The night is rich and carries thousands of stars, and the water vapor refracts the clear brilliance of the broken stars. A steam train drove silently in the night, carrying three or two young children through the dense forest with tall trees, passing through the shallow sea with blue waves, and speeding through the observatory that recorded the secrets of the firmament...
Under the seemingly cute appearance of the game "Starry Sky Train and White Journey" (hereinafter referred to as "Starry Sky Train"), it tells a soothing journey of spiritual flesh that encompasses the rare scenery between heaven and earth, and also a starry night train journey that explores life and existence, beauty and happiness.
Starry Night, The Milky Way, The Train, Passengers, Death, Happiness – Mention these elements that appear in "Star Train", and perhaps you will immediately think of a famous Japanese national fairy tale - "Night of the Galactic Railway". Needless to say, "Starry Sky Train" is a "new story" that was almost born out of "Galactic Railway Night".
Therefore, if you want to talk about this game, you can't avoid talking about Kenji Miyazawa and his "Railway Galaxy Night" first.
*The following contains spoilers, please read with caution*
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="1" >01丨Extricable Kenji Miyazawa and "Night of the Galactic Railway"</h1>
In 2000, Japan's Asahi Shimbun selected "the most popular Japanese literary figure in a thousand years", and Kenji Miyazawa ranked 4th, higher than Ryunosuke Wasagawa, Osamu Dazai, Yukio Mishima, Yasunari Kawabata and others, which is enough to see Kenji Miyazawa's position in the hearts of the Japanese people.
Kenji Miyazawa (27 August 1896 – 21 September 1933)
Unfortunately, although Kenji Miyazawa became famous and well-known after his death, and wrote countless innocent fairy tales and poems, he was not well-connected before his death.
In his short life of 37 years, although Kenji Miyazawa worked hard and dabbled in a wide range of things, he never met and was lonely. Even though he was born into a wealthy merchant family, due to multiple factors such as faith, Kenji Miyazawa had a strained relationship with his family during his lifetime, but he was better off with his sister Noborishi: the two were not only intimate from childhood because of blood relations, but also recognized and relied on each other because of their shared values and beliefs.
Therefore, after the death of his sister Noboriharu due to illness in 1922, Kenji Miyazawa mourned and created many works to express his grief for his sister, among which the most successful and widely known was the fairy tale "Galactic Railway Night".
"Galactic Railway Night" has influenced a considerable number of later works, including "Chihiro Away", "Sunny Day", "Star Dream" and other old masterpieces. Although "Star Train" is a relatively new work, it is more closely related to "Galactic Railway Night".
From the perspective of the storyline, there is an inextricable relationship between the two works.
"Galactic Railway Night" was written to mourn kenji's deceased sister, telling the story of a child named Joe Benny on the night of the Galactic Festival, dreaming of traveling with his friend Kobenela on a train to the magnificent galaxy, and after a big dream, he found That Kobenella drowned by the river, romantic and sad.
During the journey, the two met several passengers, including ore diggers, bird catchers, and young tutors. Through what he saw and heard along the way, the lonely and poor Jobani gradually grew enlightened and realized the true meaning of happiness. It is widely believed that the Jobbani in the story represents Kenji Miyazawa himself, and Kobenella is a projection of Kenji's sister Noborishi.
1985 Sugiti Essaburo edition of "Galactic Railway Night"
"Starry Sky Train" is a two-line intertwining of light and dark lines, starting from a relaxed daily plot, and gradually outlining an absurd and bizarre, but touching fantasy adventure.
Ming Line wrote the animation producer Zhong Chengxiao, in order to fulfill the agreement with the deceased "sister" sound theory, embarked on a steam train called "Galaxy" for a short trip. The 6 strangers on the train gradually explore each other's life experiences and become friends in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere.
The dark line unfolds with the mysterious cat lady Nova as the core. If it is not a fantasy, how can there be a real girl in the world with cat ears and cat tails? In the process of finding Nova's true identity, the truth of the journey was finally revealed: 4 of the 6 people on the train were already dead. But by chance, their organs were transplanted into the seriously ill Nova, helping Nova to regain his life - the journey of the so-called "Galaxy" never really crossed the mountains and the sea, but happened in the body of the heroine Nova, Zhuang Zhou's dream-like imagination, just like in "Galactic Railway Night", the colorful Galactic Parade is only a dream of Joe Benny.
The character setting of "Star Train" also has many homages to the original work.
