If critiquing Miyazawa Kenji’s bizarre novel Night on the Galactic Railroad seems difficult to accomplish, then how much more so is it to judge the anime adaptation of the same name. Having come out in 1985, the film finds itself unable to fully manifest its characters’ emotions from the original book, given the inherent limitations of animation at the time. But rather than giving an emotionless mess, the result is that Night on the Galactic Railroad simply is. I can find no better way to describe it. Night on the Galactic Railroad is, in the same way that lying on a hill on a cloudless summer night looking up at the stars and utterly losing all focus is. As we follow the story of two young cats taking a journey through the galaxy, they sometimes think about how long they've kept their mothers waiting. It's these thoughts that remain the one and only reminder of the world they leave behind, an anchor that eventually pulls them back from eternity.
Giovanni is bullied in school. The other children enjoy making fun of his absent father and his need to work for food money while they go out and play. His face never reacts to these insults, and only once does he acknowledge that they have said anything at all. His best friend is Campanella, who he played with as a child, observing the galaxy and getting lost in its many wonders. Their friendship is affirmed through the actions they take in the school, and eventually on the Galactic Railroad. They say many things, but rarely do their faces reflect their words. The voice actors do a good job of conveying emotion, but without the images to support them, every sentiment hangs in the air like a given fact, or some infallible truth of the world that we take for granted.
The other characters they meet on their journey seem to embody emotion itself. A cat who catches birds speaks slyly, and while he means them no harm his mannerisms would have marked him as a villain in any other work. A group of humans board the train and collapse onto their seats, two of them instantly falling asleep. The third tells their tale, and the world changes to reflect the events he recounts. But as Giovanni and Campanella watch attentively as everything unfolds, the man speaks flatly and with resignation. All three are weary, disposing of even the emotion of tiredness in favor of simply being worn down. Many other actors pass by on their metaphysical journey through the galaxy, each one disappearing as fast as they come, and so too do their stops appear out of thin air, distinct and quietly beautiful, before disappearing the moment they turn away.
Giovanni’s family life, their school, his work, and all other matters fade into the background very quickly as the journey begins. They could have been removed and the core of the story would remain completely intact. Could it be the same story? No, not even close. Everything on the journey poses questions to Giovanni, questions we would be completely ineligible to interpret were we to pass over the initial snippets of his daily life. As emotionless as he can seem in the real world, on the train he is struggling to find emotions to hold on to, fighting battles with himself to reconcile his persona with what he sees.
And beyond the metaphysical experience of the train, there is real tangibility to what occurs. Surrealism has long since been a mechanism that can be used for hiding reality with a translucent veil, and so does the journey in Night on the Galactic Railroad. An incident involving life and death back home—one I will avoid spoiling—occurs early on in the film and appears only in hints on the train. The first hint is lost on Giovanni, and the animation quality makes it quite difficult to catch even as a viewer. In the original story there is no ambiguity at this point, as the incident appears in flashback form. I vastly prefer the anime’s telling, although having the limitation of not being able to have this hint is quite a stumbling block. All the other hints appear in completely tangential ways, and little by little Giovanni comes to react to—but not quite accept—what is going on. When the event comes, he accepts it with a maturity and independence that displays his profound growth since his first moments in the classroom.
The other major departure from the book is the use of cats to portray its lead characters. Legend has it that this was a way to deal with the difficulty of animating human figures, which makes little sense given that humans do appear in the film. Given that fact, I have no guesses as to why they chose the drastic change. I do like it, as the whole movie is given another level of a dreamlike quality, both in the characters themselves and in their catlike mannerisms. When they grin we are reminded of the Cheshire Cat; they catch birds as cats do, birds that seamlessly blend in with their surreal surroundings. At the same time, such a huge departure can take us out of the experience of Giovanni growing as a result of his journey, which is indeed a minus. But this change, like the rest of the movie, is definitely one for each viewer to consider and judge on their own individual basis. No overarching set of principles could possibly be used to objectively judge any particular aspect of the film.
Miyazawa Kenji was dealing with a lot of personal struggles himself as he wrote Night on the Galactic Railroad. After the death of his beloved sister, he went on a journey and began to write. He wrote and wrote and wrote until he died 11 years later, having not completed the story. Each passing world, each hint of development and grief reflects this journey in an eerie and arresting way. Cat Soup functioned in an almost identical way, and of the two Night on the Galactic Railroad gives a much more positive message to those trying to move forward in life. The original work tells a very human story of growth, and yet it functions primarily as a children’s book, avoiding any mention of truly saddening events and creating a fantastical world that children can escape to in their minds, getting lost in the wonder of its sights. In the same way I would consider Night on the Galactic Railroad to be a children’s story, with the caveat of saying that anyone of any age can easily lose themselves to the wonder of the Galactic Railroad.