Ai no Utagoe wo Kikasete

Satomi Amano is a model student as well as the daughter of the leading project manager of Hoshima, a company that has revolutionized AI technology. However, due to her standing, Satomi's presence has isolated her from her classmates—an obstacle she knows she may never overcome.

On an otherwise uneventful day, while preparing for school, Satomi uncovers her mother's latest exciting proposition: an AI that will prove whether robots can live alongside humans. Intrigued by how her mother will commence the project, Satomi makes her way to school, but standing in front of the class is none other than the AI herself.

As the subject of research, Shion Ashimori is tasked to fit in like a normal teenage girl without exposing her true identity. However, Shion has another goal in mind—to make Satomi happy instead. With her talent for singing, Shion strives to compose harmonious melodies that not only connect her with her newfound friends but also dispel the dissonance within Satomi's heart.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Ashimori, Shion Main

Tsuchiya, Tao Japanese

Amano, Satomi Main

Fukuhara, Haruka Japanese

Suzaki, Touma Main

Endou, Asuka Japanese

Sugiyama, Kouichirou Supporting

Hino, Satoshi Japanese

Satou, Aya Supporting

Komatsu, Mikako Japanese

Gotou, Sadayuki Supporting

Okitsu, Kazuyuki Japanese

Kaichou Supporting

Horiuchi, Kenyuu Japanese

Nomiyama Supporting

Hamada, Kenji Japanese

Saijou Supporting

Tsuda, Kenjirou Japanese

Amano, Mitsuko Supporting

Ohara, Sayaka Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Iizuka, Toshio Producer

Matsuo, Kousuke Producer

Herek, Samantha Assistant Producer

Reviews

Nov 11, 2021

Kenji888

Recommended

This movie is a story of youth set in high school.
They spend high school life with human-like robots.
The hero can remind the robot of the importance of friends and important memories.
The robot always asks the hero like this.
"Are you happy now?"
In this movie, robots sing like musicals in some places.
It's like a Disney movie, but it naturally blends into the story.
There is no gorgeous production in this movie, but it gives a moving story such as people's happiness and friends.
It's not a big hit at the moment, but it's a very good movie.

Zion's voice actor is not a full-time voice actor, but I think her ... acting and singing in this movie is wonderful.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Apr 17, 2022

Domsa

Mixed Feelings

So... I did not expect this, but I didn't like Sing a Bit of Harmony as much as I've wanted to. Even now, I consider Time of Eve to be a quintessential cosy Sci-Fi and one of the better examples of playing with AI-related ideas (even transhumanist ones to some extent) in the medium. Harmonie and Aquatic Language were also really nice. And I tend to overrate everything slightly musical in nature too. Everything was looking favourable at first. Heck, if I were to compile my 10 favourite movies in a top, more than half would be musicals. But the main difference between those and ... our culprit is the fact that the formers couldn't be summed up by a reductionist as *drum roll, please*

'Platitudes: The Almost-Musical'

West Side Story was innovative, equally actual from a political POV today as it was back then, thought-provoking even, for it is not a simple LEFT good, RIGHT bad. La La Land's cinematography was on point, the songs were memorable and I still listen to them even now, almost 6 years later. And it had Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in there. Moulin Rouge? I remember it being the first movie that made me feel really emotional and it's 10 times cheesier, dumber and less natural when it comes to human interactions. But I don't hate it either. It's cute, it's nice, it's an adventure about a singing robot-waifu making friends with your average group of high-schoolers. It's not a bad movie by any means. Actually all of them had great music, besides Sing a Bit of Harmony.

Having given those 3 examples, I feel like I have created some sort of pattern for what makes a good musical in my book. I feel like this movie fails in these aspects. The message, despite being quite morally-heavy, is not that interesting and neither is it thought-provoking, for it doesn't bring anything new regarding the topic. However, I'll be fair: It's a nice message and raising awareness about the corporate-AI relationship won't get old anytime soon. It might also be someone else's first contact with the idea and it might change his life completely. Who knows? So... Let's say this part is serviceable.

