Rail of the Star

Rail of the Star (お星さまのレール, O-Hoshisama no Rail), is an anime film based on Chitose Kobayashi's autobiographical novel of the same name, produced on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Japanese Movie Center.

Rail of the Star
Kanaお星さまのレール
Revised HepburnO Hoshisama no Reeru
Directed byToshio Hirata[1]
Written byHideo Asakura
Tatsuhiko Urahata
Music byKoichi Sakata[1]
Production
company
Release date
  • 10 July 1993 (1993-07-10) (Japan)
Running time
80 minutes[1]
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese

It narrates the vicissitudes suffered by the Kobayashi family after the armed conflict of the World War II, focused according to Chitose's vision at the time.

It was produced by TV Tokyo, animated by Madhouse and directed by Toshio Hirata; its premiere in Japan was on July 10, 1993.

Plot

Chitose Kobayashi, a seven-year-old Japanese girl, raised in the Sinuiju of Korea occupied by Japan during World War II, completely ignored what it meant to be at war, but unfortunately she soon discovered that it affected the soldiers so much that they fight on the mountain front like the civilians living far away from the battlefield.

World War II begins for her the day her father receives a letter that forced him to enlist in the army and leave for the front.

Subsequently, a series of devastating events that mark her childhood occur. Miko, Chitose's younger sister, dies of typhoid; Ohana, her Korean servant girl and friend, is fired after committing imprudence; and Japan surrenders to the Allies.

Upon returning from her father, already in times of peace, the Russians invaded North Korea and the whole family was forced to leave that country. After unearthing the ashes of Miko, they must board a train that will take them further south of the 38th parallel, where the Americans are. However, they are forced to abandon it halfway to escape an inspection of the North Koreans. Another of the setbacks with which they have to face is the disorientation to walk on unknown roads, which causes them to move in circles throughout the day, but manage to follow the map drawn by the stars in the sky. As they progress, the difficulties will increase until they reach an emotional outcome.

Analysis

Japan has long faced issues when it comes to acknowledging its actions in World War II. This conflict between war memory and reality is most noticeably seen when it comes to their occupation of Korea. Japan formally annexed Korea in 1910 after fighting two wars over the peninsula.[2] Soon after annexation, Japan instituted policies that made it illegal to teach the Korean language or history and forced Koreans to change their names to Japanese ones.[2] This is seen in Rail of the Star when Chitose meets a young Korean boy who has become resentful of the Japanese occupiers, but this interaction favors the Japanese by painting the young boy’s feelings as outlandish and highlighting how scared his plans made Chitose. Rail of the Star also jumps over any mention of ‘Comfort Women’, even though the vast majority of these comfort women were Korean.[3] This indirect denial of history is not that unique when it comes to Japanese manga, as many popular animes have struggled to come to terms with Japan’s actions during the war. Just like Rail of the Star, many animes will have an anti-war undertone but will separate the realities of war from Japanese responsibility.[4] Through retelling her experience during the war, Chitose makes a strong argument against war, but chooses to keep these anti-war sentiments more abstract as opposed to placing blame. Japanese anime and other forms of media also suffer from the concept of the Japanese being the true victims of the war.[5] Although Chitose and her family belong to the aggressor nation, they are victimized by the film’s focus on their escape from Korea. This “self-victimization” is also seen in conflicts that have arisen over how Japanese textbooks should deal with the war. Japanese conservatives have often challenged any textbook that was critical of the Japanese empire as being “anti-Japanese” and have put forth their own textbooks, like the one created by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, that ignore any Japanese wrongdoing and focus on the damage done to Japan during and after the war.[6] In the end, Rail of the Star falls flat when it comes to its retelling of ‘history’. While one does feel sorry for Chitose and her family, one cannot ignore the reality that they were the occupiers in Korea and citizens of a nation that committed war atrocities like the Rape of Nanking and the use of Comfort Women.

Voice cast

References
  1. Galbraith, Stuart IV (1996). The Japanese Filmography: A Complete Reference to 209 Filmmakers and the Over 1250 Films Released in the United States, 1900 Through 1994. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co. p. 112. ISBN 0786400323. OCLC 77649243.
  2. Hundt, David; Bleiker, Roland (2007). "Reconciling Colonial Memories in Korea and Japan". Asian Perspective. 31 (1): 61–91. doi:10.1353/apr.2007.0029. hdl:10536/DRO/DU:30007115. ISSN 2288-2871.
  3. "Intoxicating Liquors. Sales. Guilt of Agent of Purchaser". Harvard Law Review. 42 (2): 279–280. December 1928. doi:10.2307/1329881. ISSN 0017-811X. JSTOR 1329881.
  4. Kim, Kyu Hyun (January 31, 2016), "Japanese Manga and Anime on the Asia-Pacific War Experience", Divided Lenses, University of Hawai'i Press, pp. 101–125, doi:10.21313/hawaii/9780824851514.003.0006, ISBN 9780824851514, retrieved April 17, 2022
  5. Shimazu, Naoko (January 2003). "Popular Representations of the Past: The Case of Postwar Japan". Journal of Contemporary History. 38 (1): 101–116. doi:10.1177/0022009403038001966. ISSN 0022-0094. S2CID 144817245.
  6. Schneider, Claudia (May 2008). "The Japanese History Textbook Controversy in East Asian Perspective". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 617 (1): 107–122. doi:10.1177/0002716208314359. ISSN 0002-7162. S2CID 145570034.
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