The cat lady Nova could not be accepted by others due to illness and lacked friends, but even though she was lonely and fragile, she still maintained a kind disposition, filial piety to her mother, and obeyed her mother's teachings. This is the same as Joe Benny's situation and personality;
Zhong Chengxiao, the male protagonist of "Starry Sky Train", stepped on the "Galaxy" train in order to realize the agreement of "sister". A large part of the creative opportunity of "Galactic Railway Night" also stems from Kenji Miyazawa's mourning for his sister Noboriharu;
The thoughtful, humble and elegant Railway House Eagle World, he may remind people of the young tutor in "Galactic Railway Night", and the meat-loving Miss Wild Bird, just by her name, will remind people of the bird catcher in "Galactic Railway Night"...
But "Starry Sky Train" homage and adaptation of "Galactic Railway Night" does not stop at the shape - under the fairy tale sugar coating of "Galactic Railway Night", it is the profound connotation of "seeking true happiness in altruism", and the themes discussed in "Star Train" are also related to it, but slightly different.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="5" >02丨The sacrifice and gain behind the diet</h1>
One flower, one world, one tree and one bodhi.
Although the theme of chasing happiness and altruism is noble, the way to express the chest does not have to be dry and boring. It is implicit in what Jobney saw and felt along the way in Galactic Railway Night, and in the frequent "rules of diet" in "Star Train" – one of the key terms is Veganism.
The so-called Wiganism, a dietary concept based on the altruism of compassion, is a harsh version of vegetarianism: adherents not only refuse to eat meat, poultry, eggs, seafood and other foods produced by animals, but also do not use any products from animals, including animal fat, dairy products, leather clothing, etc. Wiganism rejects any act that harms other lives in order to satisfy the needs of individual survival.
Although the starting point is well-intentioned, the lack of scientific nutritional considerations of Wiganism is mostly detrimental to health, and at the same time, the ideal Wiganists are often more extreme in personality under the shackles of a black and white moral web, and because the concept of life is incompatible with most people, it is more difficult to make friends.
The personalities and fates of many of the protagonists in "Star Train" are closely related to Wiganism: in the story, Miss Wild Bird is weak and dies because she was born into a Wiganist family; the cat lady Nova is not only weak and sick because of the influence of her Wiganist mother, but also prefers to die of illness rather than receive organ transplantation - how can a person who refuses to use any animal product choose to rely on other people's organs to maintain his own life?
But as long as you live, you are doomed to not be able to survive on your own, and you will inevitably compete with other lives for resources. How do we face this competition of "trying to live and live well"?
Wiganism is answered by an attitude of self-denial, as does Kenji Miyazawa, who, as a devout Buddhist, was heavily influenced by the Lotus Sutra and embodied similar views in many works. In "Night of the Galactic Railway", Benny, out of sympathy for the bird catcher, had the idea that "as long as this person can achieve true happiness, he is willing to be a bird that has stood on the shining Milky Way beach for a hundred years and let it catch it", which is full of "bodhisattva action".
But this choice of "leaving the opportunity to others" is not all that "Star Train" wants to convey, nor can it fully represent Kenji Miyazawa's thoughts.
In addition to abandoning the game, trying to compete for resources is also an option, although as long as there is competition, there will be winners and there will be losers.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="7" >03丨Seethers chasing gems</h1>
The image of "gemstone" is mentioned many times in "Star Train"——
"The world is a huge chest of gemstones stuffed with sparkling gemstones."
"The so-called survival is to compete with people for these shining gems."
"I'm not feeling the value of gemstones, and that may be the price of growth."
It goes without saying that gemstones mean all kinds of beautiful and attractive resources in the world, such as status, wealth, etc. Everyone wants to own gems, but the truth is that a small percentage of people own the vast majority of gems, while most people are stomped on and depressed for life in the process of competing for the remaining scattered gems.
Credit Suisse's 2019 Global Wealth Report shows that 0.9% of the world's population owns 44% of wealth
This is also the experience of Zhong Chengxiao, Ying Shi, Hua Jiang and others in "Starry Sky Train": Zhong Chengxiao worked hard and dreamed of creating his own animation, but unfortunately the road ahead was bleak; Ying Shi was called by colleagues to tease him, and his hometown neighbors also laughed at his weakness; although Hua Jiang was talented, in the metropolis with many talents, in the end, he still did not have the luck to get ahead... Thus, as losers in the competition, they ended their lives in frustration, either actively or passively.
The experience of Zhong Chengxiao and others may be much more resonant than the Wiganism, which is far away from ordinary people: Are these people who fail to compete for gemstones a portrayal of many modern youth? They are wandering, working hard and longing for a better life, but the reality is that too many people are worried about being "optimized" after the age of thirty, and they can't even find a job selling vegetables after the age of forty. There are too many discussions on the Internet about age restrictions, about gender discrimination in the workplace, about the use of people such as enslaved livestock, about the inner volume... You will not be unfamiliar with these topics.
