Review: Cosmic Princess Kaguya! reimagines a classic tale as a dazzling fantasia

I try to keep up with the latest animated releases, but sometimes, one kind of gets past me and I end up playing catch-up later. This year, the movie that's been hanging over me is Cosmic Princess Kaguya!, which hit Netflix in January. I've obviously watched a lot of movies since then, but I just never found the right time to get around to it (not helping matters: a pretty hefty runtime of 2 hours 22 minutes). But I finally caught up with the movie this weekend and I am positively kicking myself for taking so long because this is one of my favorite movies of the year, and one of the best animated movies Netflix has ever released. 

Directed by Shingo Yamashita, Cosmic Princess Kaguya! is a new take on The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, a story from Japanese folklore that international audiences are likely familiar with thanks to Isao Takahata's masterpiece, The Tale of Princess Kaguya. The story revolves around a bamboo cutter who finds a baby within a stalk of bamboo. He and his wife raise the child (who ages extremely rapidly), and her beauty attracts numerous suitors. Eventually, Kaguya's origin is revealed -- she's from the moon -- and her fellow moon-people come to retrieve her from Earth and take her home.

At least, that's how the story normally goes.

To make another animated adaptation of the story seems like a fool's errand, because Takahata's take will never be topped, but Yamashita's dizzying and electrifying take is so unique that it hardly feels like it's tackling the same subject matter at all. This is such a fresh re-imagining, full of twists and turns and video game battles and large-scale concert scenes. It couldn't be more different than Takahata's more faithful adaptation, and I'm so glad we have both versions to enjoy now.

Cosmic Princess Kaguya! moves the action to the modern day. Iroha is a high school student living on her own, working hard to keep up with her studies and her part-time job. In her rare free time, she escapes into the virtual world of Tsukuyomi, a vibrant entertainment-filled space full of neon lights, bustling markets, and concerts by Iroha's idol, the silver-haired AI Yachiyo. 

On her way home one night, Iroha finds a baby in a telephone pole that has suddenly spouted bamboo shoot handles. Her first inclination is to leave the baby there, but that feels irresponsible, and dangerous for the baby. So she takes the baby out, only for the enclosure to disappear. In a fit of panic, Iroha decides to take the baby home while she figures out what to do next. Overnight, the baby grows. Then the next night, she grows some more. Soon, she's a teenager (or maybe a tween) herself, a wild force of nature named Kaguya who has no self-control. She wants pancakes, she wants to go out, she wants to shop, she's bored. Kaguya is a massive destabilizing force in Iroha's life, but they form a bond nonetheless. Is that bond mother-daughter, sister-sister, romantic? It's hard to say, exactly, but it becomes rooted in deep love.

Eventually, Kaguya joins Iroha in the virtual world, and they decide to enter a contest to perform a concert alongside Yachiyo. Whatever streamer gains the most fans during the contest period wins the prize, and Kaguya is determined to win. She becomes a streamer, posting every kind of content you can imagine, going head-to-head with the popular Black OnyX group, led by the incredibly sexy demon-ish-looking avatar Mikado (he is my boyfriend).

my boyfriend

So, yeah, you can see how this is a very different take on the material.

Even just on a story level, this movie is so much fun. The dynamic between Iroha and Kaguya is infectious. You feel the strain, the growing pains, and the developing love. Kaguya forces Iroha to let her life get a little messy, to go off-script, to try new things. It's an incredible change of pace for her. Iroha is more the type to have every day planned to the minute, without much room at all for spontaneity. 

Maybe the most brilliant move the movie makes is having Iroha bring up The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter as soon as Kaguya reaches her full-grown stature. Iroha tells the story, and is basically like..."Are you Kaguya?" They determine that yeah, she probably is, which means eventually the Moon people will come to collect her and take her back, which is not the ending Kaguya envisions for herself. So, the movie becomes a race against the clock (without knowing how much time there is), but also a fight for self-determination. Kaguya knows how her story is supposed to go, the beats she's supposed to pass through, and where she's supposed to end up. But she has other plans. She wants to seize control of her own destiny. And Iroha wants to help her.

The film blossoms into something so unexpected and surprising and beautiful by the end, twisting the story into a thrilling shape that allows the characters to claim authorship of their own lives. It's a call to live freely, to let your true feelings air, and to be who you want to be, do what you want to do. We're all responsible for molding our lives into the shapes we want them to be, and there are so many fun and creative ways to pursue those ends.

These themes are so brilliantly realized in the relationship between Iroha and Kaguya. I can't remember the last time I watched a movie and felt so assured that I was witnessing the story of a pair of soulmates. The way these characters enhance and encourage and redefine each other is incredible moving, and is manifested in so many ways, especially musically. The film has a ton of incredible songs, all of which have thematically precise lyrics, though some of them won't be clear until you've seen the full sweep of the story. On the musical front, this might be this year's KPop Demon Hunters for me, wall-to-wall bops that are so resonant to the story.

I guess it's appropriate that a movie about Kaguya sent me to the moon and back and had me seeing stars. Cosmic Princess Kaguya! is a major movie, big-hearted and full-throated and packed with action and music and emotion. I laughed, I cried, I danced, I cried some more. This is basically everything I want a movie to be, and is easily one of my favorite movies of 2026 so far.