Moonlit Whispers: Exploring the Enchantment of “The Tale of the Princess Kaguya”

Plot Summary:

Directed by Isao Takahata, The Tale of The Princess Kaguya is centered on the life of Princess Kaguya, a young girl found by a bamboo cutter and his wife. The story starts with the bamboo cutter finding an illuminated bamboo stalk and discovering a tiny princess. He brings back the tiny princess to his wife who thought she was a doll at first. Rapidly, the tiny princess transforms into a human baby who grows at a rapid rate. She makes friends with the other children in the isolated mountain village. The group she befriends calls her, “Little Bamboo” and often teases her at first. Eventually, they become a solid friend group, who go on adventures in the wide mountains. Her abnormal growth is recognized by everyone from adults to children. Sutemaru is the closest and most reliable friend to “Little Bamboo.”  

After a while, the bamboo cutter returns to the spot where he originally found Princess Kaguya. When he cut open the illuminated bamboo stalk, he found a heap of gold pouring from it and then later fine garbs flew out of it. The bamboo cutter was certain that it was a sign from the heavens that Princess Kaguya’s happiness would stem from a regal and “deserved” life in the capital. He went with the money and constructed a mansion in the capital. After Princess Kaguya returned from playing with her friends, she was forced to go to the capital leaving her friends. Everything about her environment changed, and she was forced to wear new clothing and makeup and to perform other obligatory acts: speaking formally and politely, playing the koto, and entertaining guests.  

With the instruction of Lady Sagami, Princess Kaguya became a noble lady. However, there were times when she disobeyed and reverted back to her normal, carefree self. The man who came to give her the name, “Princess Kaguya,” remarked of her unfathomable beauty, essentially assigning a value to her through the naming process. During the coming-of-age ceremony, she was behind a thinly-separated screen and heard the men criticize her beauty and assign her worth. She had a vision during her sleep that she returned back to her hometown where winter had devastated the land, and all of her friends had left on a journey. After that vision, she seemed to grow more obedient and not rowdy as she was as a child.  

As she grew older, many men sought after her until five renowned nobles came to ask her hand in marriage. They compared her to unworldly treasures to which she assigned them to bring back those treasures in order to prove their faithfulness to her. One by one, after three years, they returned with “fake” items which left a deep impression on her self-evaluation of herself and the true meaning and value of beauty. Some lied, some cheated, and some had secret wives. None were truly faithful. Eventually, word came to the emperor that she had denied all of the five noble suitors, and he assumed that it was him she truly wanted. He came to visit her and “embraced” her which was a great honor for women. She was disgusted and temporarily became invisible. He proclaimed that her true happiness would stem from him.  

After the growing disillusionment with her life, Princess Kaguya often stared at the moon for long periods of time. Likewise, her encounter with the emperor had made her remember her true purpose on being on earth. She grieves, stating that she wished to be taken back to the moon and that they were coming to get her. Her parents were astonished and did not fully believe her. But the truth did not change. They would come to receive her at the fifteenth of the month. The song she often sang as a child made her remember the sorrowful woman on the moon who longed to return back to earth.  

One of the last things that she did on earth was find Sutemaru, who was now a grown man with a wife and a child. Princess Kaguya told him that she may have found true happiness with Sutemaru if she had lived another life. Sutemaru thought of this encounter as a vision, since she disappeared after, but it was real. And then, the residents of the moon came to take her back. Once the purple sash of the moon was worn, her memories of the earth would be forgotten, and she would lose all ability to feel pain or sadness. She desperately wanted to stay, but she was not allowed to. The ending shows Princess Kaguya flying back up to the moon longingly looking back at the earth which was becoming more and more distant.  

Personal Thoughts:

One of the most harrowing aspects of this film was the varying meanings of “happiness” from the lens of the bamboo cutter, the emperor, the five noblemen, and Princess Kaguya herself. Happiness cannot be bought with money, power, or beauty, and while the bamboo cutter thought what he did was for Princess Kaguya’s sake, it ultimately was for himself and the institutions which sought to restrain her freedom. This decision was the most unsettling and repulsing to me as I watched, since all of the men in her life believed they knew what would make her truly happy, but her true happiness was her hometown and the freedom that she had while living there. Even if “romantic or sexual love” could have served as a means of her happiness, it would not have been the emperor or the five noblemen who would have been chosen but rather Sutemaru, the boy she grew up with and felt the most protected and respected by.  

Another theme that persisted was the shackles of “beauty.” All of the men who sought after her only wanted her beauty which, as everyone knows, is an everchanging thing. Beauty fades fast in life (like in the example of two of the noblemen’s wives who had been loved until they were deemed not beautiful anymore). Beauty was the value assigned to women in the imperial and noble system. Who could ever find true happiness when such a temporary thing is used to measure a woman’s worth? Instead of superficial things like beauty, Princess Kaguya just wanted to live a simple life with her family in the mountainside.  

Furthermore, Princess Kaguya’s life had always been set in stone. Although she longed for freedom of choice, whether in love or in what she wore, how she spoke, and what she did, she was led down a predetermined path by the residents of the moon and by her father. Her only “freedom” existed in the small things that let her escape reality like the little hut in the mansion at the capital, where she grew a small garden that replicated her life as a child. Additionally, just as she was sent to earth by the residents of the moon, so she was taken by them. The ending was especially sorrowful, as all of her emotions that she gained as a human were lost, returning to nothingness.