Next, the songs. I'm sorry, but this is nowhere near Belle even, which has aired recently. I have watched it twice already and I don't think there has been a single song that managed to escape the 'generic musical' mould you'd see in a middle school recital. I get it, it's supposed to be about high schoolers so it's fitting, but I genuinely don't care. Anthem of the Heart was in exactly the same spot, yet I really liked its songs, I found them memorable - here only the martial arts sequence one was quite close; actually that was one of the best scenes in this movie and it also had a nice transition thrown in there. It has plenty of energy, it is vibrant, it was a great hook for me, even 40 mins into the movie. But everything was sort of thrown away when we switched to the next scene. The voice acting is nice and the sound design is not lacking in any aspects, but if a musical fails to deliver on songs, I'm not gonna be the biggest fan. This is, by far, my biggest issue with this movie. I mean.. I'd even go as far as claiming that I like Annie get your gun more just because it had a really, REALLY good song, in spite of the ideological garbage that that movie is.

How about the cinematography? Don't get me wrong. It looks good overall, the animation is solid and there are some nice catches here and there, but they are few and far between. Dune was good because it was very orange. Zhang Yimou's movies are good because they are very red and so on (obviously kidding). But this movie was neither orange, nor red. Heck, Belle played a lot with the shots, it made great use of stills and close-ups, of long-shots, of everything. They were a part of the story. This one's most memorable cinematographic achievement was the fact that the videocalls were low quality and pixelated. Just like in real life. The future is grim. It doesn't matter if we have AI close to passing the Turing or the Coffee test, we will still have shitty internet connection and FHD-only videocalls. A point could also be made in favour of blue in some sequences, but when the scene switches, the emotion meant to be felt remains the same, yet you have a vividly-coloured, unfiltered shot, I don't think the point stands.

Lastly... emotion. In essence, the first half of the movie is a human drama involving a group of high-schoolers. Great. It's just like Hibike Euphonium and I can't watch Hibike without bawling my eyes out every few eps. The main difference is that this one lacks the solid cast of characters and that affects the world in itself. You'll say 'but this is limited by its run time, you dummy'. Moulin Rouge is equally limited and it is a very simple story. Yet it makes an over-the-top setup presented in a similar way feel more tangible than a simple, every day one most of us have been a part of: high-school. A human drama is at its best when we can believe in the world and characters. It relies on keeping you high-key engaged emotionally or at least mentally. If a movie or a series lacks a hook and you never become truly engaged in the first place, it will be hard to fully appreciate it. Satine has this allure to her, she's very charismatic and you can understand everyone's obsession with her. It's easy to get charmed by a courtesan and that role fits Nicole Kidman like a glove. It all boils down to the fact that I couldn't care about what happened, and probably didn't like the movie that much overall because no matter how nice a world you build, I'd dock a few points if the inhabitants are uninteresting. And it's not all about charisma or the like. You can have a more 'supportive' personality steal the show like Kumiko in Hibike. I couldn't find an anchor - someone to care about. The interactions between said characters have much more depth than your average romcom tou (not to diminish the latter's value) and I appreciate that, but does that really matter if you don't care about the ones interacting? That would work for me in a non-character-driven drama where the story is top-notch or the world is very interesting in itself. I'm sure that I would have liked it so much more if there was at least one character I'd root for.

In spite of my random rambling, I don't hate it. I do, in fact, sort of like it. It is also a movie about a group of friends, one which happens to contain a not-so-sentient AI (more of them?). It's a pretty good human drama at times... and then the police gets involved and THEY'VE GOT A MOPED INSIDE THE BUILDING and the battery's dead. Timeout. A confession, which becomes one of the funniest scenes from the movie for some reason, being a prime example of the limitations Boolean logic suffers from. And then every AI around suddenly understands what's happened to one of their own and they decide to switch sides. It's The Terminator all over again, but with dance and music. And laser beams.

You get the point, it's a fun movie. But it fails as a musical in my book. And it also doesn't have either Ryan Gosling or Emma Stone in it. 6 out of OH YES OH YES OH YES WE BOTH OH YES WE BOTH OH YES WE BOTH REACHED FOR THE GUN THE GUN THE GUN THE GUN OH YES WE BOTH REACHED FOR THE GUN, a pretty good movie, but a pretty bad musical. Of course, if you take it as satire, it's another story. But you need to understand what makes a good musical in order to satirize it. If you don't, all you end up with is a pointless parody that should at least be funny.

