Fans of Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli will debate its best feature film until the end of time. Many will say it is My Neighbor Totoro (1988), while others will name Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) or Spirited Away (2001). I am honestly not sure what the best answer is, but one film I can identify immediately is Ghibli’s most underrated: Isao Takahata’s 2013 fable The Tale of Princess Kaguya.

The film adapts the Japanese folk tale The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Takahata’s version goes like this: a woodcutter in the forest finds a tiny fairy princess inside a length of bamboo. He takes her home, where she transforms into a baby. The baby grows rapidly, and during her truncated childhood the woodcutter keeps finding gold and fine cloth inside the bamboo forest. He takes it as a sign, and with his newly found wealth takes the now-teenage girl to the capital to become a princess and find a proper suitor. The girl, Kaguya, would be much happier if she stayed in the forest.

Isao Takahata, who died in 2018, never enjoyed the same profile as Miyazaki. Of the two he is arguably the more inventive filmmaker. His first Ghibli feature was Grave of the Fireflies, possibly the most depressing animated film ever made, which was released in a double bill opposite Miyazaki’s joyful My Neighbor Totoro. His second was Only Yesterday, an unexpected realistic drama, and his third Pom Poko, a rural fantasy about shape-shifting tanuki (a Japanese sort of raccoon dog). His fourth film, My Neighbors the Yamadas, was adapted from a popular comic strip and animated in its own sketchy, pencil-based style. It took 14 years for Takahata to finally direct his fifth Ghibli film, and again he adapted his animation style to suit the story. Princess Kaguya adapts an old-fashion folk story, and Takahata tells it with a visual style based on traditional Japanese water colours.

This is a visually striking film. It is not as detailed an aesthetic as you will find in most other Ghibli productions: instead it is almost gestural in style, and does take a little bit of getting used to. It shifts as well, becoming more or less colourful or detailed based on the emotion and momentum of each scene. It is also a remarkably slow film. It has the story that could be efficiently told in 90 minutes; Takahata’s deliberately thoughtful pace makes it take 137. Given some patience, it has a profound emotional effect. When the end comes, it is hugely charged with emotion and deeply moving – and it is because of the extra time it takes that it feels so effective.This is not a particularly child-friendly film, although there is nothing particularly inappropriate. It is a contemplative and considered tragedy, however, peppered with historical detail and adult characterisation. It is beautiful to look at, but requires a certain maturity to fully appreciate.

Ghibli regular Joe Hisaishi provides a typically beautiful orchestral score, and despite the slower pace and distinctive visuals his contribution ensures it still feels a part of the Ghibli tradition. Commercially the film was a failure, but artistically it cannot be considered anything less than an unqualified success. This is anime-as-arthouse cinema, thoughtfully and gracefully composed. It was Takahata’s final film, and while it was not his most populist work – it is hard to move past Pom Poko – it remains his finest.