I consider Shingo Yamashita a representative of everything great about this era of anime. While he's been working in the industry for years, it wasn't until the late 2010s that he sprung into prominence at the forefront of the "web-gen" anime movement, an influx of internet-based indie animators using digital technology to radically re-imagine how this art form could look. It was his instantly iconic style- hyperfluid camera movement, sleek minimal linework, light and shadow melding into one, a desaturated neon color palette- that catapulted that movement into the mainstream- and him into something like superstardom. Suddenly, he'd gone from a relatively unknown key animator to the visionary behind a high-profile Pokemon web series, multiple music videos, and some of the most iconic OPs of the 2020s. (Jujutsu Kaisen, Ranking of Kings, Chainsaw Man) And you can feel his influence bleeding all throughout the industry as the animators he inspired continue evolving what anime visuals are capable of. If the 2010s belonged to Yutaka Nakamura, then the 2020s are eqaully indebted to Shingo Yamashita and his unmistakably modern vision of anime's future.

All that is to say, Cosmic Princess Kaguya is kind of a Big Fucking Deal. This is Yamashita's directorial debut, his first opportunity to explore his ideas and fascinations in a full-length feature film. And it's as unmistakably modern in concept as the rest of his body of work, a re-invention of the Princess Kaguya myth for the Vocaloid generation. Instead of being taken in by a bamboo cutter and his wife, this Kaguya falls into the care of one Iroha Sakayori, a over-stressed, over-achieving mess of a high school girl living on her own to prove to her overbearing mom she doesn't need to rely on anyone. But between studying, being perfect at school, gaming all through the night and spending all her part-time-job money on her oshi, the virtual idol Yachiyo, she is one missed Red Bull away from a complete nervous breakdown. So she's not exactly thrilled when she suddenly has to take a care of an inexplicable glowing baby sprouting out of a telephone pole. Even less so when that baby grows up basically overnight into a girl her age so chaotic and disorganized she makes Atsuko Kagari from LWA look like a model student. One look into her over-caffeinated dead-eyed stare and you know this girl is ready to snap.

But then an opportunity drops into their laps. See, that virtual idol Yachiyo is actually an AI that exists in the digital world of Tsukuyomi. It's essentially VR Chat on steroids, a massive playground for people to connect, dress up, work on projects, and most of all, perform. There are countless digital artists, from Vtubers to indie musicians to variety streams, working to make a name for themselves in this cyberspace community. And Yachiyo's just announced a contest: whoever can rack up the most followers in a month will get a chance to perform a concert with her! Normally, Iroha would never ever dream of attempting something like that; she'd much rather her oshi from afar than risk the humiliation of putting herself up for evaluation. But when Kaguya's overwhelming joy and whimsy remind her of the musical ambitions she once harbored, she agrees that as long as Kaguya does leave when her friends on the moon come for her, she can stay for now as they work toward victory in the Yachiyo Bowl. Thus, these two wildly different girls set to work butting heads, bickering, finding common ground, pushing each other's creative spirits, and discovering something bigger than either of them could have expected along the way.

This is, in short, one hell of a movie. It's at once a subversive retelling of mythology, a love letter to internet community, a raucously funny odd-couple comedy, and a showcase for Yamashita's bonkers imagination on as big a scale as he's ever had. In many ways, it's the make-or-break moment for the Shingo Style to prove it belongs in the mainstream. Sure, it's been successful in shorter bites, but there's a big difference between an aesthetics-driven music video and a whopping two-and-a-half-hour Netflix exclusive. What if Yamashita is only good at capturing vibes and not telling stories? Is there enough substance in this style to carry a fully realized narrative? Or will it prove itself to just be a bunch of neat visual tricks with nothing to say underneath? Plenty of small-scale artists struggle to translate their ideas to a bigger canvas when given the opportunity. There was every opportunity for this movie to end up a bloated, unbearable mess that forever put this artistic movement into the past tense.

Thankfully, that's not what happened.

