ANI-MOVIES, *Sing A Bit Of Harmony

Sing A Bit Of Harmony fills in the blank that has been drastically empty for the longest time in an anime, a genuine musical! There have been a few musical anime over the last few years like Belle and The Rose Of Versailles, but most of the time those have scenes involving a band performing music such as in The Colors Within. This film however breaks the standard and gives way to authentic musical numbers here and there. Yasuhiro Yoshiura directed and co-wrote this and has been in the industry for some time, although similar to his anime Time Of Eve, this movie centers around people's symbiosis with AI, so it's a sci-fi slice of life feature with musical cuts thrown in between. Toradora animators JC Staff crafted their own unique style for it with watercolor backgrounds and some CGI modeling.

Set in a somewhat advanced future, the industrious Hoshima company is working on their latest AI program headed up by single mother Mitsuko who secretly sends her experiment to her daughter Satomi's high school in the disguise of a robot girl named Shion. This new transfer student is immediately recognized by Satomi when she's first introduced to her class as the chipper girl starts singing and asking if she's happy. Satomi manages to keep this secret less than a day when four of her other classmates discover it but promise not to reveal it to anyone. Among the number of Shion's new circle of friends, Sadayuki and Aya are dating but are having a falling out, so Shion sings a sensitive song to help bring them back together, and later on sings a peppy tune to help wannabe judo student Thunder how to finally win a match. Satomi's relationship with her fellow conspirators seems to grow as Shion's efforts bring them closer together, especially with her former childhood friend Toma who she had a parting of ways with some years ago, and Satomi's efforts to help protect Toma's clubroom from being used as a vapor joint from soccer punks gave her a bad reputation as being a tattletale which lead to her being a slight outcast by the other students. Shion's main motivation is to make Satomi happy, even though that wasn't her original programming, but the spunky AI is determined to make Satomi's life similar to that of her favorite fairy tale anime where she's a "moon princess". Shion finally arranges to have Satomi and Toma reconcile just as the goons from Hoshima abduct Shion at the end of her big number. Now, Satomi, Mitsuko, and her friends plan to free Satomi from the Hoshima complex, so the rest of the film almost becomes a heist movie with Shion's friends manage to release Shion's AI into the internet. Satomi and Toma become closer, Mitsuko keeps her job, and Shion keeps watch on her friends via satellites.

Sing A Bit Of Harmony is an unconventional musical as the actual numbers are set up by a gleeful android who has no off switch when it comes to social etiquette and just starts spontaneously singing whenever she feels like it. Having a character randomly burst into song is different from a standard musical as the entire cast is operating on the same frequency where they all start singing when the story calls for it. Shion as an uninhibited AI with its own fresh perspective of the world whereas in most sci-fi stories she would be patient zero for a robot apocalypse, however in this movie she is a free-spirited child who has been looking out for Satomi for longer than anyone else truly realizes. Yasuhiro Yoshiura upbeat perspective of mankind's relationship with technology demonstrates how the two can have a balanced accord at least in an idealistic reality. The few musical numbers by Shion are performed equally excellent by both the Japanese and English dubs actresses. JC Staff effectively combines the look of high-tech with a sleepy countryside town that makes for a visually stunning experience. This is a family-friendly anime motion picture that isn't hard to get into making it accessible to even the hardest of anime skeptics.