Cosmic Princess Kaguya!

• 1. Introduction

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  Cosmic Princess Kaguya! begins with a baby discovered inside a glowing utility pole. This 2026 Japanese animated musical, the feature directing debut of Shingo Yamashita, builds an entire world around that odd image. Within a few days the baby has grown into a young girl. She tells everyone she comes from the Moon. Around her swirl streamers, a virtual city, an artificial intelligence and a very old folktale. Why does a girl from the Moon care so much about getting a happy ending? What does a virtual world have to do with a tale about a bamboo cutter? And how does a director with no feature film behind him persuade a streaming giant to back such a strange idea?

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• 2. A Tale Rewritten

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  In 2030, Iroha Sakayori is a high school student living apart from her family after her father's death. Her calendar is packed with school, tuition and a part-time job. Whatever time is left over, she spends in Tsukuyomi, a virtual world that sits at the center of the film.

  She takes in the baby reluctantly. The child is named Kaguya, after the heroine of the folktale The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, which the film reimagines. Kaguya finds the ending of that old story depressing. She decides she wants a happy ending instead, and she wants it with Iroha.

  Iroha does not share the enthusiasm. Kaguya keeps upsetting her carefully managed routine, and it annoys her. Her answer is to bring Kaguya into Tsukuyomi, where an administrator AI named Yachiyo Runami is waiting.

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• 3. The Yachiyo Cup

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  The prize in the Yachiyo Cup is one that any streamer would covet: a live show alongside Yachiyo herself. Iroha and Kaguya enter the streamer tournament together with Kaguya's virtual pet, InuDOGE. With Iroha guiding her, Kaguya becomes popular almost at once.

  That popularity draws the attention of Black OnyX, the top streamer group, led by Akira Mikado. The group challenges the pair to KASSEN, a territory battle game played inside Tsukuyomi. During the challenge, Kaguya learns something Iroha had kept quiet. Akira is her estranged brother.

  Yachiyo helps the pair, but Black OnyX still wins the match. Then the fans step in. Their outpouring of support carries Kaguya and Iroha to victory in the Yachiyo Cup itself. The win also repairs the rift with Akira, who agrees to co-sign a new apartment for them.

  The live show with Yachiyo goes well. Afterward, mysterious beings invade Tsukuyomi, and they turn out to have come from the Moon to take Kaguya home. Yachiyo drives them off. They promise to return by the next full moon, and Iroha, unwilling to part with Kaguya, is deeply troubled.

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• 4. Eight Thousand Years

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  Kaguya's departure falls on the day she performs a graduation concert in Tsukuyomi. Iroha tries to hold off the lunar forces with help from Black OnyX and her friends. They fail, and Kaguya is taken.

  Back in her ordinary life, Iroha cannot accept the loss. She finishes a song that she and her father never completed, and she plays it. A revelation follows. She logs back into Tsukuyomi, and Yachiyo confirms that she is a future version of Kaguya.

  Iroha's song had inspired Kaguya to return to Earth. She tried to travel back in time to reunite with Iroha, but her ship collided with an asteroid. The crash threw her 8,000 years into the past. She could not leave the damaged ship, so InuDOGE became her communicator. That pet would later turn into Yachiyo's companion, Fushi. For ages it spoke with people on her behalf, until Tsukuyomi was built and she was uploaded into a virtual avatar.

  Iroha drops her plan to become a law student. Instead she works to build an android body that can hold Yachiyo's digital consciousness. After ten years she succeeds, and the two can perform together in real life and in Tsukuyomi alike.

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• 5. A Rejected Pitch

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  In April 2022, Studio Colorido signed a deal with Netflix to co-produce three feature-length anime films for the platform. The first two were Drifting Home in 2022 and My Oni Girl in 2024. Netflix announced in November 2025 that Yamashita would direct his first feature-length film, Cosmic Princess Kaguya!

  Yamashita had already directed the web series Pokémon: Twilight Wings. He had also made opening sequences for several anime, including the first season of Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man. After Twilight Wings, the company Twin Engine offered him the chance to make an original film.

  His first plans did not survive. They were turned down because they "lacked elements that would appeal to the public as an original work". He went back and wrote a new proposal, which brought in the metaverse and live streamers. The Vocaloid connection came later. Yamashita noticed that Yachiyo's characteristics and design resembled Hatsune Miku, so he decided to involve Vocaloid producers. He also named One Piece Film: Red and Needy Girl Overdose as partial influences.

  Development began in 2022. Storyboards were finished in June 2024, and a further year was set aside for animation. The finished film was delivered in September 2025. Yamashita wrote the screenplay with Saeri Natsuo. Naoya Nakayama directed the musical performances, and Masaya Machida served as CG director.

  The animation was produced by Studio Chromato together with Studio Colorido. Yamashita is the representative director of Studio Chromato, and this was its first production. Akihiro Nagae, who had worked on Drifting Home, designed the characters in the real world. The illustrator Hechima designed the characters in Tsukuyomi.

  Yūko Natsuyoshi, Anna Nagase and Saori Hayami took the roles of Kaguya, Iroha and Yachiyo. Rie Kugimiya joined in December 2025 as the voice of Fushi. The next month, Netflix revealed seven cast members and the English-language dub cast. Jeannie Tirado, Dawn M. Bennett and Ryan Bartley voice the three leads, while Frankie Kevich sings for Yachiyo.

