The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013) is an animated film about a magical young girl found in a bamboo stalk by a farmer and his wife, and how she eventually becomes a princess and the most desired woman in the region. A Studio Ghibli film directed by Isao Takahata, it was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the 2015 (87th) Academy Awards. It has a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes (with a 90% audience score), and yet lost to Big Hero 6, which only has an 86% (and yet also a 90% audience score). I chose this film because it is one of the highest rated films ever to be nominated for this award, and I watched it first because it is chronologically the first film released out of the three films I chose for this project. 
The first part of this film to stand out to me was its incredibly unique and beautiful animation; every frame looks like a painting and flawlessly captures the natural world alongside the timeless Japanese countryside acting as the setting for much of the film. The animation also captures motion insanely well; its director, Isao Takahata (one of the co-founders of Studio Ghibli) was a legend when it came to perfecting realism through animation. I watched a video about how he spent an entire day working on perfecting one scene that takes up only about 20 seconds of screen time in order to properly capture the motion of the characters. As much as Takahata focused on reality in his films, he was also incredibly skilled at demonstrating abstraction. There is a scene where Princess Kaguya becomes frustrated and runs away from her parents and the people at her banquet talking about her, and the animation becomes extremely sketchy, less colorful, abstract and almost violent to capture her emotions which is something rarely seen in other big animated films.
Story wise, it is also very well done. The plot is based off an ancient Japanese folk tale (The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter) which Takahata chose to follow pretty strictly, but it also has a lot more contemporary themes than the original, like misogyny/objectification and family. The only flaw I could find is that the pacing felt a bit off at times, especially toward the ending when she was with her childhood friend/love interest having this amazing mystical scene over the ocean, and then suddenly it cut back to the mansion with her parents who are still trying to protect her (kind of emotionally flip-flopping). The movie also walks the line between dream/reality a lot and it is sometimes hard to discern between the two, but I imagine that was intended.
The main reason I could see as to why The Tale of Princess Kaguya didn't win at the Oscars is because it is a pretty niche film compared to a giant Disney feature like Big Hero 6. However, it was made by Studio Ghibli, which also made Spirited Away (2001), which did win the award at the 2002 Oscars. Another very interesting fact about this film is that it is actually the most expensive movie that has ever been made in Japan, with a budget of $49 million. Compared to the budget of $165 million for Big Hero 6, it is clear there is a huge disparity in the global animation industries. This gap also occurs in box office revenue, with Kaguya bringing in $27 million (just over half its budget) and Big Hero 6 shoveling in $657 million. Going back to the Oscars, however; my main belief for the reason Disney pretty consistently wins against higher-rated films (this will be proven in my next posts) is because of its ubiquity and family-friendliness. The Tale of Princess Kaguya definitely has themes and messages that would not fly in a Disney film; in fact, its probably the most anti-princess movie I've seen in a while. Overall, I do believe the film with higher ratings from critics (and audiences) should win, as the point of the Academy Awards is to recognize artistic and technical excellence in film, which The Tale of Princess Kaguya honestly has more of than Big Hero 6.
The first part of this film to stand out to me was its incredibly unique and beautiful animation; every frame looks like a painting and flawlessly captures the natural world alongside the timeless Japanese countryside acting as the setting for much of the film. The animation also captures motion insanely well; its director, Isao Takahata (one of the co-founders of Studio Ghibli) was a legend when it came to perfecting realism through animation. I watched a video about how he spent an entire day working on perfecting one scene that takes up only about 20 seconds of screen time in order to properly capture the motion of the characters. As much as Takahata focused on reality in his films, he was also incredibly skilled at demonstrating abstraction. There is a scene where Princess Kaguya becomes frustrated and runs away from her parents and the people at her banquet talking about her, and the animation becomes extremely sketchy, less colorful, abstract and almost violent to capture her emotions which is something rarely seen in other big animated films.
Story wise, it is also very well done. The plot is based off an ancient Japanese folk tale (The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter) which Takahata chose to follow pretty strictly, but it also has a lot more contemporary themes than the original, like misogyny/objectification and family. The only flaw I could find is that the pacing felt a bit off at times, especially toward the ending when she was with her childhood friend/love interest having this amazing mystical scene over the ocean, and then suddenly it cut back to the mansion with her parents who are still trying to protect her (kind of emotionally flip-flopping). The movie also walks the line between dream/reality a lot and it is sometimes hard to discern between the two, but I imagine that was intended. The main reason I could see as to why The Tale of Princess Kaguya didn't win at the Oscars is because it is a pretty niche film compared to a giant Disney feature like Big Hero 6. However, it was made by Studio Ghibli, which also made Spirited Away (2001), which did win the award at the 2002 Oscars. Another very interesting fact about this film is that it is actually the most expensive movie that has ever been made in Japan, with a budget of $49 million. Compared to the budget of $165 million for Big Hero 6, it is clear there is a huge disparity in the global animation industries. This gap also occurs in box office revenue, with Kaguya bringing in $27 million (just over half its budget) and Big Hero 6 shoveling in $657 million. Going back to the Oscars, however; my main belief for the reason Disney pretty consistently wins against higher-rated films (this will be proven in my next posts) is because of its ubiquity and family-friendliness. The Tale of Princess Kaguya definitely has themes and messages that would not fly in a Disney film; in fact, its probably the most anti-princess movie I've seen in a while. Overall, I do believe the film with higher ratings from critics (and audiences) should win, as the point of the Academy Awards is to recognize artistic and technical excellence in film, which The Tale of Princess Kaguya honestly has more of than Big Hero 6.
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