Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
Found inside a shining stalk of bamboo by an old bamboo cutter and his wife, a tiny girl grows rapidly into an exquisite young lady. The mysterious young princess enthrals all who encounter her. But, ultimately, she must confront her fate.
Isao Takahata's final masterwork is one of cinema's most visually singular achievements — its deliberately rough, sketch-like watercolor animation style is unlike almost anything else in the medium, making it instantly recognizable and deeply expressive. The voice performances carry enormous emotional weight, particularly the lead, conveying Kaguya's joy and anguish with devastating authenticity. The film's ending is a breathtaking, heartbreaking synthesis of Buddhist inevitability and human longing, arguably among the most affecting final sequences in animated film. Novelty is unambiguous — no other film looks, moves, or breathes quite like this. The plot, while deliberately faithful to its folkloric source, can feel episodic and occasionally passive in its middle sections, preventing it from matching the other categories — it is the one area where the classical structure limits dramatic momentum rather than elevating it.