The Tale of Princess Kaguya recap

This movie is ... pure beauty...

Summary:

A girl born from a mystical bamboo tree... a bamboo cutter receives this forest spirit girl, as well as lots of gold and sacred-looking princess cloths from some glowing bamboo trees... the girl appeared to this man as a tiny beautiful princess, as shown in the cover... but then after he brought her home she transformed into a normal baby... except this baby grew extremely fast... she became friends with the local wood smith's children and played in the forest carefree, until her adopted parents decided it was time for her to move to a mansion in the capital and become a princess like how the dad first saw her as.

She doesn't like the strict boring life of a noble, and at her coming-of-age party where the dad introduced her to everyone behind a curtain (they weren't allowed to see her, but she could see all of them through her side of the curtain... some really weird tradition in that era I guess), she hears some other nobles making fun of her, wondering if she's even a real princess... She runs away back to the forest where she grew up, but the forest seems dead now compared to before. some stranger explains to her that it'll be winter soon... and that it won't be that lively again until spring. from then on she submits to her new strict lifestyle and becomes a proper princess.

Five noble rich men hear about her, and they all propose to her without having seen her face... they each describe a rare precious treasure they found that they compare her to. The girl then says she will make her decision only when they each bring her this "treasure" that they cherish so much...

Then I will be able to see in your heart... how you treasure me.

The dad commented that these treasures were just figures of speech, and they may not even exist... but she still is determined to see one of these treasures. The men all leave, some of them thinking this girl is now unattainable... but they want her even more now after hearing her voice and music... suddenly she takes her makeup off and becomes her normal self again, and asks to go out to see the spring sakura trees.

It's almost like... this girl who was born from the woods... hibernated as a noble princess through the dead seasons... she gets her mom to take her out to see the cherry blossoms... the girl sees spring back in full bloom... now she has transformed fully back into her old, happy self... just like the trees and and nature becoming beautiful again in the spring... She dances under the cherry tree, and in that moment, she remembers her earlier happy days as if they were still happening right now... a baby pops out of the tree... er no I think that's just the baby of the family there that she bumped into? that event somehow got her back into her strict princess guise...

Later, one of her old friends from back in the woods who she couldn't find again after moving to the capital... comes running toward her... earlier in the "growing up" part of the movie... she went out farm-lifting with this guy... she trusts him more than anyone and calls out to her, ruining her "princess guise"... the others force her to go back as she cries and watches the guys he stole a chicken from beat him up.

It's like her mom (and dad? and maybe one of her caretakers?) are the only ones she still feels comfortable being her old self around... but then spring comes and she runs around outside to become her old self again, at least temporarily, until the reality of her adulthood pulls her away... then she watches her childhood best friend suffer as she is unable to help... that's the one other person... she knows how to be her normal self around...

I think when she caught that baby dancing under the sakura tree... in that brief period she remembered being held as a baby when the parents first brought her out for a walk in the woods. she grew up there and went for walks with her friends all the time...

Later, she is chilling with her mom semi-casually in the garden she made with her... they see an illusion of their old homes in the garden and reminisce...
this is giving me major Only Yesterday vibes... When suddenly the dad barges in... one of the rich men has brought back the jeweled branch of horai... it looks like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree... she stops his advances from behind the curtain, and asks him how he came to know this "treasured" item...

This prince then puts on a dramatic show about how he saw this brilliantly wondrous tree in the Hourai mountain... "This is the branch I snapped off then."

From her reaction, I think she was disappointed that he didn't watch over the tree since it was born/since he met it like what her parents did for her in her older days... Suddenly, some dudes trying to barge into the mansion, demanding that prince pay them for the jeweled branch they made.... she just laughs the guy out of her house, and says she'll at least pay the guys for making that branch for her...

Another one brings in a treasure... she asks him to burn glittering fur of the fire rate to prove his love for her... Since it will not burn, but merely glisten all the brighter...

Burn away all the impurity of my doubts.

The prince seemed awfully unsure if it would really resist fire or not... and it didn't... he burned his fortune away...

