"The Tale of Princess Kaguya" - Production Stills Teaser Trailer

We've been treated to another peek at Studio Ghibli's Fall-release fairy tale, The Tale of Princess Kaguya.

Unlike the teaser we recently saw, this time, instead of animation, it's production stills (we assume, since scenes from the trailer are included and mesh well with the style).

Although in Japan Kaguya-Hime has had many incarnations and been included in shows and films of all sorts, it will be the first "big budget" animated feature of Japan's oldest known fairy tale, so there's a lot of excitement (and pressure!) on this one.

From crunchyroll:

As far back as 2009, the talk was that Studio Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata's first movie since his 1999 water color style adaptation of family comic strip My Neighbors the Yamadas would be a retelling of 10th century Japanese folktale Taketori Monogatari (The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter) - the story of moon princess Kaguya-hime, discovered as a baby inside the stalk of a glowing bamboo plant. The story figured into many other anime, from Oh! Edo Rocket to to Leiji Matsumoto's Queen Millennia to Sailor Moon.

While this is promising the film will be lovely, it would be truly wonderful if we could see a little more animation... right?

Hopefully a full trailer will be available soon.

Teaser Trailer Released for "The Tale of Princess Kaguya"

A few days late on this sorry but we now have a teaser trailer for Studio Ghibli's latest fairy tale! The style is really nice blend of modern animation with a calligraphic feel. Looks lovely so far.

The Tale of Princess Kaguya (OT: Kaguya-hime no Monogatari) tells the story of a bamboo cutter who finds a thumb-sized baby inside a piece stalk of bamboo. What he doesn’t know, is that he hasn’t just found any tiny baby: she’s a princess!

Please note: it is a teaser only - not a full trailer - and it was released to a Japanese program so includes the "live audience reactions" window in the top corner. (Ugh.)

So charming!

I'll let you know when more appears.

Fairy Tale for Fall from Ghibli: "The Tale of Princess Kaguya" (A Japanese Thumbelina)

Maybe it would be more accurate to say Thumbelina is a Danish Princess Kaguya since the Japanese fairy tale predates Andersen's by... a VERY long time!

Do you remember THIS POST from waaaaaay back in 2009 about Japan's oldest fairy tale, "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter", coming to us soon from Studio Ghibli? Well, we're (finally!) getting close!


From MoviePilot (older info, so the title has changed):

Grave of the Fireflies director adapts the oldest Japanese fairy taleThe legend of princess Kaguya - a pocket-sized baby who was discovered by an old bamboo cutter named Taketori no Okina, while growing inside the stalk of a glowing bamboo plant. With Tale Of The Bamboo Cutter, Isao Takahata is creating his interpretation of the oldest surviving work of fiction in the Japanese language Tale Of The Bamboo Cutter. The story is said to have existed since the 9th or 10th century, and is known by virtually every Japanese child on Earth.

From the Japan Daily Press:

The film is directed by Studio Ghibli’s co-founder Isao Takahata of Grave of the Fireflies fame. [Edit FTNH: the same studio that brought us other fairy tale films such as Ponyo, Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro ] Kaguya-Hime no Monogatari (“The Tale of Princess Kaguya”) is a retelling of an old Japanese folk story, “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter”, in which a princess discovers a baby in a bamboo plant. In the film, a baby girl, Kaguya-hime, the size of a thumb is discovered asleep in a glowing bamboo stalk. The film is set to the style of traditional Japanese picture scrolls.

[FTNH edit: I added a link to the information available on Wikipedia in the above statement if you're interested in the (sparse) details. There are a couple of additions to information such as Producers and the film score HERE as well.]

Although there isn't much to look at yet, we do have a poster! (See top of post.) Interestingly, the tag line apparently reads: "A princess' crime and punishment." That may be confusing to people who intimately acquainted with the tale, like the Japanese are, but it does make sense.

The film was going to be co-released this Summer with Studio Ghibli's other film du jour, The Wind Rises (directed by Miyazaki) but due to some internal story-hiccups Princess Kaguya won't be released now until Fall*. With The Wind Rises still on target for release in July (in Japan), there's a chance we'll be treated to a teaser for Ghibli's new/old fairy tale around the same time. (We can hope!)

