Ohoshi-sama no Rail (Rail of the Star: A True Story of Children)

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: O-Hoshisama no Rail, Ohoshi-sama no Rail

Japanese: お星さまのレール

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Information

Type: Movie

Episodes: 1

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Jul 10, 1993

Producers: TV Tokyo

Licensors: ADV Films

Studios: Madhouse

Source: Novel

Genre: Drama

Theme: Historical

Duration: 1 hr. 19 min.

Rating: G - All Ages

Statistics

Score: 6.98¹ (scored by 1,146 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #4417²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #9157

Members: 3,925

Favorites: 5

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Synopsis

This is the autobiographic tale of Kobayashi Chitose, a young Japanese girl growing up in a Japanese-occupied North Korea. As World War II progresses, Chitose begins to realize that her family will not be able to escape the effects of the conflict. From the simple disappointment of not being able to get the type of backpack she wants for school, to her father's recruitment as a soldier, the war begins to impact her life in a very real manner. But the end of the war does not mean the end of hardship for her. The Koreans, fed up with years of Japanese rule and persecution, have joined forces with a Chinese-backed communist government and are systematically making life a living horror for the Japanese left in North Korea. Fearing reprisal since he was a Japanese veteran, Chitose's father risks everything to get his family out of the north and to the US-occupied area south of the 38th parallel.

(Source: AniDB)

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Background

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Characters & Voice Actors

Kobayashi, Chitose

Main

Takamori, Yoshino
Japanese

Takahashi

Supporting

Umezu, Hideyuki
Japanese

Village Chief

Supporting

Chafurin
Japanese

Youko

Supporting

Ohno, Yuka
Japanese

Hatsue

Supporting

Neya, Michiko
Japanese

Sano

Supporting

Tsuji, Shinpachi
Japanese

Ohana

Supporting

Chiko
Japanese

Kobayashi, Masuko

Supporting

Han, Keiko
Japanese

Takeshi

Supporting

Ogata, Kenichi
Japanese

Kobayashi, Michiyo

Supporting

Sakamoto, Chika
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Hirata, Toshio

Director

Aketagawa, Susumu

Sound Director

Urahata, Tatsuhiko

Script

Maruyama, Masao

Setting

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Opening Theme

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Ending Theme

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Reviews

Oct 28, 2019

EggheadLuna

Mixed Feelings

Rail of the Star is a fascinating World War II period piece, about a Japanese military family that are occupying Korea during the war. Based on Chitose Kobayashi’s autobiographical novel of the same name, the story is told from a child’s perspective. Similar to other accounts of children being forced to experience the horrors of war, like Barefoot Gen, it’s a tale of humility and empathy. Not just for the Japanese children, but for the thousands of Koreans who had to suffer under Imperialist Japan’s rule. This review will contain spoilers! You have been warned!

• The story begins, with the protagonist (a little girl named Chitose) ...

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Jan 7, 2014

Lockensocke

Not Recommended

There are so many war drama anime out there (Barefoot Gen, Grave of the fireflies and Himeyuki to call a few) that you nearly even can call them cliché, but since everyone that I have seen have big differences in the part they focused, I wouldn’t recommend calling them cliché at all. So we got the war dramas that focus on the probably most famous tragedy, the nuclear explosion of Hiroshima (Barefoot Gen), one that focused more on the survival after a bombing without parents (Grave of the fireflies) and so on. In this case, Rail of the Star we got the focus on the, ... in Korean living Japanese during and after the war, which is a pretty interesting setting. Sadly the movie itself wasnt so interesting basically because it wasn’t made that well.

About the story: We got a few main protagonists, but the most screentime I guess was spend on chiko a young girl whos father leads a coal mine in Korean( propably to support the war). Chiko also got a younger sister and a mother. The start of the show focused more on the time during the war and wanted to show the suffering of the Korean and the torture the Japanese inflicted onto them, but since its on the one had a movie for children and on the other hand on the Japanese side the whole “toture” part is limited to a few Japanese kids beating up a Korean kid. So the start was rather showing the kids play to create a emotional connection to the audience, which wasnt made that bad, but aslo not very suprisingly in any way.

Later on we see the end of the war (Korean celebrating) and the gloomy Japanese which know that they should go back to their homeland as soon as possible. It’s a typical for such a show to let the Russian military appeal to the audience as the “bad guys” and the Japanese refugees appeal cute (chiko) innocent and “good”. For me this representation is pretty naïve but like I said before since that movies target group seemed to be children it’s kinda logical to go that way.

The characters itself were a pretty poor part of the anime as well. There wasn’t any depth to any of the characters. Chiko was maybe the only one with a bit more depth, but she was just a plain kid, not much to go into anyways. The other characters where shallow, shown with only the typical character interaction between them for such a show.

The art wasn’t much outstanding but it wasn’t bad. It looks like a children movie with cute characters and it’s a bit older as well.

Soundtrack was ordinary, not much to say about it. There were some nice dramaparts followed by fitting music but that’s just normal.

So over all this movie isn’t very special. The premise was quite interesting but the movie overall was filled with only very few consequences, no mature storytelling and no depth into characters. If you are completely into these war dramas it is watchable, but it’s not recommended for getting into these kinds of movies.