Table of contents
Introduction
Studio Colorido and Studio Chromato’s Cosmic Princess Kaguya is an action-packed musical sci-fi romantic comedy retelling of “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter”. Released in January to positive reviews and nice buzz from English press outlets, it mostly came and went as yet another interesting streaming release that got buried by the algorithm. It has just 10 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing, and hardly any English-language articles after January 2026, so it’s known as just one of many great Yuri anime works in the past year.
However, that’s in stark contrast to its reception in Japan, where it’s slowly become one of the year’s smash-hits and spawned what might be the next big Japanese media franchise. It’s been a whirlwind six months for Cosmic Princess Kaguya, and I want to recap for English speaking audiences everything you might have missed.
A Low-Key Netflix Anime Movie
While Netflix is home to dozens of popular Japanese anime series(you can find everything from Cyberpunk Edgerunners to Oni: Thunder God’s Tale to Japan Sinks) it’s fairly limited for feature films.
Netflix’s anime film catalogue includes manga tie-ins (Blame! and Black Clover: Sword of the Wizard King), Netflix IP tie-ins (Bright: Samurai Soul and Altered Carbon: Resleeved), the Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters trilogy by Polygon Pictures, the Wit Studio film Bubble, the films of Studio Colorido, and the upcoming The Ribbon Hero. About 13 in total.
There are a few more films acquired by Netflix outside of Japan, such as The Imaginary and Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop, as well as a few movies that stretch the definition of either “feature film” or “Japanese,” such as Baki Hanma VS Kengan Ashura and Ultraman Rising. However, in general, Netflix is not known for its robust original anime film catalog, and not many of these are well-received.
The most notable part of the Netflix movie library is those from Studio Colorido. It is a newer anime studio, formed in 2011, and now operating under the umbrella of TWIN ENGINE. Early on, it released a few short films and a few animated Pokemon tie-ins, but its main work has been feature films. It debuted with Penguin Highway, a well-loved film based on a book by Morimi Tomihiko of Tatami Galaxy fame. But its follow-ups, Burn the Witch and A Whisker Away, were both derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The former was given a limited release and streamed online as a miniseries, while the latter was sold to Netflix with a limited release later.
Studio Colorido and Netflix later signed a three-movie deal in 2022 that included the movies Drifting Home,My Oni Girl, and the subject of our article, Cosmic Princess Kaguya.
Without too much editorializing, it feels very similar to the deal that Sony Pictures Animation signed in 2021, where they sold away the full rights to some of their pandemic-era films like Mitchells vs. the Machines,Wish Dragon, and Vivo. None of those were particularly popular (although Mitchells vs. the Machines is fantastic), but the problem for Sony came when K-Pop Demon Hunters turned into one of the all-time animated movie hits and Sony received just a lump sum at the start. No profits, no sequel rights, no merchandise. Netflix reaped all the rewards immediately.
Studio Colorido’s deal was more favorable. They didn’t sign away the rights for these films like Sony, and they kept the merchandising rights as well. In turn, though, Netflix didn’t participate in much of the marketing or promotion, either. Thus, it was slated for an unassuming January 22nd release.
The marketing was modest. A few cute YouTube shorts introducing the characters and the VTuber conceit, some covers of famous Vocaloid songs, and frequent posts on Twitter. It had three pieces of tie-in media–a light novel, a manga, and an official guidebook. The merchandise was limited, and it had just one tie-in DLC (downloadable content) with the game gogh: Focus with Your Avatar. Based on the earlier Studio Colorido films, and on all the earlier Netflix original anime films, this was more than enough.
However, when the movie was finally released, that’s when everything changed. That’s when Cosmic Princess Kaguya turned into a hit. And just like Netflix’s K-Pop Demon Hunters, all parties involved were totally caught off-guard.
A Fandom-Ready Film
For keyed-in otaku audiences, Cosmic Princess Kaguya was definitely something to pay attention to. It was the directorial film debut of Yamashita Shingo, an animator famous since the webgen era for his dynamic and crazy style. He’s one of the animators that made the term “Sakuga” popular even in the West. You probably know him for directing the first Chainsaw Man and Jujutsu Kaisen opening themes.
Yamashita started working with Studio Colorido in the late 2010s and led the Pokemon: Twilight Wings miniseries. From that, he got the opportunity to direct his first major project through his own Studio Chromato and lined up an impressive staff, including fan-favorite voice actor Hayami Saori (Demon Slayer, Spy x Family, A Silent Voice) in a lead role and a soundtrack featuring songs by famous Vocaloid producers like Ryo from supercell (“Melt”, “Koi ha Sensou”, “Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari” for Bakemonogatari), HoneyWorks (“Sekai Wa Koi Ni Ochiteiru” for Blue Spring Ride, “Heroine Tarumono”), and 40mP (“Love Trial”, “Karakuri Pierrot”). The film even snagged up-and-coming voice actor Nagase Anna for the protagonist Iroha, just before her big roles in series like Milky Subway and Zenshuu.
