Humans have disappeared and their Pokémon have been left behind, trying to make the remains of the old civilization into one that they can live in and sustain by themselves. Throughout this process, these Pokémon talk about how much they miss their human partners, and the information we can glean from the notes and letters we find lying around is that a climate crisis forced them to evacuate the planet and leave the Pokémon in a massive PC server for their safety.
Cosmic Princess Kaguya! is an adaptation of a Japanese folk tale, the story of a princess from the moon discovered inside a bamboo stalk in a poor rural village. A decade ago, Studio Ghibli adapted the tale into a gorgeously animated movie with a traditional, lovingly hand-painted feel. This film could not be more different, a trippy, high-energy, techno anime set in the near future, half of it in a virtual reality world and TikTok-ifed with emojis and stickers exploding all over the screen.
In illustrator Chiara Xie 's work, everything is in motion. Rooted in a deep reverence for vitality, Chiara is fascinated by "the rhythm that flows through a scene", lingering like a suspended breath, and other times "surging as a vibrant, agile current of motion". It's not hard to know what she means: every illustration is filled with motion, arcs of light and air bouncing off every corner.