Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

Hayao Miyazaki is a director with a particular style. There are inspirations in his life, like his father designing airplanes and being born in the midst of World War II, that leave an enduring fingerprint on just about all of his work. While I love many of his movies, I’m also aware that this creates a certain sameness from project to project. His films are almost always fantasy films. They almost always have a young female protagonist. Flight is almost always a major aspect of world building, be it airships, airplanes, or even magical flying castles. There is frequently some combination of anti-war or pro-environment message, often with a spiritual perspective on compassion and the value of life. All of these things are present, in spades, in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. As one of the earliest Miyazaki films, before the founding of Studio Ghibli even, in a sense Nausicaa is a sort of ur-Miyazaki.

This doesn’t really hurt the film. It is everything you expect from a Miyazaki film, sure, but you wouldn’t be watching a Miyazaki film if you weren’t into that style. Plus, that style is more about the details used to tell the story than in denying the story any element of surprise. To me, at least, this is similar to an impressionist painting. I’m not bothered that the paintings all use similar paints and brush technique when the subjects of each piece and the point of view of each painter makes for unique works of art. Similarly, the world building from film to film for Miyazaki is different, the characters are varied, and the stories can be wildly different.

Nausicaa is its own animal. The Miyazaki film most similar is probably Princess Mononoke, but most of that crossover can be found in the thematic material and not in the specifics of the story. Both movies are fundamentally about the ravages an industrialized war machine can have on the natural world, but Nausicaa’s blight strewn swamps and village sized war planes are nothing like Mononoke’s pastoral forests and primitivist aesthetics. Similarly, Mononoke is about the destruction of the world as it is happening, whereas Nausicaa is more about the aftermath. When it comes to the spiritual philosophy of the movie, Nausicaa is again its own thing. Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa both have Buddist themes about the value of life and compassion for all living things, while Nausicaa also adds an element of Shintoism, with the value it places narratively on being the kind of person who is willing to explore and understand the world and everything in it, both big and small, revealing both its marvels and its interconnectedness.

While the animation is noticeably dated, it never bothered me that the piece looks its age. It is hard to put my finger on what, exactly, about Nausicaa’s animation gives away its origin in the 80s, but for anyone familiar with the evolution of anime from the mid-80s to the present, it would probably be trivial to guess approximately when it was made. Something about the simplicity of the way characters are drawn and how that contrasts with the more painted look of the background is a dead giveaway. Despite that, there is something iconic about the character design and art direction of Nausicaa. Even if you are not super well versed with Japanese animation, you may find many aspects of the film amazingly familiar, as they have likely influenced a generation of animators all around the world.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind so encapsulates the style of Miyazaki that it might become my go-to recommendation. Not because it is the best, which of the ones I’ve seen is probably Spirited Away. Nor because it is the most fun, which of the ones I’ve seen is probably Porco Rosso. But because if you don’t at least like Nausicaa it is unlikely you will like any of the others as their themes and style probably won’t vibe with you.

Would Recommend: If you love Miyazaki films but haven’t watched any of his early body of work yet.

Would Not Recommend: If you’ve seen a Miyazaki film and liked nothing about it.