The Tale of Princess Kaguya is reportedly in post-production (though how that can be when they were still changing story boards in February, I don't know! Must have an amazing set of very hard working animators!) and last available information still confirms a plan to release in Autumn 2013, but it's still difficult to find out much else about it at this point.

I'll keep my FT news hound nose to the Ghibli wind for you!

*(Quoted from the Ghibli blog) The Japanese film distribution company Toho said Kaguya Hime no Monogatari needed to be pushed back in order to give Studio Ghibli to enough time to make it the best it can be. Toho added that The Tale of Princess Kaguya, which is based on the traditional Japanese folk tale The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, needs more time than originally expected to work out the plot. While this has no effect on the movies’ release dates for outside of Japan, which haven’t even been announced yet, its sure to disappoint domestic Studio Ghibli fans just a touch.

Japan's Oldest Folktale "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter" Next In Line From Studio Ghibli

"The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter" a.k.a. "TheTale of Princess Kaguya" a.k.a. The Bamboo Princess" (Taketori Monogatari or Kaguya Hime), Japan's oldest known folktale from the 10th century (also considered Japan's first fairy tale) is coming to the big screen courtesy of Studio Ghibli (the animation studio that created "Ponyo", "Spirited Away" and "My Neighbor Totoro" among others). While it won't be directed by Miyazaki it will be the same team, so expectations will be high.From Asian Movie Pulse:

Isao Takahata, Studio Ghibli co-founder and director (Grave of the Fireflies, Only Yesterday, My Neighbors The Yamadas) has made the very exciting announcement that he will be directing a new feature-length film. Takahata is the “other” half of Studio Ghibli (edit FTNH: Miyazaki being the more well known "half"), and one of Japan’s most famous anime directors. With this new film, Takahata will be breaking a 10-year hiatus (his last feature film, My Neighbors the Yamadas, was released in 1999). His new film, Taketori Monogatari (The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter), is a movie adaption of the classic 10th century folktale (also popularly known as Kaguya Hime no Monogatari (The Tale of Princess Kaguya)).

Taketori Monogatari has directly and indirectly inspired many Japanese manga and anime, such as Sailormoon and Inuyasha. This beloved story is considered to be the oldest surviving example of Japanese narrative, and every Japanese person knows this story. A little baby is found inside the stalk of a glowing plant by a bamboo cutter. He takes her home, and raises her with his wife as their own daughter, and they give her the name Kaguya-Hime (radiant-night princess). She grows into a beautiful adult woman, with many suitors, even the Emperor of Japan – and she rebuffs them all. Then, things become even more complicated as her true lineage becomes revealed, and her special relationship with the moon...

This would be Studio Ghibli’s first foray into remaking a classic folktale (unlike Disney, which is famous for such remakes – Cinderella, Snow White, etc.). Taketori Monogatari has been made into live-action and animation remakes many times, and while it has not been announced whether Takahata intends to faithfully follow the original story, it is more likely that he will surprise us. For one thing, a faithful rendition of this story has been done many times, and it might not be interesting for Japanese locals; for another, he is well-known in Japan for his originality and creativity. So it is certainly a treat to look forward to.

And if you're wondering how this film will differ from other well-loved Studio Ghibli films, here's what the official Ghibli Blog has to say about Takahata's directing style:

What sort of movie will Taketori Monogatari become? We can expect a stunning attention to detail and documentary realism, emotionally-charged human drama, and Takahata's patented style of logic and precision. His adaptations are more logical and calculated than Miyazaki's instinctive, almost impulsive style. He doesn't scrap the original source material as Miyazaki-san always does (Conan, Kiki, Howl). Instead, Takahata gets to the core of the story, fleshing it out, adding depth and color and bringing them to life.

This tale can be found everywhere and will be familiar to those who've read any collection of Japanese fairy tales. The Golden Book of Japaneses Fairy Tales is a good place to find a copy as it also has some lovely illustrations. Online, there's a sweet child-friendly site HERE where you can read the story with the illustrations shown here (which are actually animated gifs at the site) for each page and some Japanese music that's optional to listen to as well.

And what will the 68 year old beloved Studio Ghibli Director, Hayao Miyazaki, be doing? Not retiring. He's reportedly in the planning stages on TWO more films right now - set to be released 2011 and 2013. Miyazaki-san creates animation which is unapologetically for children, so we can expect more fantasy family films coming our way.