Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933) wrote poems and children's books. Although mostly unappreciated during his lifetime, his works gained significant popularity after his death. He also taught agricultural science and then became a farmer, focusing on social activism to help impoverished farmers by providing free instruction on fertilizer use in his native Iwate, northern Japan. His agricultural activities had hardly succeeded, which motivated him to produce more writings.

Miyazawa was strongly moved by reading the Lotus Sutra. The Scripture became a lifelong cornerstone of his faith, inspiring him to seek a synthesis between agriculture, art, science, and religion. He was very well-educated, a member of the Meiji intelligentsia, who were influenced by Transatlantic Romanticism. His works are characterized by the use of many terms from natural sciences, such as meteorology, mineralogy, botany, geology, and physics. 

This study examines how humans and non-humans—an Ayrshire cow, a brass moon, pulp factory fires, the roaring sea, his recently deceased beloved sister, etc.—are interrelated and depicted as equal beings in Miyazawa’s works. His characters reveal his nonbinary, materialistic worldview that everything is interchangeable and entangled with each other. 

While dairy farming was established by Miyazawa’s time, it was mainly carried out further north, where the climate was too cold and dry for growing rice. Since then, bovine–human relationships have become more complicated because of global capitalism and technological advances, including factory farming and animal welfare science. Recognizing Miyazawa’s worldview and how it changed over time will contribute to reorienting how to address current environmental issues we are confronted with.