「ray」is the best choice for Cosmic Princess Kaguya.

(this portion is a review on the lyrical side, the video side will be after it.)
(for timesake and sanity sake, the lyrical review covers only the mv)

MAJOR CPK and minor ONE PIECE SPOILERS AHEAD!

About「ray」and “Cosmic Princess Kaguya”

「ray」has astrological theme and messaging; the namesake of the song can be attributed to the light rays that stars make as they glisten in the heavens. Taking this in consideration, it is the perfect song to accommodate with the stellar-both in a complimentary and literal sense) story that is “Cosmic Princess Kaguya.” In it’s usage in this film, it essentially tells the story that in seen in the movie. It describes emotions that Iroha Sakayori- the main character who is an independent high school student, working for her own housing,- and her relation and experience with Kaguya- the heavenly main character that seamlessly came out of nowhere, emerging from a telephone pole which is supposed to be a modern rendition of how Kaguya emerged in a bamboo stalk. Every line feels as if it is made specifically for the movie, despite the original song being 11 years old.

Lyrics

「Owakare shita no wa motto mae no koto datta you na」”I now feel like the day we said goodbye is further away than it really is.” This line can be interpreted as two polarizing events in the story. The first time Kaguya and Iroha met, or the departure of Kaguya back to the moon. The former is reinforced by the idea that Kaguya iterated, “I’ll make my own ending,” is response to Iroha’s summary of the folk tale. Kaguya wants to create a different ending and to stay on earth, essentially, she doesn’t want to say goodbye to Iroha, and it seems implausible to her that she’ll have to. The latter, where Kaguya left, also works for this line. When Kaguya left, Iroha was driven to a state of disbelief and depression; a time-lapse was shown where she sat in the same spot in her pajamas, hair disheveled. Those moments where she was sitting in that spot may have felt like an eternity for Iroha. She was basically rid of her partner that never kept her bored. Every day with Kaguya felt fun, and therefore time felt fast in those moments. Moments in boredom always feel as if time has slowed down.

「Kanashii hikari wa fuujikomete katako suriherashitan da」”I’ve worn my heels down sealing away that sorrowful light.” Like the line before, this reinforces Iroha’s loneliness following the departure of Kaguya. In her moments of depression, she never did anything productive for that time, always just remaining in that space. It is revealed by her friends in the following scene where she did go to school that she never bothered to contact her friends at all. Iroha was essentially sealing away her depression, that is where she sat. As she sat, she laid in a state of depression until it was “sealed” and she went to school, concealing her sorrow.

「Kimi no ita toki wa mieta ima wa mienaku natta」”The things I saw when I was with you are invisible to me now.” When Iroha exited Tsukuyomi into the real world, she seemed to be in a state of disbelief; she was dissing Kaguya, complaining of her habits, whilst opening up cabinet doors as is she was looking for her. In the early parts of the story, Kaguya went missing briefly, and as Iroha was searching around, relieved she was gone, she appeared out of the cabinet. The scene where she is searching for Kaguya in the cabinets allude to the first time she went “missing.” Iroha’s whole perspective on the world changed when she was in contact with Kaguya. She saw a world that didn’t require persistent hard work and labor just to survive, but instead a world of fun. Now that Kaguya is gone, that feeling is basically void now, asthe source of her new happiness was from Kaguya.

「Toumei na suisei wo bonyari to demo sore dake sagashiteiru」”All that’s left is a ghost-like comet that’s become the only thing I search for.” When Iroha first saw a shooting star-shooting star can be interpreted as a comet even though they are separate things- the thing she wished for was, “money.” It is later revealed that this wish did come true, as with the departure of Kaguya, she was rewarded money, an amount so big she tearfully said, “there’s no way I can spend this money.” Her prior wish was money, which she was awarded, but perhaps if she had a new wish, may it have been different?

「Shocchuu uta wo utatta yo sono toki dake no merodii wo」”I sang a song with a melody made up of that time with you.” To get Kaguya back to Earth, Iroha sang a song she spent days writing out her balcony. It was a melody reminiscent of the feeling she had with Kaguya, a melody so intriguing that the next scene that followed was an 8-bit animation of Kaguya trying to come to Earth via a bamboo shoot missile??? Iroha’s song was crafted for the sole purpose of Kaguya in mind. That is what incentivized her to write that song; if she never met Kaguya, she would’ve never wrote these woes for her.

「Sabishiku nanka nakkata yo chanto sabishiku nareta kara」”I wasn’t lonely then, since I now know what loneliness really is.” At the start of the story, Iroha was pretty lonely. She lived alone, worked alone, studied alone, was praised, but never had a good social life outside of Tsukuyomi and her two friends. But despite this, she felt pretty neutral about her life, she hated the work, but not the loneliness. Now that she has experienced true companionship with Kaguya, she appreciates that feeling more and comes to hate that feeling of loneliness. When Kaguya left, she was depressed even though her life reverted to how it was, and she was given a boost with tons of money, but she was never happy about it. She yearned for the companionship she lost with Kaguya only because she experienced it.

「Itsu made doko made nante seijou ka ijou ka nante」"How long, and how far? Is it normal or abnormal?" Two sets of rhetorical questions, it may be ones that Iroha is asking her self as she creates the song to bring Kaguya back; she does not know whether this is actually the remedy and if it will be successful. If it will work, how long will it take for Kaguya to come back from the moon? The Moon to a human scale is a considerable distance away from the Earth. It's almost unfathomable to think of the travel time of the distance, especially in a character like Iroha who seems to be accustomed to a life confined in the city. A song as a cure from something like bringing back the one you hold dear from the moon is abnormal in a sense. She essentially askes her self, "does the song really hold this much power?" But considering that Kaguya came from a telephone pole, there's no question of what is normal or abnormal in this world.

