Cosmic Princess Kaguya’s ending was about Iroha bringing the titular character into the realm of mortals and making her stay instead of being dragged to her lunar home on every full moon night. Iroha used to lead a relatively normal life before all that. Due to her fraught relationship with her mother, she had moved to Tokyo to be her own person. But she got bogged down by the everyday necessities of life and got stuck in an exhausting cycle of going to school, working at a restaurant, and playing games in the virtual reality landscape called Tsukuyomi. One night, she spotted a shooting star, and she wished for some money. Her bank account didn’t get credited, but she came across a baby in the pole of a street lamp, and taking responsibility for her wellbeing did deplete whatever money she had. Since the baby’s arrival and the unnatural rate at which she grew were similar to The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, Iroha named her Kaguya. Initially, Kaguya was a headache for Iroha, but after she gained popularity in Tsukuyomi, she pulled Iroha out of the rut she was in and made her life easier. However, as the time for the next new moon drew closer, Kaguya revealed that her time on the planet was over, and she had to go back to the moon. Iroha, along with Akira, Rai, Noi, Roka, and Mami, put up a brave fight against the lunar gods and the creatures who had arrived in Tsukuyomi for Kaguya. However, that didn’t really work out, and Kaguya left the mortal realm and went to the Moon, where she’d live happily ever after. Even though this was how the original folktale had ended, Iroha wasn’t okay with it, and she began figuring out a way to keep Kaguya on Earth. What did she learn during that process? What was the point of that whole endeavor? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Iroha Rewrote the Folktale’s Ending
So, after Kaguya’s avatar in the Tsukuyomi disappeared, she disappeared from real life as well. How? Well, she wasn’t exactly human. Therefore, it’s not like real-world logic or even in-universe logic can be applied here. At one point, Kaguya said that Tsukuyomi was closer to her home than the realm of the mortals was. Hence, maybe extracting her through that virtual reality allowed the Moon people to erase her existence from the real world as well. Also, that was in line with the tragic ending of the folktale itself, where Kaguya returned to the Moon, parting ways with her adoptive parents, friends, and her lover, who were left all sad and devastated by her departure. Iroha wasn’t okay with that happening to her, and she wanted Kaguya back in her life, which was why she began writing a song for her. That song transcended space and time and reached Kaguya’s ears, thereby seemingly prompting her to come back to Earth in her spaceship.
This part’s kind of similar to the original folktale because in that story, the emperor, who was in love with Kaguya, wrote a letter addressed to her and then ordered his men to burn it atop the tallest mountain in Japan. He thought that that’s how his message to Kaguya would reach the Moon. I know what you are thinking: why was Iroha analogous to Kaguya’s adoptive parents as well as her lover, the Emperor? To be very honest, I don’t know. Even I was weirded out by that creative choice in Cosmic Princess Kaguya! It’s not like the movie couldn’t have had separate characters to fulfill those roles. Iroha’s brother was clearly in love with Kaguya, and he could have done the job of calling out to her. But then Iroha being Kaguya’s “mother” and Akira being Kaguya’s lover probably would have complicated the “message.” That’s why writers Saeri Natsuo and Shingo Yamashita went for the less-complicated option, which was making Iroha both the grieving parent and the heartbroken lover. Even if you are able to wrap your head around that aspect of the narrative, the movie throws a curveball to end all curveballs your way by making Yachiyo, the AI guide of Tsukuyomi, and Kaguya one and the same.
Yachiyo is Kaguya, and Kaguya is Yachiyo
When Iroha’s message to Yachiyo went undelivered, she jumped into Tsukoyumi to look for her. Yachiyo’s assistant, Fushi (the meaning of the word is immortality and also the basis for the name of Mount Fuji), told Iroha to open her eyes in the real world. The players in Tsukuyomi wore these special contact lenses that transported them into that virtual reality. But opening your eyes while you were still logged into Tsukoyumi supposedly allowed some elements, like Fushi or those Moon people that came to take Kaguya, to interact with the mortal realm, thereby blurring the line between what’s virtual and what’s real. Anyway, Fushi took Iroha to a room, which was far away from the apartment that she and Kaguya used to live in, and revealed an egg-like object that was connected to several servers. Apparently, that was the source of the programming for Yachiyo, who was actually Kaguya, and yeah, here’s where things get really confusing. So, much like the original folktale, Kaguya was originally sent to Earth as punishment for her rebellious attitude towards the Moon people’s corporate slavery lifestyle. Then she went back to the Moon and began working on whatever monotonous assignment she was given. That’s when she heard Iroha’s song and tried to return to Earth, along with the InuDoge that she had befriended in Tsukoyumi.
However, Kaguya’s spaceship crashed into an asteroid, and instead of landing in present-day Japan, she went back in time by 8000 years. While she remained trapped in that spaceship, InuDoge took the form of Fushi and guided the people of Japan to protect the artifact. It’s only after the internet was developed that Kaguya was able to create Tsukoyumi and bide her time there as Yachiyo until Iroha arrived and figured out the connection between Kaguya and her AI idol. For the record, Kaguya herself told Iroha to not put too much thought into it, because it was just a fairytale, and what mattered was that they were together again. And I agree with Kaguya, because thinking too much about it does hurt your brain. Yachiyo existed before Iroha met Kaguya? But then Kaguya went away and tried to come back and became Yachiyo and then integrated with the essence or soul of Kaguya? Was it some kind of a weird time loop situation where Kaguya, as Yachiyo, was nudging Iroha in every iteration of the loop to figure out the connection between Kaguya and Yachiyo because Iroha was her soulmate? And once she made that connection, the loop was broken? In every iteration of the loop, did Iroha accept that sad ending? Was she finally compelled to change the ending in the current iteration of the loop? The answer to all that is “maybe.”
Kaguya Made Her Comeback at a Concert
In Cosmic Princess Kaguya’s ending, Iroha worked along with Akira, Rai, Noi, Roka, and Mami for around 10 years to create an artificial body for the titular character’s soul or program. And after that, Iroha, Kaguya, and Yachiyo (in holographic form) performed at a concert together for the first time in a decade. And, yeah, that’s that. I think that’s a reaction to the sad ending of the original folktale. In that story, Kaguya is sent to Earth as a punishment, and she’s kept there until she forms some “material attachments.” And as soon as she does, she’s brought back to the Moon, thereby breaking her heart as well as the hearts of the people who fell in love with her. So, the writers of the film have tried to undo that tragedy and kept Kaguya on Earth, which evidently allowed Iroha and everyone else who adored her to be happy. We’ve been told that if we truly love something or someone, we should learn to let it go.
However, in this case, the major takeaway probably is that letting go is overrated and you should hold on to your loved ones through AI, android bodies, or any other method necessary. Shows like Black Mirror have warned us against that practice, but I guess people are so sad that the act of moving on feels unfair. Hence, here we have a reimagining of a folktale that’s telling us to not put all that effort into processing a trauma, because modern technology can keep your lover, sibling, or child close to you forever. In addition to that, I suppose it shows that if you truly love someone, like Iroha loved Kaguya, you can fix your relationship with your mother, finish the song that you wrote with your father, create music that transcends space and time, and then become a scientist who can seamlessly integrate the soul of a princess from the Moon into a synthetic body. Love is the emotion that can fix anything or anyone. And if you don’t have someone or something to love, just love yourself, I suppose. Well, that’s what I could decipher from this mess of a movie. What are your thoughts on that ending, though? Let me know in the comments section below.
