Galactic Railroad BakabtNight on the Galactic Railroad. Night on the Galactic Railroad. Author. Kenji Miyazawa. Original title. The nine- chapter novel was posthumously published in 1. Complete Works of Kenji Miyazawa Vol. Due to his adult responsibilities, Giovanni never has any free time and is ridiculed by his peers, making him something of a social outcast. His kindly friend, Campanella, is the only one (apart from his teacher, mother and sister, the latter two of whom are never actually seen) who cares for him. Looking for information on Ginga Tetsudou no Yoru (Night on the Galactic Railroad)? Find out more with MyAnimeList, the world's most active online anime and manga community and database. Based on a short story by the popular. This animation is 'Night on the Galactic Railroad'. Night on the Galactic Railroad ( Galactic Railroad Orchid. Genres Electronic / Dance, Dance Label Hope Recordings Total duration 17. This is an illustrated musical version of a Night on the Galactic Railroad, a story written by one of Japan’s leading children’s authors, KENJI MIYAZAWA. In this application, dream-like illustrations and the. Years ago, when I was briefly into Japanese animation I picked up the 1985 animated feature Night on the Galactic Railroad. I remember it as being a movie apart from the other anime I watched - a real audio-visual gem that. At school one day in science class, the teacher asks Giovanni what the Milky Way really is. Giovanni knows that there are stars, but cannot give a thorough answer. The teacher then asks Campanella, but he intentionally does not answer in order to save Giovanni from even more ridicule from his peers. During class, the local bully, Zanelli, says that Giovanni has been so absent- minded because his father has yet to come back from an expedition to the far north. Zanelli claims that Giovanni's father was arrested because the trip was supposedly . Night Galactic Railroad EspañolBefore they can come to blows, the bell rings and class ends. After encouraging the students to attend the star festival occurring that night, the teacher dismisses the class. Giovanni, however, stays behind to chat with the teacher. As the teacher and Giovanni marvel at some of the fossils that Giovanni's father has brought back from his past expeditions, he asks Giovanni if his father has returned yet (this is a question that is asked repeatedly throughout the story). Giovanni responds no, and heads home to begin another long, lonely night of work at the local paper. On that night, Giovanni runs into Zanelli, who mocks him before and running away to the attend the festival. Giovanni sulks as he accepts that he cannot go to the festival because of his responsibilities at home. Tired after a hard day's work, Giovanni lies down on top of a hill. He hears a strange sound, and finds himself in the path of a train. Bizzarre and fantastic, Night on the Galactic Railroad takes us and the main character through a journey filled with meditative moments and some signficantly tragic and deep themes lying underneath. Watch online and download Night on the Galactic Railroad (Dub) anime in high quality. Various formats from 240p to 720p HD (or even 1080p). HTML5 available for mobile devices. Luckily, the train stops and allows him and Campanella to board. Noticing that Campanella is all wet Giovanni asks what happened, and Campanella says he's not sure but a flashback showing him drowning suggests otherwise. The train travels through the Northern Cross and other stars in the Milky Way. Along the way, the two see fantastic sights and meet various people: including scholars excavating a fossil from white sands of crystal and a man who catches herons to make candies from them. Children who were on a ship that crashed into an iceberg (possibly Titanic) get on the train at Aquila, suggesting that the train is transporting its passengers to the afterlife. The train arrives at the Southern Cross and all the other passengers get off the train, leaving only Giovanni and Campanella in the train. Giovanni promises Campanella they will go on together, forever, but as the train approaches the Coalsack, Campanella disappears, leaving Giovanni behind. Giovanni awakens alone on top of the hill. He heads to the town, only to discover that Zanelli has fallen into the river from a boat. He was saved by Campanella who went into the water, but Campanella had not yet surfaced and is missing. Worried, Giovanni heads toward the river, in fear of what he already knows. Giovanni's worries prove true, as Campanella's father gives up searching for his son, who he believes to have drowned. On the verge of tears, Giovanni tries to stay strong. Giovanni then makes a promise to himself to stay strong throughout life, claiming that, no matter where he is, he and Campanella will always be together. Campanella's father tells Giovanni that a letter has arrived from his father, announcing he will be returning soon. He then heads