Introduction: Kaguya-Hime (かぐや姫)
Kaguya-hime is a female character in a Japanese folklore, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Although the story is widely believed to be published in the ninth or early tenth century, the exact time when it was written and the identity of the author were not known. The story was considered the oldest existing Japanese fiction, as The Tale of Genji described it as the "ancestor of all romances". (Keene, 1998)
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter basically describes the life of a girl, Kaguya-hime, who came from the moon and grew up on the earth. She was discovered inside a bamboo stalk by a bamboo cutter, who later raised Kaguya-hime with his wife. Kaguya-hime was extraordinary beautiful. Many men, including people as high-ranked as the princes, wanted to be her husband. Kaguya-hime refused all suitors by giving tasks that were impoosible to complete. Even the emperor was not able to win Kaguya's full love. In the end, Kaguya was called by people from moon. Although she wanted to stay with her family (the bamboo cutter couple) on the earth, she was taken back to the moon, with all memories deleted.
On this website, I will first give a short version of the original story, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, discuss two movies that were directed based on the original story, The Princess from the Moon, and The Tale of The Princess Kaguya, relate Kaguya-hime to two animes, Naruto, and Pokemon, and one video game, Onmyoji, and finally analyze the different focuses on the ending of the story in the adaptations discussed above.