htoL#NiQ

htoL#NiQ The Firefly Dairy is a Japanese game from 2016, a cute but brutal platformer with unusual controls: you don't control the character, you only control the fireflies and the character follows. Making sense of Japanese stories is... well... I wouldn't say a useless activity to engage in, but definitely ungratifying in the sense that you likely will never know what it is truly about.

So many things about this game were lost to translation, it wasn't very popular outside of Japan mainly due to bad Steam port. Many promotional materials just didn't exist in English at all. Now it just sits there forgotten, and if on sale, you cant get it for as low as $1. I've played it for nearly 20 hours to get all the achievements, due to how brutally difficult it sometimes is, and some sequences are merely impassable without cheating due to being locked to 30fps (porting issue).

I picked up the scraps of the info about the story that I could find on Steam forums, and came up with my own rather unexpected interpretation. This was my first «story explained» video. The video is attached at the end, and here is transcript of the part where I talk.

htoL#NiQ on Steam

Literal story

The first thing you need to understand the story is what its title actually means. In original Japanese, it is the Firefly Diary and then distorted writing of the same words, the Firefly Diary. Basically it means the reality along with the distortion of the reality. In English they decided to go with what looks like broken symbol code to convey this idea of glitching.

In Japan they had additional promotional materials which helped to make sense of the story but nothing is available in English unless you dig for it in the game forums. I first rewatched all the memories and key parts to make up my own theory and only then I went to read all of those.

The first thing I figured is whatever is happening, it's thousands of years in the future from the original events. In the memories we see an untouched lab but in the game we see a huge tree growing out of it.

Second thing is Mion's parents. Obviously, the mother was dealing with robotics and the father with bioengineering. And my thoughts were that they decided to experiment on their own daughter. They have implanted her with a seed that grew in her head. It must be what will hold her memory later, a vessel for her soul.

There's obviously a war in the world, and one day it reaches Mon's room, killing her. Her soul survives but is now inside the plant locked out of any ability to communicate and can only helplessly watch as her parents keep on creating numerous clones of herself.

Possibly we are seeds from their original plant. These copies are first less viable and then more viable until they reach a good enough version. My theory here is that these bodies are plantlike. So basically a fusion of human and the plant grown from the seeds of the original plant that was in Mion's head and then on the table in one of the memories. And those horns on clone's head are like tree branches.

Many people seem to agree that the real soul of the girl must be filled with envy and hatred. At that point she feels like she's been replaced and truly hates the cloned version of herself. That is why it is shown as a black shadow and that it is Mion herself killing the parents and possibly her own clone for the first time. She keeps trying to eradicate the other clones too, but they keep on multiplying instead. At the moment of what looks like the death of parents, we see that the mother turns into a light firefly and the father into a shadow firefly before disappearing.

When the reality is restored, we see only trails of blood and the clone lying lifeless on the floor. So it could be that the parents had similar safety procedure for their own consciousness to be stored somewhere and that consciousness takes the form of fireflies that keep guiding the cloned versions of their daughter. If everything is a simulation, then they are just programs inside the simulation.

If we were getting every memory on every stage we played without missing and backtracking, the memory with the key would be the one we'd get after the first ending. I suppose this is how the narrative of the game is designed to be experienced. And that very first ending indeed looks like continuation of the 12th memory, but now from the point of view of the clone. Also it is some sort of an infinite loop situation since the clone then falls into a pit which brings her to what looks like the beginning of the game. It is possible she was asleep there for thousands of years. Everything may be just a training facility for the clones with the final 4th boss being the cognitive test designed by Mion's parents.

But in the final ending, the clone faces the soul of real Meon which has been stored within the seed or within the lab in a simulation. Guided by the fireflies to die, the clone surrenders her body to real Mion, but the clone's essence survives and she's bound to the tree that could have grown out of the same seed that birthed her. Parents are terrified and they turn themselves into portals to summon hordes of shadow creatures trying to destroy that tree.

If the clone Mion is successful, then the parents in the shapes of fireflies die for good. At that moment, the tree destroys the container and the seed inside of it blossoms explosively. Two trees grow together as one. And as original Mion's soul mourns the loss of body once again, she's comforted by clone Mion and together they move on.

That seems to be the factual part of the story. But some things didn't sit right with me. First, this ominous and violent scene of parents seemingly killing Mion, that you get after the third boss. It's very short in the game, almost unnoticeable. But let me slow this down for you. You can definitely see that the parents are indeed those shadow bosses from the stage 4.

Another rather dark scene is how numerous the clones are in the parents' lab and how they just lie there on the floor like some sort of discarded trash. Clones are not trash. They still bear the image of their beloved daughter. If that love was indeed there, I'd expect them to be treated with more care and compassion, not like it is shown.

And finally, the general vibe of cruelty and inhumanity of this potential testing program and all the obstacles that you have to go through making the game so brutally hard with so many deaths throughout the gameplay to convey the message that these are just clones. They do not matter. They have no worth. So that made me think, what could be the symbolic meaning of the story? The story that disguises itself as a touching story about parental love and protection. But then turns upside down with those protecting and guiding you, now killing you for they never saw you as anything more than a mere vessel. And then I got my own interpretation which I found rather surprising. So hear me out.