Edit: was a 5 because I cannot count anything that goes beyond 1 hand, it gets complicated :V The individual scores given to each aspect reflected something else.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jan 1, 2025

Gsarthotegga

Not Recommended

The director and creator of Sing a Bit of Harmony and Time of Eve is proficient at what he does, but his past forays into AI/android-based sci-fi had more depth and inventiveness, even when I wasn't sold on his vision of the future. This new film is more along the lines of the typical blockbuster, meaning there is a little bit of everything in the family friendly sphere of fiction: coming of age, sci-fi concept and theme, romance, action, comedy, social commentary (gag), etc.

I might as well not even write about android-raising simulators, as I've said just about all there is to say across ... a wide-range of notes, for they can only be about two things if you're making a humanoid android: 1) labor and household chores. 2) sex. Well... there's also 3) pretending to be human, which would have applications for espionage, surveillance, or a goofy comedy premise, as we have here, though it turns to tedious drama before long. This world has sexless, creepy androids everywhere, and while the most degenerate fetishist might derive some pleasure from such things (hello, man who was arrested for having sex with a helicopter), those are functional and meant for completing rote tasks. But, let's face it, there's only one reason to make them cute. The director presumably found the sexual tension too high in Time of Eve, so he made the main a busybody FMC with a bad haircut and a Disney Moon Princess obsession, though there are a few curious males sniffing around as well.

The FMC's single mother girlboss is competing in a, as her daughter states, "patriarchal company," where you can tell the director is trying hard to get you to sympathize with mommy and tying together technological progress and political issues, with mommy being removed from her position indicating a "regression in AI research." I simply couldn't care less about this plot point and already felt like I was being spoonfed a Netflix film. The daughter is adamant about making whatever excuse necessary to deflect any possible inkling of incompetence on the part of mommy in relation to the AI project; although it's because mommy is family, there's the subtextual element of female integration and dominance in the work place. Mommy's boss is introduced with bad guy music, mannerisms to match the hammed-up portrayal, and a conspiracy soon develops to put mommy in her place. There's even a scene noting that mommy is neglecting her child in favor of her career. Get back in the kitchen, and you should be ashamed that your daughter grew fat on toxic baby formula instead of your teat. The five-year-old Touma, goofing off on a Tamagotchi, was more important to the plot than you'll ever be. Hilariously, it can be argued that the parents probably caused much of the FMC's dysfunction, but all is well in the end because of the healing power of the AI that mommy had a hand in developing. Thanks, mommy! What really annoys me about this is that if Satomi's father were the AI scientist here, then they wouldn't be able to use the "sexism" plot point, and we'd instead have to focus on a philosophical difference between the "noble scientist" and the corporate side of the industry and their stooges, which is far more meaningful and pertinent to the subject of AI. The writer could have just as easily written it with this focus for the mother and made an attempt to present her sacrifice as being of such great importance that it was worth neglecting her daughter over (it's really hard to make this part palatable), without making excuses for her. However, the only way this would work is if you had more pronounced philosophical distinctions. It's not that this needs to be an overwhelming part of the story that overshadows Satomi, her friends, and the AI, but it should at least be in the backdrop more than it is. I keep thinking this story would be a lot more meaningful if it had a touch of the debate found in something like Crichton's Jurassic Park novel about science but revised and updated for AI.

The characters are archetypal and cliche, and the dynamics are forced, with all the right (or wrong) moments padded with chintzy music. The cast is stale and not written in a way to even partially transcend their stock roots: the computer nerd, generic FMC, athlete, popular girl, handsome guy, etc. I can't remember most of their names, and they're forgettable as characters. About the only thing this ironically dated coming of age offers is moe and technical polish, for the android is a cute, unpredictable bundle of energy, with highly expressive animation and the perfect touch of wacky uncanny valley for fetish fuel.

Similar to ToE, this is another techno-optimist sci-fi film meant to present what could easily be rendered as a dystopia but slaps on a soft-focus sheen: robots that look like crash test dummies everywhere, performing the tasks most would rather avoid; AI is integrated into virtually everything, making everything convenient and easy; everything is surveilled to make sure you're nice instead of naughty. Admittedly, Japan would have an easier time presenting a clean, hopeful setup like this, whereas the U.S. would quickly become more of a dystopic hellscape than it already is. Nevertheless, Yoshiura is only interested in looking at the positives of this tech, which leaves his film feeling like nothing but a quirky comedy about an uptight girl who wants to make friends, and gosh darn it, mommy's sexy female android will make it happen, one awkward scene after another!

