Review of Sing a Bit of Harmony

(This is my 450th completed anime!) Man, who would have thought that 2022 would have two anime movies based on singing coming out in the US at the same time? The only reasons I even learned about Sing a Bit of Harmony's existence were that, 1. I lurk on Anime News Network every single day, and 2. Some idiot on the forum thread for the original announcement took issue with FUNimation co-producing it, and was like "Ewww, FUNi's co-producing it?! Anime's ruined forever! The character designs are so conservative and FUNi's obviously gonna shove their Western SJW agenda/politics into it!!"...even though the movie hadn't even comeout yet, and it barely even had a plot summary at that time. I know, right? Anyway, I found out that this, along with Mamoru Hosoda's newest movie Belle, were being screened in the US around the same time. I couldn't see Belle's English dub, as it wasn't screening in my area, and any showtimes the dub had weren't outside work hours. Sing a Bit of Harmony, on the other hand, was screening outside my work hours, and the theater it was showing in, while not too close to me, was within a reasonable distance. I wound up choosing this over Belle, because I was able to see the latter online and, in case you didn't see my review of it, well...I thought Belle was just okay. It had good ideas, but it suffered from being too ambitious and having a lot of convoluted subplots that it didn't try to resolve in a coherent manner. So...nobody's gonna lynch me if I say I think Sing a Bit of Harmony is the better film of the two, right? Don't kill me!

Long story short, I actually really liked this one. So what's the story, you might ask? In a futuristic world where robots and artificial intelligence are commonplace, a young high school girl, Satomi Amano, has resigned herself to living her life alone and friendless. Due to an incident not too long ago, the student body isn't very fond of her, and Satomi thinks it's better this way. One day, a transfer student named Shion comes into her class...and she seems to know Satomi, making it her mission to make her happy. Shion proves to be...kind of insane, preferring to loudly serenade in public like she's in a Disney musical. Satomi and a few of her classmates find out that Shion is actually an advanced AI robot made to look human, and her existence must be kept secret because she's actually a part of Satomi's mom's big project that absolutely cannot be revealed to the public yet. But that's easier said than done, considering that Shion is...well, a very chipper AI with no concept of personal boundaries or and is hilariously bad at fitting into human society.

So...to put it simply, this movie is one part very self-aware Disney musical (I'm not even kidding), one part high school story about teenagers resolving their issues, and one part sci-fi romp. Apparently, the director, Yasuhiro Yoshiura, is very fond of making sci-fi movies. I admit I'm not familiar with his body of work, but after seeing Sing a Bit of Harmony, I think I want to now, because this movie was actually a lot of fun, if rather cheesy at times. For one, I really liked the animation. Again, I'm not familiar with Yoshiura's body of work, so I can't really compare this to his other movies, but from what I did see, I thought the animation was very nice and smooth. Character movement was fluid, the world the characters lived in actually felt like a slightly more futuristic version of ours without going too over-the-top, and it really made good use of bright colors, flashy light shows, and CGI when it mattered.

When I say the movie feels like a very self-aware Disney musical, I mean it. Shion often breaks out into songs, many of which feel very, VERY cheesy, similar to stuff you'd find in Disney movies like Moana, The Little Mermaid, or, more recently, Encanto. It does help that the movie gets a lot of comedy from it, and the characters react believably to her ridiculous actions (Mainly annoyance, like any teenager would). It almost reminds me of that one movie Disney made called Enchanted, what with how Shion acts like the princess in that while everybody around her is like the New York citizens who are put off by her simplistic naivete. It does help that the movie is very aware of its cheesiness and embraces it, and even manages to get some really cute, character-driven comedy out of it at times. And need I mention the awesome soundtrack? Both the background music and the songs are absolute bangers. Also, I saw the English dub of this, and FUNimation really went all out in dubbing every single song, including the end credits! I kind of hope the eventual home video release comes with a soundtrack CD with all the dubbed songs just so I can hear Megan Shipman (voice of Shion) belting her heart out, because she absolutely NAILED all of the cheesy, Disney-style songs here.

But you can't have a movie without good characters to back it up, and I think the movie did succeed on this front, especially in regards to the main cast. All of them had good chemistry, and while anyone who's not Shion, Satomi, or Toma didn't get as much depth as they could have gotten, they fulfilled their roles nicely. I also very much appreciated that Satomi's mother got a good deal of spotlight and was able to help the kids out during the final act of the movie. Yay, responsible adults actually helping with the plot! There needs to be more of that in anime. I kind of wish Aya could have done more, though. I mean, I like the subplot she had with Gotchan and how the movie didn't try to make her out to be some cliche snooty alpha bitch character, but the later parts of the movie imply she doesn't have the best relationship with her father, but nothing is done with it beyond an easy-to-miss throwaway line that's quickly forgotten about. But I do appreciate the material she did get and how the movie executed it. But I can see people taking issues with Shion's overly cheerful, saccharine nature, even though her behavior makes sense in the context of the movie, as she's an AI with a very simplistic worldview. I actually found her just fine as a character, as I've seen other portrayals of characters like her to be far worse. I also thought Satomi as a character is fine too, and I like what they did with her here. I also love that Sing a Bit of Harmony used an in-universe Disney knock-off movie as a really important plot point.

Of course, Sing a Bit of Harmony isn't a perfect movie by any means. For one, the story is pretty predictable and cliche, especially during the high school parts, and any person who's well-versed in stories like this in any medium can see all the tropes and story beats from a mile away. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as I liked how Sing a Bit of Harmony used them here, but this movie has no intention of breaking any boundaries. Secondly, I saw this with my dad, and he liked the movie, though felt a lot of the story seemed too farfetched. I can see where he's coming from, and I can imagine others feeling the same way. I personally had no problem with it, as I felt the movie made good use of its more restrained scope and didn't try to risk being more ambitious. One thing this movie has over Belle is that Sing a Bit of Harmony knew what it wanted to be, kept its focus, and didn't try to bite off more than it could chew, whereas Belle tried to stuff too many elements into one movie and all of them came out rather half-baked as a result. However, the two movies do share one big flaw: A one-note, stereotypical villain character who's just there to be an adversary for the main characters to deal with. To be fair, Sing a Bit of Harmony's villain feels better integrated into the movie's plot, and his motives and purpose actually make some degree of sense, but my problem with him is that he reeks of "idealistic children bad, evil adult society rules!" from his character design all the way down to his dialogue. Thankfully, unlike Justin from Belle, this villain gets far less screen time and barely has much impact on the plot.

So yeah, I'm glad I got to see this. Sing a Bit of Harmony isn't going to bring the house down, but in these trying times, sweet, low-key, wholesome movies like this are a much needed balm, and this movie really appeals to my inner ten-year-old. And now I shall eagerly await the eventual home video release.