It’s all for nothing in the end. Princess Kaguya returns to the moon despite it all. Despite the armies of men guarding her, clutching their swords. They’re powerless against the deities of the moon. It’s inevitable. She won’t be a mortal ever again.

Watching the film, all of us know what’s going to happen. We all know what happens in the end and what follows all of the characters throughout- resignation.

I think that what makes people so frustrated about feminist retellings of fairy tales is that instead of actually dissecting the lack of agency that women had in the time period, they slap on a “well, actually, in this version the woman wins! She doesn’t need a man! Happily ever after!” And expect it to resonate with people. Oftentimes, it doesn’t.

When we’re told the fairy tales as young children, we feel for the parents. They lost a daughter. A daughter who blessed them with an opulent life. A daughter so beautiful she had several suitors willing to risk death just to have the right to marry her.

But in the film? We actually get to see how princess kaguya feels. It humanizes her. She didn’t want this. She doesn’t want to be a princess. To her, to this deity from the moon, the beauty of being a mortal comes from the things like trekking the mountains with her friends and diving into the lake with them.

The film never, ever punishes her for having feelings. Throughout the movie, people keep on trying to push her down. Don’t be ungrateful. Don’t be hysterical.

But the desire is always there. The rage, the yearning, the grief and pain. The most cathartic point of the film to me was the scene where she runs away. All of her repressed rage is let out, and yet she runs toward the moon because no matter how many suns she could fill with her rage, she must resign to her fate.

What I find wonderful is that throughout all this, her mother remains empathetic. She listens to how Kaguya feels. But that’s all she can do. She has no choice in what happens to Kaguya and it’s likely that she herself was in the place Kaguya was in at her age- a girl who was married off to a man in exchange for assets. Worth nothing more.

What’s also interesting is that the story humanizes the father too. Despite all that he does, it was all in the name of love. He cries tears of joy when Kaguya takes her first step. Experiences genuine grief when he loses her.

I think what makes this film so tragic is that the tragedy doesn’t come from who the characters are. It comes from the fact that in the culture they were raised in, this is what’s normal. They are resigned to it.

This is all inevitable to them because the conditioning that has them resigned to this are as powerful as the deities who take Kaguya away.

Another thing I noticed is that even if she were to be married off, it’d be no different than returning to the moon. She’d never see her parents again and she’ll never experience the things that brought her joy in the human experience- companionship.

The only difference is that when she does return to the moon, she truly is no longer a human.

She forgets it all