home, to deliver this news and some milk to his mother. Major themes. The main theme of this story is . He started working on this novel soon afterward in 1. The middle part of the novel was never completed but was published as it is nevertheless. A tribute to those who give themselves to others is a recurring theme throughout the storyline, and according to Hasebe (2. Miyazawa's philosophy of self- sacrifice, a view appearing in many other juvenile novels of his such as Yodaka no Hoshi and Gusk. The anime features Mayumi Tanaka as Giovanni and Chika Sakamoto as Campanella. The film was produced by Nippon Herald and animated by Group TAC. The most prominent but controversial alteration made in the anime is that the main two characters (and their classmates) are depicted as cats. Some other characters such as the children from the ship are humans. Many members of the anime staff ultimately went on to high- profile careers as directors or as studio founders, such as K. The subtitled version played irregularly on the Canadian station Space in 1. The film was re- licensed by Discotek Media and released on DVD in 2. Blu- ray in 2. 01. In the language, the film is called Nokto de la Galaksia Fervojo. Texts appearing in various scenes are also written in Esperanto, such as writings on the blackboard in the classroom. An apparent extra at press in the printing house. The film soundtrack was composed by YMO member Haruomi Hosono. Theatrical works. It follows through the episodes in the novel rather briefly. The play also includes some lines by Professor Burukaniro, which appear only in the first three versions of the novel. Warabiza, a performing arts company in Akita Prefecture, made a musical version of the story. Using the final fourth draft of Miyazawa's original as the source text, this version is made up of 2. Apple Japan has recommended the Japanese version as an educational application. Allusions in other works. The book is referenced once more during a discussion on how much stories can change from the first draft to the final draft, due to the various different versions of Night on the Galactic Railroad. With the character of Matamune, the wise ghost of a cat often seen travelling by train in the afterlife and in the real world, manga artist Hiroyuki Takei introduced his own vision of Miyazawa's story in the manga Shaman King. The wise cat is even seen reading the book by Miyazawa in tome 1. This book is also heavily mentioned and referenced in the anime Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora (Looking up at the half- moon), as a book that Akiba Rika's father gave to her. Yakitate!! Japan has a short mention of the work as illustrated in the reaction of the judge Pierrot, the world class clown, after eating the bread of Shadow who promised it would send him across the galaxy to see his mother. It is shown that the characters mother's favorite book is the same piece of literature; she is shown in a painting holding the book. The next night she is given a ticket to ride it by a cat and nearly gets on it but donates the ticket to a kitten. Aside from Akari, the conductor and all the passengers are cats, similar to the movie. GUMI supposedly sings from Giovanni's point of view and the song was written . The protagonist's names, Junpei and Kanta, originate from . She also bears a similar fate to the original Campanella. The novel is referenced several times in the 2. Maku ga Agaru, starring the Japanese idol group Momoiro Clover Z, besides being the main play that make the characters in the film. See also. The World of Kenji Miyazawa. Laboratory for Inter- field Communication. The 9th International Symposium on Internationalization of Basic Researches in Japan. Retrieved February 2, 2. International Institute for Children's Literature, Osaka. Aqua volume 6 (in Japanese). ISBN 9. 78- 4- 8. Mainichi. jp (in Japanese). Japan: The Mainichi Newspapers. Retrieved 6 November 2. Film @ The Digital Fix. The Film. So, how to approach a film like Night on the Galactic Railroad (Ginga Tetsudou no Yoru)? It certainly can be a tricky business. Does one dust off its pedigree first, mentioning that it's a 1. Japanese poets of the early 2. Century, Kenji Miyazawa? Perhaps it's easier to be clinical and explain that it's a parable in fabular mode focusing on the emotional journey of two anthropomorphised children along a 'railroad' of metaphysical discovery. On the other hand, there's always the quirky angle to be attempted - like the fact that Miyazawa wrote the entire story in both Japanese and Esperanto (Nokto de la Galaksia Fervojo). Or is it better to come clean and admit that it's a 1. Where to begin, where to begin.. Not that I know much about the man, really. He lived between 1. Japan's rural Iwate Prefecture, and was an idealist and a dreamer during a period of nascent modernisation that had little tolerance for either. A gifted writer whose works only rose to prominence long after his