Night on the Galactic Railroad


Night on the Galactic Railroad, sometimes translated as Milky Way Railroad, Night Train to the Stars or Fantasy Railroad in the Stars, is a classic Japanese fantasy novel by Kenji Miyazawa written around 1927. The nine-chapter novel was posthumously published in 1934 as part of Complete Works of Kenji Miyazawa Vol. 3 published by Bunpodō. Four versions are known to be in existence, with the last one being the most famous among Japanese readers.
The novel was adapted as a 1985 anime film of the same title as well as various stage musicals and plays.

Plot summary

Giovanni is a lonely boy, whose father is away on a long fishing trip, while his mother is ill at home. As a result, the young Giovanni must undertake paid jobs before and after school, delivering papers and setting type at the printers, in order to provide food for his poor family. These adult responsibilities leave him with no time to study or socialize, and he is ridiculed by his classmates. Apart from Giovanni's mother and sister, the only person who really cares for him is his former playmate Campanella, whose father is a close friend of Giovanni's father.
During a lesson about the galaxy, the teacher asks Giovanni what the Milky Way is made of. Giovanni knows it is formed of stars, but is unable to say so, and Campanella does the same to save Giovanni from further teasing by the rest of the class. At the end of the lesson, the teacher encourages all the children to attend the festival of stars that evening. Upon returning home, Giovanni finds that no milk was delivered that day, so he heads out to the dairy to fetch it for his mother's dinner. Giovanni only encounters an elderly woman at the dairy, and once he pleads that his ill mother needs her milk that night, the woman advises him to come back later.
Giovanni intends to watch the festival with Campanella, but on his way into town, he is mocked by his schoolmates for expecting an otter-skin coat from his father. Upset by this taunt, Giovanni flees from the town and walks alone to the top of a nearby hill. As he gazes up at the Milky Way in the sky above, Giovanni suddenly finds himself with Campanella onboard a steam train, which travels past the Northern Cross and many other stars in its journey across the galaxy. The two boys witness many amazing sights and meet various people, including scholars excavating a fossil from sands of white crystal, and a man who catches herons to turn them into candy.
When a ticket inspector appears, Giovanni discovers he has a rare ticket which allows him to go anywhere that the train runs. Shortly after, the boys are joined in their seats by a tutor and two children, Kaoru and Tadashi, who were onboard a ship that sank after hitting an iceberg,. As the train passes the flame of Scorpio, Kaoru recalls that it was once a scorpion who ate other insects, but perished in a well after escaping a weasel; regretting that it did not sacrifice itself for a good cause, the scorpion prayed to bring happiness to others in the next life, and its body burst into a bright flame that still burns in the night sky.
The train next stops at the Southern Cross, where all the other passengers disembark for the Christian heaven, leaving only Giovanni and Campanella onboard as the train continues its journey. Giovanni pledges that they should go on together for ever, and vows to follow Scorpio's example of bringing true happiness to everyone. However, as the train approaches the Coalsack - a hole in the sky - Campanella sees what he considers 'the true heaven', where his mother is waiting for him, and suddenly vanishes from the train, leaving Giovanni alone in despair.
Giovanni wakes up on the hilltop, and initially dismisses his journey through the Milky Way as a dream. He heads back to the dairy, where this time he collects a bottle of milk from a farmer, who explains that an escaped calf drank half of the day's milk supply. As Giovanni passes through town on his way home, he learns that Campanella has fallen into the river while saving another boy from drowning. Giovanni hurries to the river, in fear of what he already knows, and finds Campanella's father just as he sadly gives up searching for his son, believing Campanella to have drowned. He tells Giovanni that he has received a letter from his father, announcing that he will be home soon. Continuing homeward to deliver this news and the milk to his mother, Giovanni secretly knows where Campanella went, and vows to stay strong throughout life.

Major themes

This story contains a religious question by author Kenji Miyazawa. The main theme of this story is "what is true happiness?"
After Miyazawa's most beloved sister Toshi died in 1922, Miyazawa, in sorrow, went on a railroad trip to Sakhalin. He started working on this novel soon afterward in 1924, and this trip is said to be the basis of the story. He kept on polishing the work steadily until his death in 1933. The middle part of the novel was never completed but was published as it is nevertheless.
A tribute to those who give themselves to others is a recurring theme throughout the storyline, and according to Hasebe, they are reflections of Miyazawa's philosophy of self-sacrifice, a view appearing in many other juvenile novels of his such as Yodaka no Hoshi and Guskō Budori no Denki. Meanwhile, Suzuki interprets them as representing a "holistic thought of Ecosystem".

Adaptations

Animated film

The story was made into a 1985 anime film directed by Gisaburo Sugii based on a screenplay by Minoru Betsuyaku. It was released on July 13, 1985, and features Mayumi Tanaka as Giovanni and Chika Sakamoto as Campanella.

Stage adaptations

Sō Kitamura made the story into a drama titled Sōkō: Night on the Galactic Railroad. Note that 想稿 could be a play on the word sōkō and the character 想 carrying meanings such as "conception" or "idea". Premièred in 1986, the play was performed by Kitamura's theatrical company Project Navi.
A part in a 2002 play consisting of various works by Kenji The Account of Kenji Island Exploration written by Yutaka Narui for a theatrical company Caramelbox, features the story by the name of Night on the Light Speed Galactic Railroad. It follows through the episodes in the novel rather briefly. The play also includes some lines by Professor Burukaniro, which appear only in the first three versions of the novel.
Warabiza, a performing arts company in Akita Prefecture, made a musical version of the story. The musical premièred in April 2004 and toured around Japan until March 2007.

Illustrated e-book

This is an illustrated book with music, launched in 2011 as an application for Apple Inc.'s iPad. Using the final fourth draft of Miyazawa's original as the source text, this version is made up of 272 pages, an unusually large number for a picture book. Apple Japan has recommended the Japanese version as an educational application.

Allusions in other works

As copyright for the novel has expired in Japan, Aozora Bunko distributes full text of the novel for free.
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