Content Warning: Photosensitive imagery, Parental Abuse, Brief Non-sexual Nudity
What’s it about? Twenty seconds into the future of 2030, high schooler Iroha Sakayori leads a hectic life balancing part-time jobs, independence, and academics. Her only way to relax? Watching Yachiyo Runami, the ultra-popular VTuber who resides in the virtual gathering space of Tsukuyomi. But her routine gets shattered into a million pieces when she discovers a baby nestled in a bamboo box in a telephone pole, forever changing her life and kickstarting a fairy tale fantasy from the moon.
Cosmic Princess Kaguya opens in a version of Japan that calls back to 1058 but also ahead to the year 3000. This is the online world of Tsukuyomi, a place where it feels like anything is possible, and where viewers meet Iroha Sakayori, a 17 year old who is currently living on her own due to her abusive mother. A perfectionist, Iroha moves through live with precision: school, work, study, bed. Rinse, wash, repeat.
Then one night, she finds a baby nestled in a telephone pole, and immediately, her maxed-out life gets an unexpected child surprise because this baby isn’t just a baby: it’s a baby from myth and legend, and that baby quickly grows into a girl who’s here to live life to the max with Iroha at her side!
What ensues is a film about friendship, family, and ultimately, love. Iroha quickly figures out that the baby who came from a comet in the sky is actually Princess Kaguya from The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, but this bamboo princess isn’t all charm. Kaguya’s ponyo-like innocence rocks Iroha’s life as finds her own rhythm through music and starts to fight for the life she wants, not the life her mother desires. By steam, by concert, by collecting fans, this often comedic twosome are determined to stare destiny down and make their own future together.
If only it weren’t for that pesky fairy tale nipping at both of their heels…
Let’s be upfront: this is an incredibly queer film, and it’s a shame that there’s been so little push for what would definitely be a 4.5/5 for me, if we used the star rating system here at AniFem. This is a triple threat: an animated movie, a musical movie, and a pretty explicitly sapphic film. And it’s stacked: Ryo of Supercell (best known for World is Mine, which is a song remixed in the film) and multiple Vocaloid producers worked alongside Conisch (best known for composing on Hetalia, Recovery of an MMO Junkie, and a number of Pokemon anime entries) to produce a soundtrack that captures the duality of Iroha’s offline Japan and the hi-tech Heian-themed world of Tsukuyomi.
Additionally, the English dub is hella stacked: there’s all of the who’s who of modern dubwork, including Dawn M. Bennett (Fun fact: we knew each other in childhood and are from the same hometown), Anairis Quiñones, Max Mittleman, A.J. Beckles, and that’s really just scrapping the tip of the iceberg. Basically, what I’m saying is that this film has a fantastic foundation to work with
Now, did they execute it? Oh my god, hell yeah they did, and it’s easily going to be in my Top Anime Films of 2026, no question. Call me Thor smashing a cup on the ground because I’m already hankering to watch this again. And again, and again, and again. It’s just that damn good.
It also means that the retelling and the new, technologically chic version of this story feel really, really good as well. That’s largely because this movie is easy on the eyes, but also because it’s a fun romp. Yes, it’s doing a lot of different things at once: Iroha is a student, a musician, and active in a Genshin Impact style VRMMO. Kaguya is both her charge, her eventual friend, a mythical being, and a steamer. And that’s just our main two characters: there’s a whole bevy of people in their lives that get wrapped up in Kaguya’s adventure until the very end.
It would be easy to say that Cosmic Princess Kaguya’s climax comes with a neat and tidy bow but instead, it feels like the natural conclusion: a grand battle for love of all kinds, for friendship, for community, for another day together. This includes the time skip that occurs in the last thirty minutes: it’s confusing if you’re not fully locked in, but it has its merits, showing that life and love and community are always worth pursuing when we can. Overall, that last act lends to a deeply queer reading as well as a queer platonic reading as Iroha and friends fight to keep Kaguya, who has found home in truth, present on earth instead of bound to the moon.
As a result, what is revealed is what viewers might pick up early on: this is a love story and a testament to finding ourselves not alone, but in the embrace of someone who sees us for who we are and cares for us where we are at, even and especially if that place is filled with cracks that need a kintsugi of the heart. Iroha is permanently changed for the better, forming her own identity outside of the pressure of her abusive mother and their heartbreakingly familiar relationship.
In truth, Iroha and Kaguya they have always been one another’s saviors in a way that is dependent on each other finding happiness together, even if it threatens to break the reality that Itoha conceptually understands. That’s how much they love each other. And while I’ll be the first to say that the last twenty minutes of the movie feel muddled and drop this from a perfect film in my mind, I think it’s just a continuation of Cosmic Princess Kaguya’s thesis: passion is key to life, and without it, we’re not really living. I think that’s worth a movie that’s not perfect, but gets pretty damn close to being a solid reminder that anime is and should be fun while also being inventive, and in this case, wonderfully and openly queer in its narrative.
In many ways, Cosmic Princess Kaguya follows in the path tread by similar films before it: I frequently found myself thinking about Howl’s Movie Castle and the larger-than-life fantasy of a world where everything feels magically limitless. That said, I think this film very much so stands out on its own. Sapphic, sweet, and musically charged, Cosmic Princess Kaguya brought me to tears multiple times as it spun the tale of the bamboo princess in a way I haven’t experienced before. And while the last chunk of the movie is a bit messy in the timeskip, I don’t mind that at all: I think that the bond Iroha and Kaguya share, a bond forged by love, feels unbreakable and the only way to stick the landing for this film.
If you’re looking for a way to spend two and a half hours on any day, I cannot express how much they should be spent watching this fantastic piece of queer media. It’s fun, it’s colorful, it’s unique and most of all, it’s hopeful, and in a time where hope can appear to be scarce—even if it’s plentiful—Cosmic Princess Kaguya is an upbeat and skillfully crafted reminder that we control our destiny, even if the world says otherwise.
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