The Painterly Style of The Tale of Princess Kaguya

In terms of analyzing animation, I've only done western TV shows so far, so how about I subvert that by analyzing a Japanese movie?

The Tale of Princess Kaguya is a film by Studio Ghibli based off the Japanese folktale "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter".

In the movie, a bamboo cutter named Sanuki no Miyatsuko finds a miniature girl within a bamboo plant. Believing her to be divine, he elects to raise her as a princess. There's more to it, but, like, you can read the folktale if you really want a synopsis of the story. Besides, being based off a folktale, it shares much of its plot, meaning that the main focus is on the characters.

I'm not focusing that hard on the characters though. Nope! I'm focusing on the style, and boy what a style it is. Seriously, what a pretty movie! And what a unique aesthetic!!

It uses only a few brief lines to define shapes and what appears to be watercolour to colour the backgrounds. Often, only splotches of colour are used to define objects, while the rest is not afraid to display the white of the canvas. This gives everything a very organic and painterly look as well as makes everything surreal and mythical.

On top of this, the linework for the characters is very rough and inconsistent. It varies in both thickness and opacity, and many of the lines are only incomplete segments. Thin lines are used against the hair to define the strands because there is no shading. Still, even the lack of shading helps to fit in with the painterly style of the movie. It lets them keep their palette more limited and makes the more "flat" characters stand out against the textured environments.

The character designs are interesting. While the typical "ghibli style" is used for the main leads, other characters have dot eyes and more exaggerated features. Their bodies are pretty simple, likely for ease of animation and to mesh with the style better.

The colours in general are fairly washed out and pale (but not in a bad way!), like the whole movie is made out of watercolours.

It's a unique and very lovely colour palette that I enjoy quite a lot.

In conclusion, this whole movie really feels like watercolour painting come to life! I love how it looks, and a surreal style like this is perfect for a folktale. The only downside I kind of see is that the style can make it difficult to get immersed in the movie, since you may get caught up on the unique style instead of the plotlines. I still think it's very beautiful and well worth a watch, however.