Photo/Illutration “Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of the Mermaid Island” ©Nagano/ 2026 (Provided by “Chiikawa: The Movie” Production Committee)

One animated film has taken Japan by storm this summer, becoming a runaway box-office hit.

“Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of the Mermaid Island” is a story of eternity and friendship woven around a cast of “nanka chiisakute kawaii” (somehow small and cute) characters, the phrase from which the name Chiikawa itself is derived.

In the month since its July 24 release, the film has amassed around 11 billion yen ($70.5 million) at the box office.

It might easily be mistaken for children’s fare. Yet beneath its adorable surface lies a sober story, in which misunderstandings and well-intentioned or desperate choices accumulate, drawing characters into an ever-deepening cycle of conflict.

Adults, too, have been drawn in, and interpretations of the film abound. Among them is the notion that it holds up a mirror to the divisions fracturing the wider world.

What gives the story added depth is a song heard within it: “Kyo no Hi wa Sayonara” (Goodbye for today), one of Japan’s best-known postwar communal songs. It opens with the words, “Let us remain friends forever, without ever drifting apart.”

The beloved farewell song, which has acquired something of the status of a modern folk standard, was written in 1966, at a time when student activism and antiwar sentiment were gathering force in Japan.

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Lyricist and composer Shoichi Kaneko (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Its lyricist and composer, Shoichi Kaneko (1942–2025), was 24. Keeping his distance from the student protest movement, Kaneko instead devoted himself to youth activities.

He worked as a full-time staff member of a volunteer organization that ran programs for children and also sought to support young workers who had arrived in the cities amid the great waves of mass recruitment from rural Japan.

Kaneko wrote the song for participants to sing together as their gatherings drew to a close.

It soon traveled far beyond that circle. American folk singer Joan Baez sang it in Japanese during her 1967 visit to Japan, and later that year Ryoko Moriyama recorded it, helping turn it into a song known across the country.

Before composing it, Kaneko had traveled to West Germany in the depths of the Cold War.

There, he saw the Berlin Wall, a stark embodiment of the division that cleaved the city in two—and, above it, doves flying freely back and forth. If only people, too, could live that way. The song grew out of that wish.

Kaneko would later describe it as “a melody quietly hummed from behind a rock by a timid, soft-hearted opponent of war.”

He died last year at the age of 83.

After seeing the film, I visited his wife, Yoshiko.

“He was a man who loved music and believed in world peace,” she told me.

I find myself humming the words once more, and thinking about what might truly endure.

“Let us cherish the joy of trusting one another.”

—The Asahi Shimbun, Sept. 4

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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