What do you get if you smash together The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter with the online-sphere riffs of BELLE and a dash of *Revolutionary Girl Utena *’s sapphic affection? You get a chromatic storm like the fantasy sci-fi musical Cosmic Princess Kaguya!. It’s a Gen Z-spirited bloat but a fun romp about a bond transcending time and space, the laws of nature, and the inevitability of adulthood.

Netflix appears to be poorly pushing this musical anime to the public consciousness to its U.S. audience, not unlike how the 2025 The Rose of Versailles MAPPA musical film felt slotted into a niche viewing for Western fans. The brain behind Cosmic Princess Kaguya! is director Shingo Yamashita, known for directing the openings of Chainsaw Man and Jujutsu Kaisen’s first season, and co-writer Saeri Natsuo. Yamashita’s Studio Chromato collaborated with Studio Colorido, which crafted other solid coming-of-age fantasies like Penguin Highway and A Whisker Away, on the project.

17-year-old Iroh (Anna Nagase) bustles between jobs and sustaining her position as a model student. Still bereaved by her father’s death, she’s estranged from her mother and struggles to pay her rent. Fate answers her wish for change in the kookiest way possible: a comet lightning strikes a light pole and presents Iroh a sleeping baby. A dazed Iroh forces herself to take home this mysterious, magical child. Then the infant blossoms into a girl with speech.

Iroh realizes this alien-like girl’s emergence and expedient growth resembles the heroine in a well-known Japanese folklore: The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. If you’ve seen Isao Takahata’s underrated classic The Tale of Princess Kaguya, you’ll also get the gist of Kaguya originating from the moon, appearing in a bamboo stalk to an earthly mortal and her adopter, becoming reduced to an object of desire for suitors, and then being coerced into a sordid fate where she’s taken back by the lunar court and cleansed of her earthly memories. Doing the math, this “Kaguya” (Yūko Natsuyoshi), as the movie christens her, might be snatched back by the moon people at an unspecified point in the future.

But rambunctious Kaguya balks at this dark foregone conclusion that hangs over this 142-minute movie. “I’m going to make my own happy ending,” she chirps, a rallying cry that echoes Iroh’s feeling of the trappings of adulthood. A caffeinated ball of energy, this giddy Kaguya gobbles up earthly pleasures at the expense of Iroh’s wallet, though she injects some much needed bubbliness into her serious life. The English dub performers Dawn M. Bennett and Jeannie Tirado fit the Bert-and-Ernie dynamic between the baggy-eyed, cynical Iroha and hyperactive Kaguya like a glove.

The pair find their retreat in the ubiquitous Tsukuyomi, a VR cyberspace ruled by the beloved AI Idol Yachiyo (Saori Hayami, with the English dub casting Ryan Bartley as the speaking voice and Frankie Kevich as singing), a Hatsune Miku-inspired entity. The awe-striking cosmopolitan glitters as a neon-futurism with feudal architecture. Tsukuyomi sets the stage for musical concerts and fantastic contests.

The VR world is also where most of the vibrant songs–credited with human bands, not an Idol AI, with Vocaloid producers Ryo (supercell), kz (livetune), 40mP, HoneyWorks, Aqu3ra, and yuigot–fly into the fore of their bonding sessions. The English dub also recruited lyricists Adam James, Brandon McInnis, Karine Costa, and Ama Lee, who cover the English translation with care for the milieu.

Keep in mind that the VR World Wide Web and its AI Idol operate less as conduits for commentary and more as props and set dressing in a twisty narrative: anons propositioning marriage in Kaguya’s comment sections, which inspire an ingénue Kaguya to start a duel for her marriage, stands in for the original tale’s chapter about Kaguya’s suitors, if not a cursory glance at internet misogyny. The plot treats Yachiyo less as a cobble of algorithmic-assemblages and more as a soul. To unravel this AI Idol further would spoil a twist.

Speaking of twists, the screenplay unfortunately corrodes the pacing with clunky, undercooked choices. Among shortcomings are the Black Onyx rival streamer trio, the ringleader, the shirtless Mikado (Miyu Irino and English dub’s Max Mittelman having fun with the smugness), and the source of a soapy twist that thuds in the middle. Deficiencies aside, the animated sight gags pop to the eye. The art direction takes on a softened style, juxtaposed with iridescence lights and neon jangles. If you detect vista underrenderings, they are strategically sown in the virtual realms. The movie also includes a “psych” faux-ending that confirms that this movie was molded for a streamer platform, though it could make a theater audience chuckle. Worthy of gold stars is Conisch’s eclectic score of jazzy modernity and antiquated twangs.

While it’s fun to see how the third act intermingles the fantasy and sci-fi with a cool confidence, the getting there has an element of headscatching. Not all the rocking notes land on the moon, but one cannot help but have fun with the riffs.