The Spring 2025 Manga Guide

A Night on the Galactic Railway

What's It About? 

Lonely and awkward, Giovanni struggles with his sick mother, absent father, and an afterschool job that isolates him from his peers. But on the night of the Star Festival, he is magically transported onto a celestial train with his best friend, Campanella. Together, they embark on an extraordinary journey through the galaxy, encountering mysterious characters and grappling with life's deepest questions. When Giovanni returns to earth, he faces the heartbreaking truth about their voyage.

A Night on the Galactic Railway has a story and art by Ayano Kitahara, adapted from the work by Kenji Miyazawa. English translation by Moss Quanci. Published by Tuttle (March 18, 2025). Rated T.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

If you've ever enjoyed Leiji Matsumoto's works, particularly Galaxy Express 999, you owe a lot to Kenji Miyazawa's 1927 work A Night on the Galactic Railway. Miyazawa's tale of two boys riding a train through the stars has an outsized reach for a story of its length. While the original is still the best way to experience it, Ayano Kitahara's beautiful manga adaptation is very nearly as good. Drawn in a soft style reminiscent of shōjo manga in the 1980s, Kitahara's adaptation captures the quiet sadness about the ephemerality of life that Miyazawa's work embodies.

The statute of limitations on spoilers for the original has doubtless expired, so it feels safe to say that this is, ultimately, a bittersweet tragedy. The conclusion is foregone almost from the start – protagonist Giovanni's mother is bedridden, and his father is long overdue to return home from sea. He's living his life, taking care of his family, something he's shown doing at far too young an age. Campanella, his friend at school, is the one kind person in his life, and it is with him that he takes his magical train ride – and there are hints that this is a one-way journey for one of them. The foreshadowing is clear: Giovanni suddenly awakens on the train to find Campanella dripping wet, and his friend comments that he got on at the station, which Giovanni did not do. Later, a conductor collects tickets, and while Campanella has one, Giovanni does not; instead, he holds a certificate that allows him to ride the train. And then there are the passengers who board midway through the journey – a man and two children who were clearly on board the Titanic.

I wouldn't call this a subtle story. Even if you've somehow escaped all of the references to the original work that dot anime and manga, the truth is plain, and there's a sense that Giovanni isn't seeing it because he doesn't want to. But there's also a strange sort of beautiful hope to the book that Kitahara's manga captures well. No matter what afterlife you believe in, it exists, and the train stops at all of them. Maybe others traveling with you can't see your destination, but that doesn't mean it's not there. The soft, delicate lines of Kitahara's art lend themselves to the dreamlike quality of the work, filling in what had to be left out in the text.

A Night on the Galactic Railway is a classic for a reason. Bittersweet and yet hopeful, no matter what the form, Kenji Miyazawa's story is like a train that takes us to whatever destination we need it to.

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Kevin Cormack
Rating:

As a long-time anime and manga fan, Night on the Galactic Railway feels like a story I've absorbed via osmosis over the years, despite having never read the original novel (to my eternal shame). Its mark on Japanese culture ever since its original publication over ninety years ago has been indelible, with myriad references in famous anime like Galaxy Express 999 and Giovanni's Island, not to mention its famous 1985 theatrical anime adaptation where the characters all appear as cats.

This manga adaptation appears to date back to 2010, although it features a classic shojo aesthetic with light, scratchy artwork, wispy characters with large eyes, and numerous close-ups of anguished expressions. It's beautiful, and suits the ethereal, whimsically strange nature of the narrative.

We follow Giovanni, a sad, bullied young boy who cares for his ailing mother, and whose father has been absent for a long time – either in prison, or on an extended fishing trip. His only friend is Campanella, a classmate who doesn't join in with the others' mistreatment of Giovanni. Following a lesson about the nature of the Milky Way, Giovanni and Campanella somehow find themselves as passengers on a magical train through the heavens, accompanied by a colorful selection of fellow travellers.

Both story and art are full of references to death and the afterlife – both Christian and Buddhist concepts of heaven are mentioned. Christian characters disembark at a stop with a massive glowing crucifix and a Christ-like figure waiting for them, while Campanella pines for his dead mother, and wishes to reunite with her in the “True Heaven”, a stop further down the rails…

Subtle religious criticism notwithstanding, this is a disarmingly strange story, melancholic and sweet. One character captures storks and cranes, the birds metamorphosing into sweets “better than chocolate” that he shares with the boys. The dreamlike narrative drifts from one odd occurrence to the next as Giovanni and Campanella tour the cosmos together, before reaching an inevitable, wistfully sad ending, tinged with a shred of hope.

I'd really like to read the original one day. Although this is a high-quality adaptation, I suspect this may be a story best consumed more slowly, allowing more time for the tone and surreal imagery to take effect. It reads too quickly as a manga. Perhaps this may work best as a supplement for those who have already read the novel.