From darkness to illumination: Japanese philosophical perspectives on guilt and awakening in Akira Kurosawa’s short films

This article explores two childhood-centred short films from Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams (1990), ‘Sunshine through the Rain’ and ‘The Peach Orchard’, through the lens of Japanese philosophy and morality. Drawing on Shinto and Zen Buddhist thought, the article examines how Kurosawa frames guilt, transgression and spiritual awakening as intertwined with nature and childhood experience. These shorts reflect a moral cosmology rooted in ecological and ancestral consciousness, offering an autobiographical vision of ethical growth from darkness to illumination.