Coincidentally, Kenji has a plot of "Scorpion Fire" in "Night of the Galactic Railway", which is very similar to the experience of Zhong Chengxiao and other "defeated people" who survive in society, and it tells the story of a scorpion that is about to be eaten by predators .
There is a scorpion that specializes in hunting small insects to eat, but one day it unfortunately encounters a weasel and is almost eaten. On the way to escape, the scorpion fell into a deep well and gradually became submerged.
On the verge of death, the scorpion suddenly felt remorse and said, "How many lives I have swallowed, and now I am afraid of being caught by a weasel, and I have escaped so badly, but finally I have ended up in such a fate." Ah, I'm no longer saved. Why don't I obediently let the weasel eat it? In that case, it might live an extra day. Please God discern my mind! Don't give up this life in vain, so that everyone can be truly happy, please enjoy my body. ”
Because of the failure in the process of competing for resources, the Scorpion went from killing to escaping, and then to the dedication of the Path of Enlightenment, by getting the house, which is similar to the plot of "Star Train":
Frustrated Zhong Chengxiao and others failed in social competition, and after their deaths, their organs were transplanted into the cat lady Nova, but they produced such a great good fruit as saving a life, and they gladly accepted it. If you can't achieve happiness after success, then it is better to use your own death to lift up another life, at least to make others happy-
Like the Scorpio in "Galactic Railway Night", the Scorpio who gave up his life to feed the shrew in the shipwreck, the tutor who gave up his chances to survive in the shipwreck, the Joe Benny who longed to become a bird catcher...
Whether in terms of characters, plot, or many philosophies shown, "Starry Sky Train" and "Galactic Railway Night" are extremely similar. But as mentioned earlier, aside from these similarities, "Star Train" as an adaptation is slightly different: the original emphasizes that the true meaning of happiness lies in "giving", while "Starry Sky Train" emphasizes "gain" - as a beneficiary of the competition for survival, how should we face those who sacrifice themselves for me?
Whether it's Wiganism and its adherents, those who chase "gems", this starry night journey... All the foreshadowing in the plot ultimately points to this problem. It is also the question of this question that makes "Starry Sky Train" no longer just a lighthearted and pleasant scrap, no longer just a tribute to "Galactic Railway Night".
"Starry Sky Train" abandons the beautiful fantasy of the original work's slightly idealistic, weakens the slightly pathetic self-sacrifice, and compiles a new fairy tale with a pleasing and light style, but not superficial, which conveys a more universal and positive value: getting the favor of others and sacrificing oneself is a journey to happiness, don't be afraid to get something from others, as long as you are grateful and know how to reciprocate.
The significance of this journey, which carries the stars and the night, through life and death, and blurs the boundaries between reality and fantasy, is to let every participant feel free and thus achieve true happiness:
So, the kind cat lady Nova does not have to be an island, and getting is not necessarily robbing others of "gems";
Therefore, the so-called loser Zhong Chengxiao and others do not have to complain about themselves, because in addition to becoming a superior person, there are other beautiful things in this world that are worth cherishing, and there are other journeys to happiness;
Therefore, those who gain do not have to be arrogant, because there is no other person's sacrifice, where is your gain? What is important is to abandon the cold and ruthless theory of "Darwinian society", drink water without forgetting the digger, and be kind to every life that makes way for you.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="16" >04丨 heaven and earth are reconciled, between willingness</h1>
Gong Zizhen wrote: "Falling red is not a merciless thing, and it is more protective of flowers when turned into spring mud." "Because of the cycle of giving and receiving, there is the death of the peach every year, between withering and absorbing, life can be endlessly multiplied."
In his works, Kenji Miyazawa uses spiritual brush and ink to gently depict his beautiful fantasy of the harmony of heaven and earth and the happiness of all things. In that world, there are not only beings like "Galactic Railway Night" who have a hot and sincere heart and are willing to give everything for the happiness of others, but also "The Bear of Slippery Bed Mountain", where bears and hunters understand each other, achieve a balance between killing and being killed, life and death, and sweep away the guilt of the bear who sacrificed his life in the heart of hunters who live by hunting.
And "Starry Sky Train", as an adaptation of the obvious "Galactic Railway Night", uses a way that is closer to the life situation of modern people, so that the failed "social animal" can re-realize the value of life in a special way, so that the girl who is kind enough to always refuse the kindness of others finally understands that "accepting the kindness of others at the right time is also a kind act of self-interest." At the end of the story, everyone has their own place and has achieved their own happiness.
The so-called happiness is in the giving and receiving, being passed on and shared. The harmony of heaven and earth is between willingness.