Sing a Bit of Harmony: AI with Heart
With half term coming to an end, we wanted to share the Showroom’s latest family offering – Yasuhiro Yoshiura’s big-hearted fantasy musical, Sing a Bit of Harmony.
Set in the not-too-distant future, where artificial intelligence and robots are commonplace in everyday life, Sing a Bit of Harmony is the latest offering from Japanese animation studio J.C. Staff and FUNimation. In this futuristic but still rural land, robots have taken on most manual tasks – maintaining homes, cleaning buildings, running transport. But the advancement of this technology has come to a grinding halt and the only way to progress seems to be by creating a sentient AI and putting it to the test.
Screening at Showroom Cinema this weekend, Sing a Bit of Harmony follows the hijinks and mishaps of this AI robot as it attempts to blend in with a group of teens by masquerading as a high school student named Shion. Shion quickly becomes popular in her new school, thanks to her kind-hearted personality and out-of-the-ordinary talents. But it doesn’t take long for the lonely Satomi – whose mother works in AI and is behind the experiment – to discover the truth about her new classmate. Not least because Shion has a habit of breaking into song at the most inconvenient of times.
Little does Satomi know, Shion has only one mission – to bring ‘happiness’! With the culture of misogyny at work meaning that her mother’s job is hanging in the balance, Satomi soon realises it’s down to her to make sure that the experiment is a success and Shion’s secret isn’t revealed.
This sweet and joyful anime film follows in the footsteps of Mamoru Hosoda’s Belle which was recently screened at the Showroom. It is full of delightful musical numbers, strikingly beautiful visuals, humour, heart, and high-concept themes about technology and its capacity for friendship. Yasuhiro Yoshiura and Ichirō Ōkouchi’s screenplay also nods to family favourites such as My Neighbor Totoro and E.T., with their story focusing on a strange new friend and the quest to keep them a secret.
Cinema can be a great way of delving into complex topics with children. In addition to its cheery musical numbers, Sing a Bit of Harmony is an excellent starting point for discussions about technology, its limitations and capabilities, as well as misogyny and sexism in an optimistic and light-hearted way.
Book tickets for Sing a Bit of Harmony here.
This article first featured in the Sheffield Telegraph on Thursday 17 February 2022.
