Kubo's story is a tragic one. He is the progeny of one of the Moon King's fiercely powerful daughters and the mighty warrior she was sent to kill. The Moon King destroyed Kubo's family as punishment for his mother's rebellion, and took one of his eyes. When Kubo's vengeful aunts come to take his remaining eye to blind him to humanity, his mother sends him on a quest to find his father's magical armor. Kubo then comes to see himself less as the village storyteller he is and more as a warrior driven by loss to seek revenge, much like his father before him, much like the heroes of many classical Japanese tales.

But the Moon King, so he claims, only wants to take Kubo's eyes so that he can take his rightful place among the omniscient stars, so that he can become cold, immortal, and perfect. Human eyes, it seems, are more preoccupied with beauty than with truth. Kubo's mother describes falling in love with his father as an act of "seeing" and her story of heavenly descent and its consequences calls to mind the Western fall of man more than any Eastern myth. In challenging the Moon King's order Kubo is a Miltonian hero akin to Mal in Joss Whedon's "Serenity" or Lyra in Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials." For there to be stories in the world, Kubo realizes, there must also be endings. There must also be death.

At the critical moment, Kubo lays aside his father's armor for the ancient Japanese instrument of storytelling, his magic samisen, to save the day with the power of the memories it can summon. He asserts that humans can transcend death through the passing on of their stories into memory, and decides to end his story by simultaneously choosing death over immortality and forgiveness over revenge. Kubo transforms the Moon King into a human with no memories, so the inventive villagers bestow him with the notion that he is a good person, and he becomes one. The film's message is a profound one: It is our flawed nature, our ability to choose what we remember, that allows us to continually remake the truth and create beauty in the world; we are all storytellers. It is with this understanding that Kubo finally succeeds in literally animating the spirits of the dead.

For all the Japanese culture that this American production appropriates, it is incredibly competent in its usage and understanding of those elements, (except perhaps for one moment soup-slurping). For the best example, the Japanese word kami can refer to gods, paper, and hair, implying that the latter have some sacred attributes; the film uses this association to imply that memories and stories are sacred. Kubo's magic origami plays a vital role in his storytelling as well as his quest, and the titular two strings include a strand of his mother's hair Kubo strings onto his samisen to empower it with her memory. In addition to all it takes on, the film has the confidence to contribute Western elements and find where the two cultures meet. Laika has created something truly original, rendered in beautiful animation that affirms the film's message. Should you choose to see it, it is unlikely you will forget it.

For a full review of "Kubo" check out The Movie Gang Podcast from Tuscan Shed Media.