own untimely death at 3. So well- loved is Miyazawa in modern Japanese society that on the centenary of his birth, a bizarre anim. But this is somewhat tangential to the point of this review; if you'd like to learn more about Miyazawa, by all means please refer to my above write- up. For now, let's return the focus to Night on the Galactic Railroad. This is in fact how the blurb on the back of the Amaray case sells the show, but it's important that parents who are contemplating a purchase of this DVD for young children understand that this facile description is somewhat misleading.. Of course, even adults will have to resolve themselves to patience in order to survive the film's slow journey and may in the end take issue with some of the religious and spiritual messages Miyazawa was transmitting through this work. Examples of some key memes include. I think people are happiest when they do something truly good.'. There's really nothing more satisfying than hard work at a job you do well.'. To reach true happiness we must serve God, even if we do so from the depths of our despair.'. Most of this is fairly standard philosophical fare, but I would personally advise parents who still wish to show this movie to their kids to sit down and watch it with them.. A case in point would be the parable of the scorpion that features late in the film. Not only is it presented by a pair of dead children whose guardian admits to making a conscious decision to let them drown so they could proceed directly to heaven rather than face a life of untold future miseries, but the tale itself could easily be construed as attributing a 'death cult'- like nobility to self- sacrifice while a foolish arrogance is assigned to self- preservation. Particularly interesting to me was the distinction between the 'Heaven' the vast majority of the passengers (including the above drowned children) disembark into and the 'True Heaven' that is Campanella's destination (which, incidentally, requires a longer journey to reach), as the heavy symbolism makes it clear that the former is based upon the popular understanding of the Christian mythos, while the latter seems to necessitate a progression beyond doing merely what is expected and into wisdom and enlightenment. Similarly, if we focus specifically upon the character of Giovanni, one could view this entire story as one of personal hardship leading to a mystical epiphany that prompts a spiritual rebirth. First, the film is almost painfully protracted, rife with pregnant pauses in the dialogue, listless inactivity by the principals, and vacant expressions on the face of the ostensible protagonist; it's safe to say that the same story could have been told much more effectively in somewhere between half and two- thirds of its 1. Second, the imagery is a bit hit or miss, unlike the rich and consistently- intriguing visual style of Spring and Chaos. Nor are Takao Kodama's character designs going to be to everyone's liking. In addition, despite all reports to the contrary, this film was not released as full- frame (4: 3). As you can see from the screenshots I've provided, the true aspect ratio is closer to 1. TV proportions, either. When the film plays, however, there are 'black bars' framing the top and bottom of the screen, so perhaps this padding is what gave people the impression it was a 4: 3 presentation. I've listened through the film in both the original Japanese and the English dub and didn't detect any dropouts or excessive levels of white noise even at higher volumes. Also notable - and a bit on the strange side - was the score of Night on the Galactic Railroad, which is ethereal and spooky in equal measure. Giovanni is performed by Veronica Taylor (probably most famous as the voice of Ash from Pok. Despite the slightly- dubious choice of a playful, 'child- friendly' font for the main selections of a story whose predominant theme is death, I find the layout attractive and efficient. Menu response times were fast throughout, and the options available include 'Languages', 'Play Movie', 'Galaxy Maps', 'Special Features', 'DVD- ROM', and 'Sneak Peeks'. There's a brief CPM- made trailer for Night on the Galactic Railroad, a lengthier capsule bio of Kenji Miyazawa (about 1. If you have access to a DVD- ROM drive, then you can also access the complete English dub script for the film. However, it's not a bad bit of filmmaking.. The story itself is a bona fide literary classic, and the production team that worked on the animation script took great pains to remain faithful to the original text, so if this kind of philosophical examination piques your curiosity, you could certainly do worse than to check out Night on the Galactic Railroad. On the other hand, if you have any doubts about your level of interest (or that of your children), it might be better to give this particular disc a miss. It's cerebral, surreal, and very slow..
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