is a Japanese animated experimental post-apocalyptic science fantasy OVA film written and directed by Mamoru Oshii. Released by Tokuma Shoten on 15 December 1985, the film was a collaboration between artist Yoshitaka Amano and Oshii. The film follows the bond between two nameless characters: a girl who protects an egg and a boy who has a dream about a bird. It was the first original project by Oshii and carries themes found in his other works.
In a radical departure from Oshii's previous work, Angel's Egg features little spoken dialogue, with a heavily allegorical story steeped in ambiguous imagery and recurrent Biblical allusions. The film originally struggled financially upon release with many viewers being confused over its supposed meaning, but it has since received acclaim as a cult classic.
A 4K remaster commemorating the film's 40th anniversary was screened at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. The film made $1.6 million worldwide from this re-release.
Plot The setting of the film takes place in a primordial land, filled with trees, strange technology, a giant, mechanical eye, various ruins of buildings, and two nameless characters. One of these is a young girl who scavenges a desolate city while protecting a large egg, which she believes will hatch into an angel. The other is a young man who disembarks from a tank, carrying a large cross-shaped weapon.
The girl encounters the boy and runs away initially, after which the boy disappears. Later the girl sets her egg down while taking a break. The young man catches up to the girl and steals the egg briefly, giving it back after telling her to keep it closer to herself. She eventually lets him follow her, leading to their brief bonding. The boy wishes to break the egg to see what is inside. He recounts the story of Noah's Ark, but in his version, the dove that was released from the Ark never returned, and eventually the people on the ark forgot about the dove, as well as the world they came from. He ponders the world and existence, and theorizes that the bird never existed. The girl tells the boy that the bird did exist, and brings him to a fossil of a giant bird.
Later, the boy smashes the girl's egg while she sleeps. This prompts her to chase after him and ultimately fall into a body of water, where her final breath is transformed at the surface of the water into a large number of eggs. The boy, standing on a shore covered in bird feathers, observes the girl, now a stone statue, sitting on a throne among the other stone statues of people on the mechanical eye. Afterwards, the world shown in the film is revealed to be on top of an oblong shape, resembling a hull of an overturned ship.
Cast Character Japanese voice actor English voice actor Girl Mako Hyōdō Brianna Knickerbocker Boy Jinpachi Nezu Justice Slocum
Production Angel's Egg repurposes ideas that Oshii developed for a cancelled Lupin the Third film. Both concepts feature the theme of questioning existence (Lupin's existence in the cancelled film, and the bird from Noah's ark in Angel's Egg), and involve the fossil of an angel「インタビュー押井守 幻の押井ルパンは『虚構を盗む』はずだった」『THEルパン三世FILES ルパン三世全記録 〜増補改訂版〜』キネマ旬報社、1998年、p.36 Oshii himself said that Angel's Egg was another attempt at the idea『『スカイ・クロラ』公開記念押井マニア、知ったかぶり講座！ 』Webアニメスタイル/藤津亮太、2008年 「その後で作った『天使のたまご』（85）に、そういうものが全部流れ込んじゃったということはありますね。"天使の化石"を持ち込んで、成立しなかった僕のルパンの復讐戦だったんです」 http://www.style.fm/as/13_special/oshii008.shtml and anime critic has said that Angel's Egg (and the first Patlabor movie) would not have existed if Oshii had made the Lupin film.『『スカイ・クロラ』公開記念押井マニア、知ったかぶり講座！ 』Webアニメスタイル/藤津亮太、2008年 「押井のフィルモグラフィーを振り返ってみると、もし押井ルパンが成立していたら、少なくとも『天使のたまご』と『機動警察パトレイバー［劇場版］』は存在しなかったといえる。」 http://www.style.fm/as/13_special/oshii008.shtml Oshii has also stated that the entire angel fossil concept used in Angel's Egg was directly taken from Lupin,『アニメージュ1985年12月号付録「天使のたまご GUIDE BOOK」徳間書店、1985年 「設定を流用したのは"天使の化石"だけなんです。」 and compares the relationship between the boy and girl to that in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.『アニメージュ1985年12月号付録「天使のたまご GUIDE BOOK」徳間書店、1985年 「こういう人間関係は、テネシー・ウィリアムズの「ガラスの動物園」に出てくるんです。ずっとなにかを待ちつづける女の子がいて、そこにある男がやってきて、それで去っていく。他者に出会って、世界が新しくなる、という話」
