Ohoshi-sama no Rail

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) ... experiencing life as a normal child, but as the war gets more intense, she begins to notice that all isn’t right in the world. She notices a male student getting bullied for refusing to change his name to a Japanese surname*. He talks about how horrible the Japanese are, Chitose is shocked by this since she has no idea (as a Japanese child in elementary school) how terribly mistreated the Koreans are by Japanese troops. Her Korean classmate then joins the Korean Liberation Army and gets murdered by Japanese troops, when he tries to fight them off at the border. Another instance of this is when Koreans are cheering in the street, after Japanese has lost the war, and Chitose can’t comprehend it. Her father has to explain to her that it’s because ‘their prisoners are being set free.’
* The sōshi-kaimei (name-changing) edict is later turned on its head toward the end of the film, when Chitose’s family has to hide that they are Japanese and speak only Korean—while they’re fleeing the country.

• Later, the Korean housekeeper (a teenage girl, named Ohana) is sewing a patch into Chitose’s Shōwa-era set of trousers and she accidentally leaves the needle in, Chitose carelessly slips them on and the needle gets lodged really deep in her body. After surgery, the doctor says that the accident could have been fatal and after Chitose’s younger sister had already passed away, Ohana is abruptly fired. Later, Chitose is out walking with her mother and she sees Ohana working at a brothel. In her childhood, she obviously had no idea about sex work but the atmosphere in the film is so dense that it implies that Chitose can somehow sense that her former babysitter was in a bad situation. I teared up at this scene because the implications of a kind girl, like Ohana, being forced to work as a comfort woman was so cruel. At the end of the film, Chitose is an adult but stilly harbors guilt for what happened to Ohana—after receiving flowers, following her live theater performance as an adult, Chitose suspects that they are from Ohana and screams her name outside, in a crowded Tokyo street.

• Ohana’s fate correlates to the entire theme of the film: unpredictable circumstances can lead us to ruin. As citizens, we are often punished by our government’s decisions to go to war and persecute other innocent civilians. Chitose’s father was a solider for the Imperial Japanese army, but the film brings up the question of ‘was that really his choice?’ Ohana is punished for something that was an accident and then has to live in a tortuous situation for years, until the Japanese troops are driven out of the country. Chitose and her family lose their home in Korea because Japanese forces stole that land—far before Chitose’s family was ever stationed there (Korean land was usurped in 1906 and Chitose’s story begins in 1941), so they are yet again having to suffer for an ‘original sin’ that was committed decades ago.

• Japanese families, that include Japanese children and the elderly, were forced to flee the country on foot, or else be killed by Russian troops. After the Japanese pilgrimage, a Korean man offers to help them. The elder of the village, then asks the man, ‘Are you sure? They took your son and you don’t know if he’s even still alive.’ The man still agrees to help, understanding that a group’s evils shouldn’t mean that individuals should have to suffer. That man’s kindness and understanding made him an exemplar, in this film’s cruel premise.

• This story has a unique perspective. Before I completed the movie, I had never thought about what it would be like to occupy another country, after your homeland had lost the war. Not mention the guilt you would have to bear, knowing your people are the oppressors. Truly, a powerful movie!

• The animation wasn’t the greatest and the film had pacing issues during the scenes that involved the forced immigration of the Japanese characters, but I really liked the character designs. They are like a blend of Chibi Maruko-chan and Isao Takahata’s Only Yesterday, Chibi Maruko-chan is a successor to this film, so it’s probable that it was influenced by the designs (round, mochi-like faces with rosy cheeks). Some of the facial expressions that Chitose made during this film were heart-breaking, not to mention the feeling of resignation that was conveyed through her parents’ emotional articulations.

• This film is ground-breaking! I recommend this to anyone who has an interest in history, particularly Shōwa-era Japanese and Korean history. It’s a touching film, from an objective child’s perspective, it allows for more understanding in the controversial topic of Japanese-Korean relations. I give this film a solid 6.5/10!


Historical Notes:

1. In the beginning of the film, Chitose’s family were able to procure a home because after Japan conquered Korea—Japanese troops required all citizens of Korea to provide deeds and documentation, proof of their land ownership. During that period, many Korean land owners had procured their estates through word of mouth, so many people lost their homes.

2. During one of the classroom scenes, Japanese students are bullying a Korean kid for keeping his given name, instead of switching to a Japanese surname. The film doesn’t directly talk about this, but this is a reference to sōshi-kaimei—an ordinance of law, put into place by Imperialist Japan, that pressured all Koreans to legally change their names.

3. When Korean deserters attempted to escape in the movie, many of them—including Chitose’s classmate, was shot down by Japanese troops when they attempted to escape to China. Korea’s exiled resistance was called the Korean Liberation Army (formed December 10th, 1941) and the escapees, who made it to China, would go on to form the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea—this providence is now referred to as North Korea.

4. Ohana was forced to become a comfort women, after losing her job working for the family. Comfort women were impoverished Korean women who were forced into prostitution and sex slavery, and specifically were formed to serve Imperialist troops.

5. Korean citizens were cheering at the end of World War II because many Koreans had been taken to mainland Japan for forced labor, and would subsequently be returned after the war.

6. Russian troops were mentioned as co-occupants during the last arc because before Japan predominantly took control of Korean resources; in February 11th, 1896, the tsar of Russia had governed Korea for a year after (Queen Min, a high profile leader in Korea) was assassinated by Japanese troops. During Russia’s occupation, the Independence Club (a group of Korean activists) attempted to gain more Western influence, particularly through Russia, to counterbalance the growing influence of Japan in their country. This led to the Russo-Japanese war. At the end of the film, when Japan loses World War II, Russia helps Korean drive the remaining Japanese occupants out. This is emblematic of Korea’s eventual independence through Western assistance.

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.