Ar Tonelico - EXEC_DISHADOW_includes.Ex_VANISLAND // Reaction & Analysis
Added 2025-11-27 06:17:46 +0000 UTC
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Lore dump incoming and I apologize for its length, as its difficult to explain things concisely with this world: I'll start off by explaining that this is a song from Ar Tonelico, which is different from Ar nosurge (Which have been nearly all the EXA_PICO songs). Ar tonelico takes place in a a post apocalyptic world where humanity survives in and around massive towers rising above a destroyed, uninhabitable surface, and are essentially massive computers that process songs and turn them into magic. This song is indeed sung by two different characters, "Mir" (Pessimist) and "Shurelia" (Optimist) The first game takes place in and around one of the towers, the main overarching conflict is that a particularly strong "Reyvateil" (The people who can use song magic) named "Mir" caused a big war, and destroyed half of the floating continent that people lived on. She was then imprisoned, and during the first game, finds ways to attack the tower from the prison. The war that Mir started was due to a deep seeded hatred towards humans (She was treated VERY badly by them), and basically wanted to create a supremacist society of "Reyvateils" and enslave all of humanity. In contrast, we have the tower's "Administrator", Shurelia. She is the optimistic voice in this song. Tower administrators are still considered "Reyvateils", but are a special synthetic version that are thousands of years old, and essentially have complete control and agency over the tower. If the administrator sleeps, the tower sleeps, etc. Her view of humans was very different. She loved them unconditionally. As you can imagine, these two characters are greatly involved with each other during the first game, as basically main heroine vs main villain. This song takes place just after the events of Ar Tonelico II. In the second game, Mir is actually a heroine instead of a villain, and you get to see her develop a personality that is accepting of humans, at the end of the game, she returns to the first tower, where both Shurelia and Mir sing this song, and has the effect of surfacing any remaining negative emotions towards humans and converting it into love for the world. As for the song itself, it is a Dual song, which means it always starts with a protocol exchange. You can see this when there is no instruments playing, during the starting A Capella, they both declare their "Identifying Hymm Codes", and Shurelia opens all system permissions. ("chmod b111111111/n" = All Permissions granted). The naming convention "EXEC_DISHADOW_includes.Ex_VANISLAND" means "Execute the song DISHADOW, targeting the song VANISLAND". VANISLAND is a song that Mir sings in the middle of the whole process. VANISLAND represents Mir's last remaining vestiges of negative emotions towards humans, and the purpose of DISHADOW is to change that song into a song about loving the world. So essentially, we start with "Protocol Exchange" -> Start "DISHADOW" -> "VANISLAND I hate the world edition" -> "VANISLAND I love the world edition" -> "DISHADOW" resolution. Finally, this song wasn't in the game. This is from the "Krut Hymneth" Album, which are songs that the music director decided to make due to fan demand, related to canon events that are known to have happened but were never shown in game. Sorry for the big essay lol. I hope you found both this and the song interesting at least. Thanks for fulfilling my request! PS: Please feel free to check this alternate lyrics video of the song, it has imagery of the characters, but has a way more "Literal" translation of the hymmnos, which likely wont make as much sense. https://youtu.be/0Q3dG9Bj7ds
Z
2025-11-27 14:19:39 +0000 UTCWatching you doing a directors commentary of you watching your own video was pure comedy
Z
2025-11-27 13:44:01 +0000 UTC
