Harmony

In 2019, following an uprising in the USA and a subsequent global nuclear war, humanity was decimated by a catastrophe called "The Maelström." A half-century after this cataclysmic event—to preserve humankind—the World Health Organization (WHO) has progressively assimilated worldwide political power and completely redefined society: people are now considered public resources and are guaranteed a happier life. The heightened development of medicine, nanomachine technology, and augmented reality promote this greater devotion to human health.

Suffocated by the excessive kindness of Japanese society, high school student Miach Mihie decides to oppose the societal values she considers dehumanizing before the health implant surveillance system WatchMe activates itself the day she turns 18. Miach plans to kill herself with two of her friends, Tuan Kirie and Cian Reikadou. However, Cian betrays the pact in disagreement with Miach's intentions, allowing Tuan to survive her suicide attempt, unlike Miach, who is declared dead.

Thirteen years later, now a high-ranking inspector of Helix—an organization affiliated with WHO to monitor military conflicts—Tuan is sent back to Japan after her drug smuggling activities in the Niger warzone are discovered by senior Helix inspector Oscar Stauffenberg. On her first day back to the country she tried running away from, thousands of people simultaneously commit suicide. Tuan is now in charge of investigating this wave of mass suicide and exposing the terrorist organization behind the unprecedented attack.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Mihie, Miach Main

Ueda, Reina Japanese

Kirie, Tuan Main

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Stauffenberg, Oscar Supporting

Sakakibara, Yoshiko Japanese

Reikadou, Cian Supporting

Suzaki, Aya Japanese

Asaph Supporting

Ootsuka, Akio Japanese

Étaín, Gabrielle Supporting

Watanabe, Akeno Japanese

Mihie, Reiko Supporting

Mori, Chiaki Japanese

Woll, Uwe Supporting

Ono, Atsushi Japanese

Saeki, Keita Supporting

Cho Japanese

Vasilov, Elijah Supporting

Miki, Shinichiro Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Yoshizawa, Takashi Producer

Ozaki, Noriko Producer

Kurosaki, Shizuka Assistant Producer

Reviews

Feb 9, 2022

DykeViews

Recommended

If you stumbled across this looking for WLW content, just go ahead and watch it. The lesbian relationship is explicit without comphet or male pandering. No sexualization of minors -- a few flashbacks to when the main characters were in highschool, but no out-of-place fanservice. It's a jet-setting action movie with secret societies, dystopian/utopian commentary, and themes on human nature. It's an enjoyable piece to keep in your collection of WLW content that isn't slice-of-life or high-school-based. Not going to win awards on originality. It tries to do a lot, and succeeds about as much as any major blockbuster does. I'll watch again to pass ... time but not to resolve unexplained mysteries or because I was on the edge of my chair.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Oct 9, 2021

stopthisregbs

Mixed Feelings

This anime is very relevant for today in the age of global pandemic and, in my opinion, it presents a logical model for the future society, in which death would be a curable decease and, as a result, human death and potential instability from it would be the ultimate central problem of society.

The social system and technocratic centralisation envisioned would definitely not be the only way a society could organise itself based on an ultimate value and veneration of life, and the film is a bit pessimistic, focusing on risks and not the perfection - it's a shame that authors showed the future of ... not aging as a dystopia, while it definitely could be made a real utopia, if human freedoms were really respected. Such a movie would be much more beneficial and a breakthrough, even a compass for achieving a society of the future.

One more interesting theme is the the one of human self-awareness and free will, the possibility of making rational decisions without second thoughts and once again the movie is too vague and pessimistic. In my opinion, it is easy to reject the idea, which was pushed by a certain group of characters in the movie - instead of discussing their ideas, we have a fanatical cult-like group, with the movie transfroming from a general vision of dystopia to a mediocre action movie, which did not do any good.

Basically, the movie states a number of interesting problems (which is double plus good in itself), but not only offers no solutions, but not even a meaningful discussion of the topics, providing mainly emotions and action, kinda moving away from its philosophical premise. One more troubling element was the projection of a Japanese crime against humanity during WWII (the "comfort women" stations), which, as we know well, is being actively denied by many Japanese, on Russia (never massively practiced anything like that, this even forced me to do double checking on this in Wikipedia, Google and multiple history books on the history of the Caucasus for a couple of days, including openly anti-Russian literature), which came out of the blue during the movie and spoiled the impression about the movie even more. In general, if you like to think about modern and potential societal/philosophical problems, I recommend this, but keep in mind its bad/biased/fraudulent civilizational perspective 5/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Nov 4, 2017

RunningShirtGuy

Not Recommended

TRIGGER WARNING FOR HARMONY: Many suicides are shown on screen, rape is discussed in relative detail

Story (1/10): The story was comprised of the MC being info-dumped by everyone, even if the person giving the information isn't doing it out of their own interest. The story uses suicide as a plot device, pretending (at the same time) that it is both poetic, and a casual part of life. In reality, suicide is neither of those things. Harmony comments how books can cause suicide imitations if the suicide is described in detail, yet has no problem whatsoever showing full suicide scenes within the movie. Harmony's plot itself ... is also flawed, as it starts out as a utopia with problems, but it cant decide whether it wants to be Orwellian or Huxleyian. If it had chosen one (or neither) this would not be an issue, but every other scene it seems they change their mind. Harmony pretends to use philosophy as a plot device, but in actuality, it is just high-school level science. Looking at the story from a scientific lense, plot points have several plot holes, even when giving the world the benefit of the doubt. For example: "This rare recessive gene can cause the human to be born without a conscience... But then, her conscience was awakened by the horrors of Chechnya." That's just not how a conscience works.

Art (9/10): While some backgrounds weren't perfect and some faces were bland, most of the art was quite beautiful. Important sidenote: the suicides scenes had blood and LOTS of it. Do not take these warnings lightly!

Sound (7/10): Nothing to write home about, but nothing bad either.

Characters (1/10): The side characters only existed for info-dumps, and once they finished their shpiel, there were never seen again. The MC and her friends try to glorify suicide, and they are one dimensional too. Throughout the story, the MC flip-flops her ideology 3 times within a scene 4 separate times.

Enjoyment (1/10): I rolled my eyes countless times while watching Harmony, but I think you gleaned that from the rest of my review already.

Overall (2/10): The artwork was beautiful but the rest of Harmony was not, do I need to say more?


TL;DR: Do not watch this.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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	I really want someone who has read to book to explain this to me APolygons2 - Dec 15, 2022	6 replies	by JaniSIr »» Jul 16, 2:18 PM
	Poll: Harmony Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) megmica - Mar 13, 2016	103 replies	by removed-user »» Sep 3, 2023 10:35 AM
	Key Visual and Studio confirmed YoxalLoyal - Nov 27, 2014	5 replies	by SSSS_Shunaria »» Jan 19, 2016 5:49 AM
	Any Word on Release Date? removed-user - Dec 16, 2015	4 replies	by tsubasalover »» Jan 14, 2016 8:37 AM
	Trailer tsubasalover - Oct 30, 2014	26 replies	by CapedBaldy21 »» Nov 2, 2015 12:17 AM

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