Many of the themes and elements in Angel's Egg were originally from Oshii's cancelled Lupin the 3rd film.『『スカイ・クロラ』公開記念押井マニア、知ったかぶり講座！ 』Webアニメスタイル/藤津亮太、2008年 「その後で作った『天使のたまご』（85）に、そういうものが全部流れ込んじゃったということはありますね。"天使の化石"を持ち込んで、成立しなかった僕のルパンの復讐戦だったんです」 http://www.style.fm/as/13_special/oshii008.shtml However, only the angel fossil remains unchanged from its planned appearance.『アニメージュ1985年12月号付録「天使のたまご GUIDE BOOK」徳間書店、1985年 「設定を流用したのは"天使の化石"だけなんです。」
The film is a collaboration between Amano and Oshii. Oshii originally intended on making a comedy film, starting with the girl first getting off a flying ark in front of a Japanese convenience store, but changed his mind and decided to make it a pure fantasy film after seeing Amano's art.天野由衣子、ヴァーンフリート（奥津英敏、平野奈津美、山本友美） 編「押井守クロニクル 天使のたまご」『押井守ワークス+スカイ・クロラ』宝島社、79頁。ISBN 978-4-7966-6393-9アアニメージュ編集部「付録『天使のたまご GUIDE BOOK』」『アニメージュ』1985年12月号、徳間書店、1985年12月, pg 38. Oshii said that he wanted to remove a narrative as much as possible, and keep the film simple, using animation as an expression to draw out a story,押井守『すべての映画はアニメになる』徳間書店、2004年。ISBN 978-4198618285 pg 103-104 「物語性は極力排除して、シンプルにする。アニメーションの面白くて、豊かな表現力を積み重ねて、その上で物語性を出す様にする」 and fill it with symbolic expressions and metaphors "like Jung's archetypes and collective unconscious".大日本絵画刊「押井守・映像機械論[メカフィリア]」押井守/竹内敦志 pg 74-75 「カール・グスタフ・ユングの分析心理学の『元型』『集合的無意識』の要領であらゆるモチーフを象徴的表現・暗喩で埋め尽くす」
The documentation for the project was written in one night by Toshio Suzuki (producer) but Oshii was displeased with it and did not use it. However, the title of the film, , was from Suzuki, where Oshii's original title was .押井守『勝つために戦え！〈監督ゼッキョー篇〉』徳間書店、2010年。ISBN 978-4198630072 pg 341大日本絵画刊「押井守・映像機械論[メカフィリア]」押井守/竹内敦志 pg 74-75
Oshii began writing the script with the main theme of a dream seen by a girl, continuing from Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer, but thinking that a script alone would not be enough to get the project approved, invited Amano to make image boards for the proposal. He also showed the image boards to the animators to get ideas from them.アニメック編集部「「新春対談 押井守 VS 天野喜孝 『天たまについて』」、「解説 天使のたまご －押井守監督に聞く－」」『アニメック』1986年3月号、ラポート、 March 1986 There was no definitive script, but rather a collection of ideas noted down like "annunciation" "ark" "setting sun" "a boy holding a cross riding a tank" which were immediately turned into storyboards, and then fitted together, which Oshii says had the intention of making a film without clear drama, made out of visual expressions, like one by Andrei Tarkovsky.ビー・エヌ・エヌ刊「アニメーションの脚本術」野崎透著 pg 96
Amano had initially been slated to work on Oshii's cancelled Lupin film, which anime critic Ryota Fujitsu says makes it obvious that Angel's Egg was inherited from Lupin.まず代表的なものは、『天使のたまご』。アートディレクションとして天野嘉孝（現・喜孝）が引き続き参加していることからも、ルパンからの継続は明確だ。 http://www.style.fm/as/13_special/oshii008.shtml While Amano was originally invited to work on character designs, Oshii liked his art enough that he ended up in the role of art direction, also designing image boards, and other things such as posters.徳間書店刊「アニメージュ」1985年7月号「押井守監督作品 天使のたまご その不可思議な物語世界への誘い 作品世界とキャラクター」 pg 27-30
The angel fossil was later reused alongside other elements from Oshii's cancelled Lupin film in 009 RE:CYBORG, which Oshii was initially supposed to direct and participated in the script for, and was eventually directed by Kenji Kamiyama, a student of Oshii. Kamiyama describes this version of the angel fossil as indication of a god, but not of any particular religion. The angel fossil was also used in the tenth episode of Lupin the 3rd Part 6 which Oshii wrote the script for "Darwin's Bird" In this episode Fujiko Mine is hired by the archangel Michael to steal the angel fossil, which is actually that of the fallen angel Lucifer, on behalf of his master.ルパン三世 part6 第10話『ダーウィンの鳥』 「あしたの子明星よ。いかにして天より隕ちしや」「私の主人が望んだのは、彼の不興を買って天界から墜ちた者の回収だ」
Nezu worked with Oshii once again in Patlabor 2: The Movie and Mako Hyōdō played a supporting role in The Sky Crawlers.