One must ask who thought this android was ready to blend in as a human at school and fool anyone. She's off the charts on autism, physically stronger than humans, stands out in every way, and bursts into song and dance at random to bluntly state the concerns and emotions of the characters, emphasizing the power of tech for fostering and maintaining connections, even if it's the opposite that has typically happened, whether we're looking at Japan or elsewhere; this quirk is sort of hilarious at first, but quickly becomes absolutely nauseating, especially during the solar panel/wind farm light show, where the entire cast act like they're at a Disney karaoke club, producing maximalist barf fuel. The AI doesn't even wear the proper school uniform, opting instead for a super-kawaii shirt with buttons! Somehow her handlers don't realize this mischief, as she works in tandem with other AIs and humans in zany hijinks. The funny thing is that the AI has the awareness to figure out how to cover her tracks at school expertly (when it comes to her handlers, anyway), but she's oblivious to it being a bad idea to hack the entire power grid for a laser light show and inspirational idol pop dance session.

For the second half, the pacing slows down, and the script enters the pensive piano drama realm, becoming whiny, boring, and entirely predictable, as idealistic high schoolers and mommy rise up against adults in three-piece suits at the AI corporation. The director returns to his thematic roots a bit, as the company was acting against regulations, the FMC declares that the AI "is not an object," there's a question of AIs being infected, consciousness, etc. The director implies that because AI can appear to approximate human behavior, then it is nearly inseparable or should at least be given similar freedom and rights and should not be thought of as a tool, in spite of why AI or androids would be created in the first place.

The way the film integrates the backstory of the AI in the second half adds a stronger emotional impact, but, for everything done well during this segment, there always seems to be something done poorly, so the experience never rises above mediocrity; one of the best (worst?) examples is how there is always a crappy Disney princess CGI video playing in a corner window for any scenes from the AI's perspective, which is one of the tackiest things I've ever seen, trying to generate emotion and falling back on ready-made corpo-crap. It reminded me of 86 in tone, when the machine goes through its vast data stores and relives the memories of the cast and those who had long since died, only the intent is different and pertains more to machine learning and sentimental persistence, as the roots of what turns out to be a rogue and well-meaning AI are crafted from the "pure intentions" of a child before there could be any chance of the little tyke being "corrupted" by society or some such pablum, so the film is naively Rousseaun in that sense. The worst is when they start insisting Shion was perhaps "more human" than they thought, her desire to make people happy couldn't have been an order, and must have "come from her heart." Please stop this syrupy nonsense.

It's probably the most positive portrayal out there of what could easily be a dystopia, for the loving, most pure of AIs is following Satomi around as if it were her guardian angel, and the staff do a fantastic job of selling this with the abstract depiction of a network, the AI zipping from one camera to the next, thinking only of how it could fulfill its role to make Satomi happy; sure, you might get swept up in the emotion, but, in the back of my mind, I think of who controls these apparatuses and an inversion of the sweet Shion. AI can be used for good or bad intentions, but the film confronts this reality in a childish manner, despite semi-realism. We're treated to an optimism so thick that deus ex machinas are popping up all over the place toward the end, like singing to restore wiped data or the other outdated AIs having "evolved" to assist everyone and being "good."

Yes, Yoshiura, we get it. The dull-as-cardboard character "Thunder," who is the rock-for-brains judo practitioner, is clearly a stand-in for you, because he asks out the AI with a blush and a stammer. All of your work is about sexy female androids and AI. In ToE, the whole setup was basically there for sexual tension to develop between humans and androids, with his dream scenario of being a high schooler who has a sexy female android fetching him tea but finding himself in the awkward situation of his parents and sister being around so he must abstain from having sex with it. You were so embarrassed by this insight into your life that you instead used an FMC to uproot the sexual tension (tbh, I'd probably give this anime 6/10 if there were a male protagonist, as it's indecent to star an FMC in a sexy female android film and make me power through the female empowerment plot point sludge), but I know you have a fetish for this. You don't want anyone to get in the way of your sexy female android incel revolution, except you want to liberalize it, making your AI girlfriend free to leave you and take the house and all twelve cats. Just admit it already.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Ai no Utagoe wo Kikasete Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) William03 - Nov 20, 2021	63 replies	by GreatAide »» Jan 2, 7:37 PM
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