It was no longer treated as just one film, but rather a small multimedia project. For fans who enjoyed the movie, there was still plenty of side content to devour for tidbits to help enlighten parts of the main movie.
The light novel is filled with exclusive scenes, new characters, and more romantic elements. The official guidebook goes into detail about every character in the cast, even background extras. The YouTube channel’s promotional videos are treated as in-universe works as well, where a throwaway vertical short provides an important character detail, and a music video serves as the direct prequel to the movie.
The biggest piece of side content released a week after the Netflix debut–a brand new fully animated music video for “Ray.” It’s an epilogue to the movie that ties together every character and emotional element of the story all in one hyper speed two-minute short. It’s genuinely an astounding piece of work.
All this side material adds up to something like the Star Wars movies; none of it is essential to understanding the film, nobody expects you to read or watch it all, but there are so many endless details about every facet of the story. It sparks the imagination and fuels the fire of fandom.
One-Week Theatrical Release
Because of the growing popularity of the film on Netflix, Cosmic Princess Kaguya was given a one-week limited run in theaters to help fans burn off their passion. Theaters gave out a special booklet as a gift, and the movie incentivized date nights with a special “Pair Ticket” offer that gave 700 yen off if you bought two tickets at once. Only 18 theaters across the country would be getting the film, mostly in big cities.
Previous Studio Colorido films like My Oni Girl and A Whisker Away received limited releases to little fanfare, but this time was different. Amid almost fullysold outscreenings, This one-week limited run was extended to two. Then three. Then it got a broader release in over a hundred theaters starting on March 13th.
Week after week, it stayed in the top 10 movies, even as the big spring blockbusters debuted. It stuck around even as movies like Golden Kamuy, Wicked: For Good, and Hoppers faded. It’s even jokingly theorized that Project Hail Mary became a surprise success in Japan largely because of its synergy with Artemis II and with Kaguya herself; the moon and space were really popular in the spring.
Each week, theaters incentivized watches and rewatches with special postcards, stickers, and other small gifts. Many otaku-oriented movies in theaters give away gifts, so it’s not particularly special, but when these items kept running out of stock every week due to excess demand, that’s when it became special.
Throughout its theatrical run, Cosmic Princess Kaguya became the cult hit of early 2026. Its songs got radio play, a half-dozen magazines like CUT and Anan gave it cover features, countlesswebsitesfeaturedinterviews, and it broke out of the niche otaku sphere and into legitimate mainstream spotlight.
All of this, of course, had the team behind the movie scrambling.
Crowdfunding Smash
In the midst of the surprise success of the theatrical run, Cosmic Princess Kaguya launched a crowdfunding campaign for “Tsukuyomi Thanksgiving!“, a VR Chat virtual world based on the movie. It launched with a cute 3D Kaguya performance, a bunch of otaku-friendly reward tiers, and yes of course it met its goal within minutes.
The actual funding numbers aren’t public, but by the end of the campaign, it raised over 5000% of its original goal. If that goal was, for example, $68,000 USD, that would amount to $3.8 million by the end. So, we are talking about serious amounts of money here.
The whole campaign has this scrappy shine to it. Studio Colorido’s parent company TWIN ENGINE is hardly indie, but the fact they had chosen to do a small crowdfunding campaign for a VR world shows where this movie campaign was aiming before the release; a small success, a loyal fanbase, and a couple years of riding off that before moving onto the next property. Advertising it with a little 3D motion capture dance from the voice actor feels so quaint, looking back. Even by mid-March, they hadn’t been able to adapt to just how big the movie had gotten.
Golden Week
The story crested to its first climax during Golden Week at the end of April.
On April 29th, the PR team launched a special posting campaign, encouraging viewers to watch at the same time, posting on social media together even in select movie theaters. The official account also shared fun tidbitsabout the movie during the watch through. It, predictably, led to Kaguya-related terms absolutely dominating Twitter trends, and a great many people were suddenly searching confused about who “Wineniki” was.
Then, on May 1st, the first of two videos was uploaded on the worldwide-popular live performance YouTube channel THE FIRST TAKE, featuring the voice cast singing “Ray.” When you’re big enough to get on THE FIRST TAKE, that’s when you know you’ve hit a cultural nerve.
The last of the special theater giveaways came at the end of Golden Week–a reprint of the original booklet that most fans missed out on. This time, thankfully, in much better supply.
