The Night of Taneyamagahara (種山ヶ原の夜, Taneyamagahara no Yoru) is a short anime film directed by Kazuo Oga and released by Studio Ghibli. A DVD version was released for Japan on July 7, 2006. It is based on a short story of the same name by Kenji Miyazawa. This was a personal film for director Oga, as he cited how he was inspired after reading a collection of Miyazawa's works after working on Princess Mononoke (1997). A special screening was held from February 2 to 7, 2010 during A Ghibli Artisan - Kazuo Oga Exhibition - The One Who Painted Totoro's Forest at the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art.
Plot
This story is about the time when the Tohoku region suffered from famine and lived poorly. In a corner of the Taneyamagahara plateau in the Kitakami Mountains of Iwate Prefecture, Ito, who spends the night with three farmers preparing for mowing from the early morning, dreams. In a dream, Ito interacts with the staff of the Forestry Office about the place where he can be paid to burn charcoal. Suddenly, oak, kashiwa, and birch spirits appear. Kodama and the Ito interact with each other over whether to cut down the trees in the mountains. For Ito, the mountain where the trees were squeezed and "komon" was a rich and "good" landscape where water boiled and akebi and mushrooms could be removed, but if the tree is not cut and charcoal is not lit, it cannot be earned for a living. Kodama disagrees with cutting trees and only suggests to burn charcoal. A mysterious overnight dream story by Kenji Miyazawa tells the audience that humans are not the only ones living in this world. The film describes the daily life of mountains farmers and their struggles to keep moving while deepening their understanding of nature and the world they live in, as they encounter mysterious figures and appearances that may change their perspective on everything they have yet experienced.
Authors
Kenji Miyazawa
Kenji Miyazawa was born in 1896 in Hanamaki City, Iwate Prefecture. After graduating from Morioka Higher Agricultural and Forestry School (currently Iwate University Faculty of Agriculture), he completed graduate school in the same school. After working as a teacher at Hanamaki Agricultural School, he established the Rasuchijin Association and worked hard to teach agriculture while aiming for a literary career. He started writing Tanka when he was a teenager, and since then has expanded his territory to poetry and fairy tales.
Kazuo Oga
Oga was born in 1952, Akita prefecture. In 1972, he joined Kobayashi Productions, an animation background art company, and worked as a background artist for numerous animated works. While working at Studio Ghibli, he was made the art director of My Neighbor Totoro, Pom Poko and Princess Mononoke. He was also in charge of the backgrounds of Howl's Moving Castle and Tales from Earthsea.
Release
The film was released on DVD on July 7, 2006. The home release came with a small booklet containing an interview with Kazuo Oga.
A special screening of the film took place during the extensive A Ghibli Artisan - Kazuo Oga Exhibition - The One Who Painted Totoro's Forest at the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art. The accompanying statement was that this production not only captures the picturesque beauty of Japan's landscapes but also features captivating music as an integral part of the storytelling. It also said that Kenji Miyazawa's lyrics and composition Imperial and Largo-Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" (composed by A. Dvorak) live up the story, and described the clean singing voice of the ensemble planeta as "wonderful". Screenings were held from February 2 to 7, 2010.
