An old bamboo cutter finds a glowing bamboo stalk containing a tiny baby girl, raising her as Kaguya-hime ("The Shining Princess"). Her beauty attracts five noblemen whom she rejects by setting impossible marriage tasks, followed by a refusal of a marriage proposal from the Emperor of Japan himself. As summer arrives, Kaguya-hime weeps at the full moon, revealing that she is a celestial being exiled from the Moon and that her people are returning to take her back. Despite the Emperor's guards trying to protect the house, heavenly beings descend in a blinding light. Kaguya-hime leaves a parting letter, drinks the elixir of immortality, and ascends back to the Moon in a feathered robe, leaving her grieving family and the heartbroken Emperor behind.