Baby Elephant Story: The Angel Who Descended to Earth (Japanese: 子象物語 地上に降りた天使, Hepburn: Kouzou monogatari: Chijou ni orita tenshi) is a 1986 Japanese children's drama film directed by Ryô Kinoshita^[1] and written by Nobuo Yamada.^[2] The film was adapted from the 1951 short story Faithful Elephants by Yukio Tsuchiya.

Baby Elephant Story stars Tetsuya Takeda in the lead role, as well as Kurara Haruka, Midori Hagio, Toshiyuki Nagashima and Nobuyo Ōyama. It was theatrically released on July 26, 1986 by Toho.^[2] The film was a box office success in Japan.^[3]

In 1940, Sakura the Indian elephant gives birth to a daughter at Tokyo Fujimi Zoo (based on Ueno Zoo) under the watchful eye of zookeeper Shota Tanabe (Tetsuya Takeda). Around the same time, Shota’s wife, Setsuko (Midori Hagio), also gives birth. Hanako, the baby elephant, grows up while deepening her bonds with the elementary school students who visit the zoo, including Shota's son. However, the arrival of the Pacific War casts a dark shadow, as the military issues a devastating order to euthanize the animals in zoos across five major cities. Shota convinces Major Keiji Okamoto (Toshiyuki Nagashima), who was his classmate in school, to help secretly evacuate Hanako by train.

The film was inspired by Yukio Tsuchiya's short story Faithful Elephants, originally published in 1951 and later republished in illustrated form in 1970 (first published in the English language in 1979 as Poor Elephants). Faithful Elephants was marketed as a true story,^[4] but contains multiple fictionalized elements.^[5] For instance, the book claims that the Japanese Army requested that every zoo in Japan poison their large or dangerous animals because they were worried that the animals would escape and harm the general public if bombs were detonated nearby.^[5] In truth, the recently-installed governor of Tokyo, Shigeo Ōdachi, decided in August 1943 (a time when there was little threat of bombing in the country) to slaughter the animals and use their deaths as propaganda; his order was carried out in Ueno Zoo with unusual and unnecessary cruelty by acting zoo director Saburō Fukuda.^[5] There have been several critiques of the author's use of fictionalized story elements.^[5][6][7]

Screenwriter Nobuo Yamada was notable for writing several films for director Koreyoshi Kurahara. Yoshitami Kuroiwa was a renowned editor who had worked on such films as The Sword of Doom and The Return of Godzilla, among many others. Cinematographer Shōhei Andō had earlier shot Enrai and Muddy River, and would later serve as co-cinematographer on Hiroshima for directors Koreyoshi Kurahara and Roger Spottiswoode.

The elephant transport scene was filmed with cooperation from the Oigawa Railway in Shizuoka Prefecture.

The film's score was composed by Kentarō Haneda.^[2] It consists of 17 tracks.^[8] The film's theme song is "Angel Who Descended to Earth", performed by Mari Mizutani, one of the film's stars. It was distributed on CD and vinyl formats by Victor Entertainment.^[8]

Baby Elephant Story was theatrically released on July 26, 1986 by Toho, in Japan.^[2] It grossed ¥400 million at the Japanese box office.^[3] The film was later released on VHS.

• Starving the Elephants: The Slaughter of Animals in Wartime Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo by Frederick S. Litten, The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus