"However, they'd be forced to for an anime feature because anime captures things we do and reflects more solid reality than how they actually are."
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya is also the tale of Isao Takahata, one of the three co-founders of Studio Ghibli who passed away in 2018. Takahata believed animation could reach certain depths of reality that live-action could not. "I don't think audiences really 'watch' live-action features carefully," he once said. "However, they'd be forced to for an anime feature because anime captures things we do and reflects more solid reality than how they actually are." This was his goal for what became his final film and speaks to the legacy he left behind at Studio Ghibli. Kaguya is based on The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, a book he read as a child about a bamboo cutter who discovers a miniature girl within a stalk of bamboo who grows to become a woman of great beauty. Takahata didn't want audiences to be distracted by a more realistic art style. He wanted them to empathize with the princess, which is something he couldn't get from the book on first reading. So, he embraced a watercolor aesthetic, one that he hoped would allow viewers to "vividly imagine or recall the reality deep within the drawings." The result is a dreamy, evocative saga of a young heroine experiencing the world. — N.R.