「Kangaeru hima mo nai hodo aruku no wa taihen da」"It's so hard to walk that I don't even have the time to think." This illustrates the stress that Iroha endured as she sought liberation from her mother. Not much is known, but we do know that Iroha had a dispute with her mother leading to her moving to Tokyo where should would have to cover all expenses by herself. This is ridiculous to think of a high schooler, but Iroha managed to do it. Her stress is evident when she walks out of her work, where she resembles an old lady. Iroha is such a busy body, that she doesn't even have the time to think about her own life; when handing in the plans after school sheet, she takes it back claiming, "let me be indecisive." This proves she isn't set on what she wants to do, but what she does know, it is that she wants to sing with Kaguya again.

「Tanoshii hou ga zutto ii yo gomakashite waratte iku yo」"It's much better to have fun so I'll just pretend to laugh." When Kaguya came, Iroha became considerably more happier as she truly had someone special to her that she can have fun with. In Tsukuyomi, Kaguya and Iroha essentially rose to become celebrities. They started earning more money to rent a spacious apartment, went to the beach, and they even went on a firework festival date together. We don't seem much of Iroha's school and work life at this point, but we can infer that a considerable amount of stress was lifted off of her- perhaps she took less hours at work. When Kaguya disappeared, Iroha faced her friends, Ayatsumugi and Isayama, with a smile on her face; she seemed adamant on living a happy life from now on. But once she returned home, she came to senses with her circumstances and came to the conclusion that she can't be happy with Kaguya.

「Daijoubu da ano itami wa wasure tatte kie ya shinai」"Don't worry; even if I forget this pain, it'll never fade away." The best way I could describe this part, it is like when Zoro took Luffy's pain. When FUSHI showed Iroha the recollection of the 8,000 years that Kaguya (Yachiyo) had to go through just to get to the point where she was reunited with her, she sat (or stood???) exasperated, gasping for air. Iroha was in astonished condition, I lowkey thought she was going to die, but it seemed as if she was overwhelmed by the thought of how long Yachiyo waited, waited just for her. She thought of the suffering that Yachiyo must've gone through, the amount of lives lost throughout Japan's history all witnessed by her in her sea bunny state. If memories like that transplanted in one's mind, it'll probably leave a considerable impact on them.

「Daijoubu da kono hikari no hajimari ni wa kimi ga iru」"Don't worry; you are at the source of this light." This. Kaguya is the light that luminated the shadow that is Iroha's life, and vice versa. The day Iroha met Kaguya, she was already exhausted from the hard work she endured. What spiraled after that fateful encounter was the experience of joy and company both of them had. This was the story of an escape from the previous life that drains you. It is not only Iroha saying this to Kaguya, but Kaguya saying it to Iroha. They both found something new from companionship. Whether you think it's love, or friendship, it is intimate, and they are each other's light.

Video

I apologize for this part being brief, as I am not too creative and it's hard to review 2 minutes of a music video. But I'll try my best. The animation is as fluid as it was in the movie, and if you watched the movie, you know it's pretty freaking good. There's many great scenes in the music video as most of them provide some insight on the back story of Iroha and into the personal life of Iroha and Kaguya. The main thing with finishing a movie or anime that you love so much is that void after where you desire more. This music video perfectly relieves that void. It manages to bring content to compliment that original source, without actually being a sequel. It's some witchcraft, I have never seen anything like it, it makes me so happy.

The main focus is the dancing scene with Iroha, Kaguya, and Yachiyo. They don a swimsuit-like attire with a bulb-like translucent skirt, which is colors that suit their respective characters the best-in my opinion. Blue with streaks of purple for Iroha, orange for Kaguya, and the familiar blue on Yachiyo. On top of that, Iroha and Kaguya is also sporting a different hair style; Iroha has longer hair which in my opinion, she eats it up, and Kaguya has shorter shoulder length hair which like Kaguya, she eats it up as well.

All the visuals in the music video can be displayed in a gallery of its own. All the visuals and scenes I love, but for symbolic and aesthetic reasons, I do have favorites. I apologize, I don't know how to submit photos on to this, so I will provide time stamps.

0:54 Iroha is seen sitting next the window in class with a slight reflection on the window. Instead of depicting the actual reflection of her, it shows her crying in a different classroom. I infer that this is in her childhood, and has to do with stress inflicted from parental expectation of her at such a young age. However as she turns around to her friends, the high-schooler appears to have a positive look. Iroha seems to be content with her current life of living even if it may be more work than living with her parents.

1:07 It's just Iroha chudding out over Yachiyo whilst Kaguya is jealous, does she know?

1:47 This is my favorite scene by a long shot. It depicts a war-torn scene behind Kaguya as she appears to be terrified for her life. This truly reveals the time that Yachiyo had to grow through; she had to see scenes like this where it was chaos reigned. I believe this particular scene is alluding to Hiroshima, as this is a level of destruction that can only be accomplished through extensive bombing. Throughout 8,000 years, there is no way that it was all peace for Yachiyo. She may have seen people that she interacted to previously dead through the consequences of war. I am assuming Yachiyo was immortal in the form that she was, so there was little that she could do.

2:20 It's just a beautiful scene with the beautiful couple doning a beautiful white dresses as they hold each other's hands on a beautiful field of grass and beautiful white flowers. It's yuri dude.

In conclusion, watch the music video. Ray has a special place in my heart, and being able to hear it adapted into a beautiful film like this is truly one of the best things to ever happen in my life. I'm not exaggerating.