Yūgen (幽玄)

Yūgen is said to mean “a profound, mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe… and the sad beauty of human suffering”.

Yūgen suggests that beyond what can be said but is not an allusion to another world. It is about this world, this experience.

Yugen is the title chosen for my animated Fable, ‘Yugen’ is set in a post-apocalyptic Japan where nature has reclaimed the earth due to industrialization and humans greed having no regard for nature or the animals that are trying to exist. My fable is based somewhat in the future of the apocalypse happening, our main character is in the world which is rather succumbed to the natural world, with the buildings crumbling and covered in foliage and new types of organic trees and creatures are emerging. This is meant to symbolise the world being ‘reborn’. The moon being shattered in the sky is again meant to signify to the audience that something terrible has happened or at least a sign of change from the world we’re used to.