Finally, after these months of energy, things finally were about to settle down to–wait, they didn’t settle down? Oh no.
Merchandise Mania
Because of the modest marketing of the initial release, and with international manufacturing suddenly becoming a mess due to geopolitical issues, all companies involved had to rush as quickly as they could to capitalize on Cosmic Princess Kaguya.
With the easiest-to-produce merch like acrylic stands, pins, stickers, and postcards at the ready, the entire nation of Japan embarked on a torrential downpouring of collabs with merchandise.
Here’s a large but non-exhaustive list of some of the events throughout the spring:
- A stamp rally in Fuji City;
- A pop-up in the bookstore, Asahiya in Osaka and Tokyo;
- A talk show and Q&A with movie staff in Tokushima with merch being sold;
- A collab with THE CHARA CAFE STAND at Tokyo Dome;
- A collab with the Sweets Paradise restaurant;
- A collab with the karaoke and net cafe Dice;
- A collab with Round One, the amusement center;
- Special cans with stickers on them sold only at the Cinema City theater in Tachikawa;
- A collab with clothing brand WEGO (though without any clothes for sale);
- A pop-up in Maruetsu in Osaka;
- A fireworks festival collab in Fuji City;
- And a summer-themed pop-up in the Tsutaya bookstore in Kyoto.
A restaurant in Tachikawa City, where the movie is set, even created an unofficial unlicensed tie-in to the movie as a promotion, and almost immediately had to end it because it brought far, FAR too many customers each day.
The big merch is still yet to come. Plushies, crane game prizes, big statues… It’s all still months away. The official Blu-Ray will be released in September, and preorders of the special edition have already sold out on nearly every digital storefront.
But official merchandise is not the only thing that took off. Once the doujinshi machine started up, the frenzied energy of the Cosmic Princess Kaguya fandom moved into fancomics as well.
Because of the official fanwork guidelines, doujinshi for this series can only be sold at in-person events, and in doujinshi specialty stores afterwards. No direct online sales, no digital sales, and no fangames or fan merch at all.
Which means, yep, more in-person events for fans to line up for to buy things.
The first standalone “Kaguya-Only” doujin event was “Super Tsukuyomi Festival” on May 24th, in Tachikawa. The venue was very small, as the event was set up before the movie truly took off. And unfortunately…
— 元教頭やしろ (@SEKAOWA_YUI) May 24, 2026
Yes, that’s a line stretching back hundreds and hundreds of meters. No, the majority of people in line didn’t even get to enter. It was chaos, and thankfully the event organizers managed to keep people from being hurt.
The next event was “Yaoyoro-!” in Ota City on 6/7, which I myself actually participated in. It was my very first doujinshi ever!
And there’s so, so many more Cosmic Princess Kaguya-themed events this summer and fall. Here is a complete list, as of this writing, which will absolutely be out of date by the time you read it (titles machine translated):
| Date | Event Name | Region | Venue |
| 5/24/2026 (Sun) | Super Tsukuyomi Festival | Tokyo | |
| 6/6/2026 (Sun) | Yaoyoro-! | Tokyo | Ota City Industrial Plaza PiO |
| 6/21/2026 (Sun) | Tsukuyomi Square | Tokyo | Ota City Industrial Plaza PiO |
| 7/6/2026 (Sun) | Super Tsukuyomi Festival 1.5 | Tokyo | Tachikawa Creative Space |
| 7/12/2026 (Sun) | Super Tsukuyomi Festival 1.68 (Kaguya’s Birthday Special) | Tokyo | |
| 7/26/2026 (Sun) | I Want to Eat Pancakes! | Osaka | MyDome Osaka |
| 8/30/2026 (Sun) | The Princess of the Universe! VG2026 | Tokyo | Tokyo Big Sight |
| 9/6/2026 (Sun) | Your Only Color | Tokyo | Ota City Industrial Plaza PiO |
| 9/13/2026 (Sun) | Beyond the Happy Ending, I Want to Talk With You for Eight Thousand Years (HapiHachi) – Chapter 1 | Hiroshima | Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Exhibition Hall |
| 9/23/2026 (Wed, Holiday) | Tsukuyomi Square 2 | Tokyo | Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Trade Center Hamamatsucho Hall |
| 9/26/2026 (Sat) | Yaoyoro! 2 | Tokyo | Ota City Industrial Plaza PiO |
| 10/4/2026 (Sun) | HapiHachi – Chapter 2 | Fukuoka | Fukuoka Small and Medium Enterprise Promotion Center |
| 10/18/2026 (Sun) | Super Tsukuyomi Festival 2 | Tokyo | Dome Tachikawa Tachihi |
| 10/25/2026 (Sun) | Your Only Color 2 | Kyoto | Miyako Messe |
| 11/7/2026 (Sat) | Tsukuyomi Monogatari | Yokohama | Yokohama Sangyo Boeki Hall Marinaria |
| November 2026? | Tsukuyomi Square Kansai | Osaka | Venue TBD |
| 11/28/2026 (Sat) | Yaoyoro! 3 | Tokyo | Venue TBD |
| 1/23/2027 (Sat) | Your Only Color 3 | Nagoya | Venue TBD |
And that’s not to mention Comiket, Comic City, and other bigger doujin events that will end up having Kaguya work as well.
