VS The book of the dead

I recently watched a great doll animation, "The book of the dead".
The quality of the animation movie was very high. I enjoyed it very much.
In the movie, dolls are actors and actresses.
I could have the chance to talk with the movie's producer. She told me that it took two years to make the one hour movie, because every single second was divided to 24 scenes in the movie, and all dolls in the scene were moved gradually, a little and a little. I guess it must be an impatient work.
In the movie, all dolls looked living. Their move was very smooth. It was a great art.

The movie's original novel was written by Shinobu Origuchi, who were a famous Japanese anthropologist. The theme of the novel is how we can calm down the soul of the dead people. This theme was from Buddism.

The eara of the story is ancient Japan, 8 century. In the eara, Buddism came to Japan. It gave an effect on Japanese thinking about death. Before Buddism coming, Japanese thought the dead people would become something in the world; for example, a stone, a tree, a bird, an ant, a snake, a flower and so on.
But, after Buddism coming, we learned that we would go somewhere but in this world after our death.
Where is "somewhere"?
I am not certain that it equals the English word, "Heaven",but we call it "That world" in Japanese.

For the people in 8 century, the two types of explanation for death was very confusing. That's why it was a big theme for the ancient people, how to calm down the soul of the dead.
Such a theme is difficult even for us. So, the movie was more difficult to understand than we guess before watching it. However, I can say this movie is a good entertainment.

Now Japanese animation is popular in the world.
Most of them are, I think, for kids. The stories are interesting, exciting and easy to understand But, what we can express in animation is wide. The genre called "art animation" is also becoming popular now. It's a great art.