Style The film has elements that are not typical for anime film productions of that era. It uses a limited color palette making it almost monochrome. The film has very little dialogue. The film is unusual because it contains only 400 shots when the typical animation has three times that amount.
Themes and interpretations
Angel's Egg touches on themes that are common in Oshii's films, including references to the Christian Bible, the symbolism of dreams, as well as the intersection of dreams and reality. Some of these motifs appear in his other works, such as 1984's Beautiful Dreamer. The New York Japan Society says the film is "An allegorical fantasy enriched by symbolism and biblical allusion."
Although some publications have indicated that the film is built on director Oshii's supposed loss of faith in Christianity, Oshii himself has stated otherwise in saying that he was not a Christian, but that he thought quotes from the Bible were interesting and had a friend who was Christian. The misconception that Oshii was a man of faith has its origins in an interview that was likely mistranslated, in which Oshii is reported to say, "I planned to enter a seminary at one point, but didn't." Which is then followed up by the interviewer asking, "Are you a Christian, or do you just like the Bible for its philosophy?" To which Oshii replies, "For its philosophy." In the same Animerica interview Oshii also said, "I'm not a Christian, but I've been reading the Bible since my student days".
In a 1996 interview with the magazine Animerica, Oshii stated that the film evoked elements that intrigued him, such as "Ruins; I like ruins; I like museums; I like fish; I like birds; I like water... and I like girls." He also stated that ruins appear to him in his dreams.
Oshii said in a 1985 interview with Animage that the contents of the egg are supposed to represent dreams and hopes, something that may or may not exist, and that while the girl believed in what was in it, by breaking the egg, the boy showed that what she believed in did not exist.『アニメージュ1985年12月号付録「天使のたまご GUIDE BOOK」徳間書店、1985年 「少女はたまごの中身を信じているわけだけど、その中身は、いまここにはないものである。つまり、"たまごは割ってみなければ、なかになにが入っているかわからない"。それで、少年がたまごを割ったときに、なかにはなにもなかった。少女は"ないもの"を信じて生きていたわけです。たまごは、ことばを変えていえば、夢とか希望だと思う。それは、いまここにはないもので、可能性として存在しているだけである。しかし、夢とか希望を信じているうちは、人は、ほんとの現実には出あっていないのだ、と思う。」 Regarding the bird the boy talks about, though the girl shows the boy an angel fossil in order to convince him that the bird does exist, Oshii has stated that the angel is not the bird.『アニメージュ1985年12月号付録「天使のたまご GUIDE BOOK」徳間書店、1985年 「もう鳥はいないんだ、天使の化石は鳥ではなかった。」 Oshii also said that the ending was one with salvation for the girl, but he did not want it to be shown in a straightforward way, and made it hard to understand.『アニメージュ1985年12月号付録「天使のたまご GUIDE BOOK」徳間書店、1985年 「ラストでは、少女のほうには救いを託したつもりなんです。でも、いかにも予定調和に出てくるんじゃなくて、ある種のわかりにくさを持たせてますけど。」
Release Angel's Egg was released in the direct-to-video format on 15 December 1985 by Tokuma Shoten. It was additionally given a limited theatrical release that same year. Although Angel's Egg was highly acclaimed by critics and people in the animation industry in Japan on release, it also resulted in Oshii being labeled as a director who made films hard to understand, which resulted in him being hired far less frequently for years up until he got involved with Patlabor.宮崎駿「絵コンテを読んで 通俗文化の宿命」『天使のたまご絵コンテ集』徳間書店、1985『『スカイ・クロラ』公開記念押井マニア、知ったかぶり講座！ 』Webアニメスタイル/藤津亮太、2008 「押井ルパンのような挑発的な映画を作ってしまったとしたら、やはり『天使のたまご』の時のように、仕事が激減したことだけは間違いないことのように思う。」 http://www.style.fm/as/13_special/oshii008.shtml Speaking at an animation film festival in 1997 through a translator, Oshii explained the film did not do well financially upon release and was an obstacle to him getting work again for years.