Is this a gold rush after the first few events produced huge crowds and many sold-out books? Yeah, probably. But is it also the result of genuinely intense fan enthusiasm? Yep!
Box Office Smash
And the final result of all that fan enthusiasm– Cosmic Princess Kaguya made 2.71 billion yen in its original theatrical run.
A one-week limited release that lasted 17 weeks. Based on the rest of the film calendar for this year, there may be nothing else (except Detective Conan) that will last a full 17 weeks.
At 2.7 billion yen, it’s the #1 highest-grossing original anime film (not a direct adaptation or sequel) not made by Studio Ghibli or directed by Shinkai Makoto or Hosoda Mamoru. And among “niche otaku movies” (a somewhat nebulous term), it’s behind only the Love Live movie at 2.86 billion yen, the IDOLiSH7 movie at 2.92 billion yen, and the 2023 Gegege no Kitaro movie at 3.22 billion yen (if that even counts?).
All that despite only about 100 theaters at its peak, despite being available on Netflix for its entire run. An absolutely historic box office run that will be remembered among certain nerds for generations.
The tie-in light novel, too, has completely dominated the charts since its release. As of this writing, it’s sold almost 180,000 copies and no series comes even remotely close to matching it. It will almost certainly be the best-selling light novel of the year, and is already about to pass the top-selling light novel of 2025, The Apothecary Diaries, vol. 16.
Sadly, all things must come to an end, and the theatrical run ended on June 18th, with final “graduation screenings” held in Tachikawa and Kawasaki on the 19th and featuring in-person greetings from the film staff (archived online). The Cinema City theater in Tachikawa also sold commemorative “golden tickets” to the lucky few who attended.
Fans lined up hours before the movie started, just to spend time with each other and celebrate the end with one final chance to watch the movie in theaters.
And what a final showing it was. It definitely did not end with a fakeout. They definitely did not use the staff greeting to announce that the movie will be re-released in premium formats like 4DX and Dolby Atmos on September 18th.
Japan’s Newest Franchise
So, what was meant to be a one-off movie as streaming content has now become a real-deal major entertainment franchise. There’s no telling what the future holds, but I know for sure it is going to be big.
So far, the ravenous fans have been kept at bay with the constant drip feed of merch, story and lore. Everything so far has been small–there hasn’t even been time to coordinate any real projects–but they keep seeding in new bits of story and character detail with every opportunity.
- A birthday celebration post that dives WAY too deep into a character dynamic that the movie barely hinted at.
- A different birthday celebration post giving an adorable moment in the otherwise very difficult childhood of our protagonist.
- An Oricon News interview with Kaguya that canonically takes place in a small gap in the movie timeline
- A radio interview on NHK with Hochimachi Suisei and Kaguya, in-character, canonically set after the events of the movie, which raises so many questions that we don’t have time for here.
- YouTube shorts where Kaguya recommends you dinner (wait this wasn’t story relevant)
The fandom also feeds itself. Not only are there dozens of new doujinshi debuting at each event, but there’s already so many memes and fan theories and beloved Glup Shittos swirling around everywhere–including my favorite, the CIA agent “Wineniki” who somehow ranked 10th place in the first-ever character poll.
So far, though, very little of this energy has penetrated the English-language anime fandom–it’s been mostly confined to the ever-loyal Yuri fandom. The movie is only on Netflix everywhere except Japan, and none of the side material has been officially translated. We’re at the point where important side character FUSHI doesn’t even have English pronouns listed anywhere I can locate.
But I’m sure some incredibly crafty aspiring entertainment company will work out a deal to help Studio Colorido and TWIN ENGINE bring this franchise fully to the West, because this is a franchise that will last for many years to come.
In a few years, Cosmic Princess Kaguya will be far bigger, and this period now will feel very quaint. So, I think documenting it now, while it’s still a mysterious breakout hit that hasn’t quite seeped into the West just yet, is really important. This article hopefully charts the path to show how it grew so big, so quickly.
There was a day when Sakayori Iroha wasn’t a household name, and one day we will forget that fact.
