I turn 26 in one month. Ten years ago, I had a dream. I was going to become a biomedical engineer and cure as many cancer variants as I could. I dropped out of college and didn't even make it out the gate.
It's a common occurrence to give up on your dreams and idealism as you age. I thought I could take on the world and make a major difference in people's lives. Unfortunately, life happened and beat me down. Despite that so-called real world experience, I still haven't given up on idealism. Some people call it naivete, but I hate that term. I hate it because it's used to dismiss and belittle people like me who have faith in humanity and individual humans being good people worthy of kindness and support. It's extremely misanthropic. It makes us become individualistic, selfish creatures that don't care about and support one another. In Judaism, we have a core belief of fighting for human rights and justice, and I take it a step further by fighting for human happiness. The world is not an irredeemable place, and HaShem has made every single one of us worthy of grace.
Yasuhiro Yoshiura directed my previous all-time favorite anime film, Time of Eve. His approach to humanity's future and potential is something that spoke to me on a deep level. A lot of media portrays artificial intelligence as an existential threat to humanity's very survival. I've seen far too many robot uprising films to count, and I don't appreciate them. AI can let humanity have untold potential and fearing it greatly hinders us as a species.
Yasuhiro sees AI as a benefit for humanity, and this is impeccably beautifully captured in Sing a Bit of Harmony. The sense of wonder and care that Satomi and her friends show to Shion despite knowing that she's an AI is a perspective I love and wish was shown more in media. The fear that people my age and older have of things that are different is so depressing. I relate hard to Saijou, someone far older than me that hasn't given up trying to benefit humanity. People say that a sense of wonder and drive like hers is childlike, but that's just a lie told to us by a capitalist society that wants to suppress truly revolutionary idealism. We can be so much better.
Shion is the character I can understand most in Sing a Bit of Harmony. I'm autistic. I work as a computer hacker for a consulting firm. I usually jack into my laptop when hacking and tune out everyone else. When I interact with clients, or my coworkers, I get an uncanny valley feeling. I also get it going to bars, clubs, concerts, poker rooms, or wherever else I go to. The feeling is like, everyone around me looks like me, but I don't look like them. I don't act like them. My brain is wired differently. I frequently don't feel human in their sense, and that's why Shion is my favorite character. Even if she looks human but isn't, she wants to make people happy. She loves people in her own way, even though she doesn't understand the emotions of people, especially those closest to her. It could be argued that she only does this because she's programmed to, but I see her as an entity that represents the best of humanity. At the end of the day, we both love humanity and want them to be happy, even if people would get frustrated with us and call us naive.
I only got a chance to watch the English dub, but I loved Shion's songs and VA. The music to me was a lot more impactful and meaningful than an anime that recently got released in the US, Mamoru Hosoda's Belle. The visuals were pretty and I found myself very awestruck at some of the scenes. I know that people argue that it's cliche, and while that is somewhat true, it doesn't diminish the impact the film had on me. I love a story where I can remember what it was like to be super idealistic and double my efforts to better all of humanity.
Thank you, Yasuhiro Yoshiura, for this underrated masterpiece.
