Night on the Galactic Railroad

The nine-chapter novel was posthumously published by Bunpodō (文圃堂) in 1934 as part of Complete Works of Kenji Miyazawa Vol.

Giovanni is a lonely boy whose mother is bedridden with illness and whose father is said to be either away on a long fishing trip or serving a prison sentence.

Giovanni does odd jobs after school such as helping the typesetter at the printers in order to buy food; his sister also contributes.

The two boys witness amazing sights and meet various people, including scholars excavating a fossil from sands of white crystal, a man who catches herons and sells them as sweets, and passengers of the Titanic.

When the train stops at the Southern Cross, the remaining other passengers disembark (for the Christian heaven), leaving only Giovanni and Campanella.

A tribute to those who give themselves to others is a recurring theme throughout the storyline, and according to Hasebe (2000), 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.

The manga then was made into a 1985 anime film directed by Gisaburo Sugii based on a screenplay by Minoru Betsuyaku.

Playwright Sō Kitamura made the story into a drama titled Sōkō: Night on the Galactic Railroad (想稿・銀河鉄道の夜).

Note that 想稿 could be a play on the word sōkō (草稿, "rough draft") and the character 想 (sō) carrying meanings such as "conception" or "idea".

[8] A part in a 2002 play consisting of various works by Kenji, The Account of Kenji Island Exploration (賢治島探検記, Kenji-tō Tankenki), written by Yutaka Narui for a theatrical company Caramelbox, features the story by the name of Night on the Light Speed Galactic Railroad (光速銀河鉄道の夜, Kōsoku Ginga Tetsudō no Yoru).

Warabiza, a performing arts company in Akita Prefecture, made a musical version of the story.