Symbolic interpretation

I believe Fireflies Diary is a coming of age story portrayed via symbolic means. It tells what it is like to grow up with extremely demanding Asian parents who won't stop at any means to make their child perfect. You must have seen those videos with toddlers performing acrobatics and preschoolers playing piano flawlessly. Those kids have no childhood whatsoever.

That seed which is put in Mon's head by her parents is a seed of feeling of worthlessness that you are nothing unless you do what we tell you and achieve those unattainable goals. Mion dying may be a symbolic representation of self harm attempt, may or may not be, but regardless that is a turning point when the child starts dissociating with their own body and their own personality. That's why she's shown being outside, not able to interact with the world. Her true essence is disconnected. And since then, she behaves like an empty shell, doing everything she can to please the parents and become absolutely perfect, just how they want her to be.

I interpret the part about multiple clones here as constantly comparing yourself to another versions of yourself, trying to be better and surpass those imaginary versions. The Mion we play as through the game has no agency of her own. Literally, she only follows the fireflies. She only goes where she's guided to go with perfect obedience unless she's infected with mushroom. But still, she does her best to follow even if being confused with directions.

The promo videos for the game feature voices that tell something like, «I will do anything to help you get out of here.» And parents surely have a good motivation to treat their child that way. They want her to achieve a better life, the life they didn't get. But the darker part of this kind of parental love is depriving the child of being a child. Maybe she just wants to play with her toys and her dog. and instead she's forced to work on perfecting herself in every way possible, helping out in the lab and with the expectation to continue the research for them.

But in the end, that seed of self-worthlessness originally implanted into her, sprouts into something new, into resilience, into her own character, into her own new personality, and maybe some sort of rebellion. But here, I'm not sure if I can attribute Christian horns and devil's symbolism to a Japanese story. Maybe it's more like the firmness and resilience of tree branches instead, which can bend but do not break easily.

Note that the 3rd boss, that thing that feeds on clone bodies, is located right under the lab and the tree. So, it's infecting its roots, the core of Mion's personality, where her resilience grows from. I believe this monster stands for the toxicity of the original seed planted into her mind. As Mion learns to accept herself and stop comparing herself with imaginary better versions, and there are no more clones for the monster to feed on, it just withers away.

Also note that this sequence is preceded by a big shadow monster which kills everything it touches and that may be a symbol of depression. Being depressed due to your own true needs never recognized and feeling worthless all the time. And after the 4th boss, after the final cognitive test, when Mion is deemed finally perfect enough, what the shadows of parents try to do is to remove that part of herself, to tear away the horns, that symbol of her newly grown personality, but this time it backfires, killing them instead. I believe that moment may stand for growing up and going no contact with your abusive family or even darker snapping and actually trying to harm them.

Regardless, fireflies would stand for the idea of parents that still persists in your mind. Where love and protection needs to be deserved and not given out freely just because you are there. Even though the parents may be gone from your life either way, you still can't relax and make yourself run through hoops to improve yourself constantly, trying to deserve what you should have been given just because you were born. And you are never at rest. You are never content. You're always feeling guilty and unworthy.

I believe the final true ending is symbolic for making peace with yourself. As a shadow of true Mion emerges from the computer, and the fireflies which were guiding you and protecting you, so you thought, are now killing you for her to enter your lifeless body. Then you become aware of their ultimate betrayal. That they never saw you as you, a person, but some sort of a perfect image stored in a computer that may be thousands of years old at that moment. A moment of insight, becoming aware of all the violence inflicted upon you. And that you continued doing it to yourself long after they were gone because you never knew better.

And this is where your new healed grown-up self arises in the shape of horned Mion. And this time she's not guided by any external light. She's herself both a light firefly and a shadow firefly. And you get to play as the character finally not as something else guiding the character. It symbolizes stopping to look for unattainable external validation but loving and accepting yourself instead. Finally having your own agency.

You go on and protect your own independent life and your own choices symbolically represented by the tree, while parents keep summoning more and more painful shadows of the past trying to eat away your core. Look, look how you glitch when the monsters eat the tree. They want your own personality gone. And if you succeed protecting and healing yourself, all the painful shadows of the past are gone. And all you have left is to acknowledge and comfort the crying inner child who has never had a true happy childhood.

Complete and content as a person, you embrace your inner child. And your inner child embraces that love we seek is the love we find within ourselves. Together both Mions go on with their adult life blossoming into a beautiful tree bearing numerous fruits. So yeah, a happy end.

Maybe I'm completely wrong though. After all, the achievement for getting this ending is Mion's punishment, not Mion's redemption or whatever. But maybe the real achievement name was lost in translation. And maybe my mind is too dark and twisted, more so than the game. Which is indeed a game about parental love and care in post-apocalyptic world. You know, those get dark, and maybe that love is the only guiding light that you have.

Well, anyone can judge that for themselves. But I like my own interpretation because it has hope and promise of a better tomorrow and that's the most important thing. And that interpretation somewhat neutralizes all the blood and gore I had to endure while playing it.

Thank you for reading. Please comment the video on YouTube with what you think if you've played this game.