I guess that's what I am to these people... A fake jeweled branch, or a rat-fur that burns.

Someone looking for the gem hanging from a dragon's neck... he has sent his wife away for her sake... these sailors ran into a whirlpool with a thundercloud dragon and a sea dragon... I'm not sure if it was implied they died or not.

Then someone else comes and brings in Lord Buddha's stone bowl... the princess receives it and sees the pink flower planted inside the bowl... Some sap story about how his feelings for her bloomed just like this flower that he met... "I've always wished I could live as one of those flowers in the field." ...etc, and how he wants to take her to live out there with the flowers... laughing, singing, and sleeping with them... "the seasons meeting our needs... let us spin a beautiful tale."
The guy just kept on going, and forced himself inside the princess's chamber... only to be met with her attendant holding the flower with a frown...

How many flowers have you plucked and thrown away... leaving them to shave their heads in despair...

They show some other guy trying to steal the swallow's cowry shell from their nest... she is stunned to learn this guy fell to his death... then she goes and starts tearing up her garden, crying and saying it's all fake... that's what everyone else thinks of her...

Wait... was that fat attendant the princess herself... just in someone else's image besides the ones that truly love her? I'm not sure if that's just me being too high or not...

Now apparently some king is proposing to her... the princess tells her dad to decline him...

But-but... no one in this land may disobey an order from His Majesty!

If you wish to accuse me... of disobedience to His Majesty... then feel free to kill me... if your happiness depends on a courtier's cap... then I will go to him... when I see you wearing that cap, then I will kill myself.

WHAA! I never dreamed a woman would turn me down... Fascinating. I wish to meet her all the more.

Throughout this whole thing... that melody she can always play for strangers is what bonds her to the world... she isn't interested in sharing her love with people that don't care about her playing this music...

Next, she has to get out of one of her sacred robes to escape the gropy king...

I will never be yours.

Did she just like... run away back to her birthplace like when she did that first time the seasons changed on her... as soon as she runs away... she can instantly rewake as the boring plucked princess guise again... it's like when she loses the will to live, her parents keep her alive anyway like an unlively but still living and treasured plant...

Now, every night that the moon was out... the princess would gaze up at it.

The mom got her to say what was bothering her...

I don't want to go back to the Moon!

I've begged them to let me stay, but they're coming for me on the 15th night!

The dad... calling her Hime-sama like he always has... now finally listening to her seriously... she first realized it when that king groped her...

That happiness you wished for me was hard to bear. Without realizing it... I prayed to the Moon to save me. When his Majesty embraced me, my heart screamed out... I don't want to be here!

She's actually the one who called them to take her back...
She's confused about her past... she wants to find out how she knows this strange melody..

The dad now realizes that when he was raising her... he was as happy as if it were heaven. The mom starts singing to her to cheer her up... the girl then remembers and sings the lyrics to that weird song she made up on the spot when she first started singing with her friends...

Someone who'd come back from here used to sing it on the Moon. When you put on the robe of the Moon, you lose all memory of this place.

That robe... THAT's what kept her as the beautiful, noble sacred princess in her dad's mind, that tons of noblemen are going after...

But when she sang that song, tears would come to her eyes.

It's like she's remembering her past life as a moon person or something... She wanted... to come back here. I'm sure of it!

If I hear that you pine for me, I will return to you. If you are truly waiting for me... I will come straight back.

She gets her mom to take her out for a nature walk again in her princess carriage... she's allowed to run around outside here at least... there another person she once knew just barely hears her singing and comes to her...

Lil Bamboo?

She then decides she wants to give up living as a princess and live with him in the sticks instead.

Holy shit that ending... she flies around with her childhood friend... suddenly the moon starts to take her back, he jumps up to catch her as they are each being pulled in opposite directions.

The guy loses her... and afterwards he thinks of it all as a dream.
I think it was?
... now heaven floats by and arrives at the mansion... with a bunch of buddhas and such playing instruments... some fairy spirits come out calling to her....
She puts the crown on and is just about to be taken away... then she hears children singing her song... the parents call out to her... but they put the final robe on her and take her back to the Moon...

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