Taketori Monogatari

a brief comparative study between narrative and animation

Abstract

Taketori monogatari, dating from the Heian period - 794 to 1185 -, is the result of a community richly cultivated in serenity and with a great attachment to the arts. Eleven centuries after finding the oldest manuscript we have access to, Studio Ghibli releases the animated adaptation of the narrative, called The Tale of Princess Kaguya (かぐや姫の物語/Kaguya-hime no Monogatari). The research aims to verify the considerations about the original relationship between myth and literature, proposed by Eleazar M. Meletinsky (1987), and to analyze the symbolic structures that can emerge from the works – using authors such as Northrop Frye (1957) and Hayao Kawai (2007), for example, as a theoretical contribution. The importance of the study is revealed when we consider the scarce body of Brazilian research on Japanese literary studies and, in particular, on Taketori monogatari and the (re)signification caused by it through film adaptation. Finally, the constitution of the narrative is defended as capable of being understood similarly to a totalitarian symbol of the individuation process, proposed by Jung (s/d apud MIELIETINSKI, 1987), of the circularity of birth-development-declinedeath- rebirth. However, faced not only by individuals from the 10th century of the Japanese nation, but also by the living subjects of the 21st century, thus justifying the re-updating of the myth within Studio Ghibli’s animated adaptation of the 21st century.