Instead, the result might well be one of the greatest things I've ever seen in my life.

Yeah, sorry to bury the lead on this one, but OH MY FUCKING GOD I LOVE THIS MOVIE SO GODDAMN MUCH. It's one of the most delightful, exciting, and inspirational original anime we've gotten in a long time. It's bursting at the seams with joy. It's a cavalcade of spectacular moments all rushing on top of each other like a tsunami. It's a poignant, moving anthem for the zoomer generation. It's a staggering visual feast that ranks among the best-looking anime I've ever seen on pretty much every level. It throws a million ideas at the wall like Yamashita thinks he's not getting another movie so he needs to cram everything into this one. It's entirely too much of a good thing, it goes on way too long, it's self-indulgent to a fault, and I loved every single solitary second of it. And yes, it's also gay. Like, gay gay. Not implication gay, not "oh some studio exec clearly told them they couldn't be as explicit as they wanted" gay, this is a full-on supernatural coming-of-age yuri romance like someone filtered Makoto Shinkai through the VTuber fandom.

And it's so fucking adorable oh my GOD. Where do I even start? Every second Iroha and Kaguya share on screen- which is basically the entire movie- had my cheeks burning from smiling so much. Their chemistry is so infectious it hurts, and Iroha's growth from wanting Kaguya out of her life to realizing how much this gremlin means to her had me cackling and crying from start to finish. I love how much a brat Kaguya is! I love how Iroha is as much of a freak as her in ways that only become more obvious as the story goes on! I love their stupid little gay fox handshake! And the character animation is somehow even better; there are so many instantly iconic faces and expressions and little movement quirks in pretty much every scene. By the time it gets to the more dramatic moments in the final act, you will be tearing your heart in desperation for these two dorks to stay together forever.

Of course, if you know the original Kaguya myth, you know that's easier said than done. And while I won't spoil the wild final direction the story takes, there's a kind of mad genius in how the old-school nature of the myth clashes with this hyper-modern re-imagining. Princess Kaguya is a story of loneliness and loss, a girl brought into a new world but ultimately doomed to sever all ties from it and return to numb isolation. And yet here we are in a modern world where it seems impossible to ever truly disconnect with someone. I can hop on a Discord call right now and chat with friends and family literally halfway around the world with barely any effort. We are connected today in a way that stands in total opposition to the Kaguya myth's original message. So instead, this movie becomes a celebration of connection itself, the wonders of the digital age's ability to bring people together even when they're worlds apart. Iroha's strained relationship with her family, Kaguya's isolation, even the transient nature of humanity itself... no matter how alone we may feel, humanity has given itself the means to bridge any divide and bring us back together.

Is that overly naive? Perhaps. If there's any big issue with the movie, it's that it throws so much at the wall that some of it's bound not to stick. The plot is overstuffed and unwieldy at points, especially in the middle when it turns into a bizarre League of Legends riff for like twenty minutes. Don't get me wrong, it's gorgeously animated, but it feels less like a necessary part of the story and more like Yamashita wanted to reference the LoL commercial he did back in 2019. And the final stretch is a gnarled mess of sci-fi ideas that definitely needed a few more passes in editing to iron out all the kinks. But it's such a confident, joyous movie that it's hard to care to much. Cosmic Princess Kaguya is a celebration of the best of the digital age, from its cutting-edge animation to its vision of technology's potential to its unabashedly queer perspective on love, connection, and the ways we can find the courage to share what we truly care for. So what if it takes an overly optimistic perspective? We could all use a little more hope in the future these days.

And that's what Cosmic Princess Kaguya gives me: hope. If not for the world, then certainly for anime itself. Shingo Yamashita has shown us a vision of what the future of anime might look like with this movie, and it's a wonderful future indeed. Passionate, heartfelt, sleek but not soulless, polished to perfection, and bringing people together in a celebration of our creative spirit. If that's what I have to look forward to, then I suspect I'll remain an anime superfan for many, many long years to come.