Starlight Promises
Otherwise known as Yakusoku no Nanaya Matsuri, the premise of the story revolves around the use of a phone application, Starlight Pilgrimage, that collects data of the user upon installation. When someone dear to the user passes away, the data is then used to construct a virtual representation of the dead person, which is then presented to the user when they are invited to and participate in the "Tanabata Seven Night" festival. This usually only applies when the death is within two years of the festival.
As with most ONAs of this length, there isn't much character development. However, as we delve into the past of the main characters and see how they interact with their dead friends and family, we get to see more aspects of their personalities.
The plot itself is rather predictable but it's nice that the ONA actually took the time to slowly weave in flashbacks to slowly reveal the plot and allow different aspects of the app and the constructed village to become a clearer and more concrete picture.
As expected, the reason Shouma was invited to this village was because his dear friend, Atsushi, passed away. In fact, Atsushi was also the one who asked Shouma to download this app! However, as Atsushi was adamant with hiding his incurable illness, his parting with Shouma was terrible. Thus, when news of Atsushi's death reached Shouma, he was so shocked that he locked all memories pertaining to Atsushi's death away and 'forgot' that his friend was already dead.
When he arrived at the village, he promptly meets the other two characters, Shiori and Kanna, and is invited by Kanna to help out with the festival preparations. After being promised that he'll meet Atsushi if he remains in the village, Shouma finds himself getting roped into this festival that he knows nothing much about.
Apart from being deep in the mountains, there are also castle ruins nearby the village. There is also quite a few "virtual" aspects to their clothing such as see-through garments and raiment (or Spirit Garments). While there are a lot of traditional dimensions to the festival preparations and fashion in the village, it is also clad with a lot of future technology, for instance, holograms and AI. But slowly, Shouma realizes that he doesn't have the time to be awed as he found out the true purpose of the festival.
The festival is a procedure to help those 'left behind' move on. By constructing a virtual representation of their dead loved ones, those who are 'left behind' are then able to convey their last words. While staying in the village and helping to prepare for the festival, Shouma gradually recalls that Atsushi was already dead.
However, he doesn't have much time to ponder over this as there are bugs in the system that the festival is based on. The system that designed the festival, Musuhi, functions by using data from the app to recreate personalities as virtual representations in a virtual space. By finding and correcting inconsistencies between the real person and the representation, Musuhi was able to become much more accurate. However, this ability that Musuhi honed also helped it to use information of historical figures to create a forgery of the samurai inhabiting the castle ruins near the village.
These forgeries slipped through a hole between the virtual and real world to intrude in the festival. The reason for the hole is Kanna, as she is an AI, a virtual representation without a "life log". In fact, she is a trial product that Musuhi created based on historical records.
As these forgeries come with a deep-seated hatred, they are blindly attacking the villagers as they see them as evil. Their preconception comes from historical records as their Lord was betrayed and killed, resulting in their castle being stormed and them being eventually killed. These forgeries see the villagers as the attackers.
Kanna constructs a bow and arrow for Shiori, and a sword for Shouma. These weapons are programs to destroy the original source data the forgeries are based off on. Together, they take down the Princess of the castle (the last boss) and thus are able to continue the festival.
Although Kanna fades away, due to the continuation of the festival, Shouma and Shiori are able to meet their loved ones again.
As mentioned previously, the virtual representation usually only works if the death is within two years of the festival. Atsushi passed away three years ago, but is clearly still able to be constructed by the app. This is conveniently explained by "Kanna did something about it", which I felt was not a sufficient explanation. As Shouma's case was an outlier, I wished they took the opportunity to expand on it further and gave a more concrete explanation on why Atsushi can still be constructed by the system.
I loved how this show is able to combine both futuristic and traditional aspects and bring them both to a new level of dynamism. The predictability of the events and backstory deals a small blow to the show although it doesn't take a lot away.
~ Reina-rin
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