movie mainly because we only see the movie through the eyes of the protagonist Kirie Tuan whose character development is shown through short flashbacks to the past contrasted to what we know about the present. Kirie Tuan herself is quite intriguing because she herself has an unusual take on the utopian world once again putting existential topics to question.
Miach, Tuan's highschool friend, is another character worth noting as she serves as a key plot point for the beginning of the movie itself and acts as a foil for the utopian society that has been created.
The other characters are fleshed out to the extent that they fit in a logical and satisfying way within the story.
Enjoyment: 10 out of 10
This is where I get to persuade you to watch this movie for the philosophical concepts presented. Having watched the movie and re-read my review I will say that this movie is still loaded with existential concepts thus making it hard to pin down which philosophy it chases. However I like to think that it draws heavily from Absurdist philosophy which states that while humanity tries make sense of the universe that is impossible due to the discord between the two.
Simply put humanity strives to understand that which cannot be understood, we strive to find inherent meaning where there is none, and most importantly we fail to challenge the certainty of fundamental concepts. And in this movie these ideas are put more and more to question. What is the purpose of life, what is happiness, what is truth, what is society, the deeper it gets the more questions you have and by the end of the movie you're on a metaphysical joyride deeper into the bowels of madness.
But enough of that if you truly want to challenge your mind with some complex and possibly insane concepts then by all means watch Harmony, if you want to find something more than the common Moe and Harem crap saturating the market then by all means watch Harmony. If not tough because this anime is probably not for you.
Final Note
Don't let my lower scores for the aesthetic dissuade you I stand by my overall rating when I say that this anime is an outstanding work of philosophical exploration within 2 hours.