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• 6. A Vocaloid Soundtrack

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  Six Vocaloid producers each wrote an original song for the film, while Conisch composed the score. Ryo of Supercell wrote "Ex-Otogibanashi" and Yuigot wrote "Remember". Aqu3ra contributed "Hoshi Furu Umi", and HoneyWorks supplied "Watashi wa, Watashi no Koto ga Suki". 40mP wrote "Shunkan, Symphony", and Kz of Livetune wrote "Reply".

  "Ex-Otogibanashi" is sung by Hayami and serves as the main theme. It came out as a six-track CD single on the 23rd of January 2026. The ending theme is a cover of the Bump of Chicken song "Ray", sung by Natsuyoshi and Hayami. A four-track CD single called "CPK! Remix" appeared the same day. It holds remixes of the film's songs performed by Nagi Yanagi and Hatsune Miku, and the score and soundtrack reached streaming services that day too.

  The campaign leaned on the same music. The announcement in November 2025 came with a teaser poster and a trailer, and three more trailers followed that month, one for each main character. The first trailer used a remix of "World Is Mine", a 2008 Vocaloid song by Ryo first performed by Hatsune Miku. Hayami sang the remix in character as Yachiyo.

  Hayami and Natsuyoshi also recorded covers of five Vocaloid songs and posted them on the film's YouTube channel. These were Aqu3ra's "Lonely Universe", HoneyWorks' "Taketori Overnight Sensation", 40mP's "Torinoko City", Yuigot's "Yume o Miru Shima" and Kz's "Tell Your World". The film also staged collaboration events with companies such as Yamaha Corporation, and with Fuji City.

  The album did well. It peaked at number four on Billboard Japan's Hot Albums chart and number 14 on Oricon's Combined Albums Chart. On Oricon's Digital Albums Chart it opened at third place and reached number one on the 13th of May. Even the "Ray" cover charted, debuting at number 82 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100 published on the 11th of February 2026.

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• 7. Internet Nostalgia

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  Danmaku comments, stickers, emojis and memes all turn up on screen in Cosmic Princess Kaguya! The film both honors and parodies Japanese internet culture going back to the 1990s. Daisuke Watanabe of Real Sound called it "the first music anime to seriously feature the legacy of Vocaloid culture and streamer culture".

  A writer for MoguraVR listed what the film follows. It traces VTuber culture from its dawn around 2018, the fad for team-based esports games and trends on Nico Nico Douga. It also touches smart contact lenses, the metaverse, VRChat and augmented reality. A separate nod goes to the folktale of Urashima Tarō.

  The relationship at the heart of the story is treated with restraint. In a conversation with the manga artist Tarō Yoneda, Yamashita explained that he and his collaborators deliberately avoided overt romantic elements. Even so, reviewers have noticed yuri themes, and some have classed the film as yuri outright.

  Chu Ah-young of Cineplay pointed to the song "Reply" as evidence. Its lyrics change and repeat across different scenes, and she argued that this shows the emotional transformation of the two protagonists. Yoneda, the artist Yamashita spoke with, would go on to adapt the film as a manga.

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• 8. Release and Afterlife

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  Cosmic Princess Kaguya! reached Netflix on the 22nd of January 2026. The same day, a commemorative screening took place at the Grand Cinema Sunshine in Toshima. A limited run followed at Laemmle Glendale in California, from the 22nd to the 29th of January.

  In Japan the film opened on the 20th of February in 19 theaters, including screenings where audiences could cheer and wave glow sticks. It began as a one-week run. Eight more theaters were added beyond the 27th of February, and from the 13th of March it played in over 100. The run is scheduled to end on the 18th of June.

  On Netflix it debuted at seventh place in the weekly ranking of non-English films, with one million views between the 19th and the 25th of January. One day after release it was first in the platform's list of top films in Japan. It also placed in the top 10 in South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand and Vietnam.

  In cinemas, the first four days brought in over ¥291.2 million, or US$1.87 million, from 148,067 admissions. It opened in fifth place in the weekend attendance rankings and topped the mini-theater rankings for three consecutive weekends. It stayed in the top 10 for 11 consecutive weekends. By the 17th of May 2026, it had earned over ¥2.526 billion.

  The story spread into print too. Yoneda's manga began in Kadokawa Shoten's Comptiq magazine on the 9th of January 2026, and its first volume came out on the 10th of February. Naruto Kiriyama's novelization, illustrated by Asao Urata and supervised by Yamashita, added scenes not shown in the film. According to Oricon, it sold 163,475 copies and ranked eighth on the paperback chart for the first half of 2026. Newtype's editorial department also compiled an 80-page guidebook subtitled Happy End no Sono Saki e!

  Yamashita directed and storyboarded a music video for the "Ray" cover, released on the 31st of January 2026. Animate Times said it shows Iroha's childhood, her daily life with Kaguya, Yachiyo's hidden feelings and a sequel to the story. Melvyn Tan of Anime Trending described it as "a mix of afterstory content and shots that highlight certain offscreen elements". Japanese theaters played it after each screening from the 27th of February, and Netflix added it as a post-credits scene on the 29th of April.

  The Blu-ray arrives on the 9th of September 2026 from Twin Engine, Incs Toenter and Sony Music Solutions. Its limited edition carries an extended cut that restores scenes trimmed from both the Netflix and theatrical versions.

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