Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Dir: Hayao Miyazaki

1984

****

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was the film that launched Studio Ghibli, although it isn't technically a Studio Ghibli. The Castle of Cagliostro didn't do that well at the box office and Hayao Miyazaki was soon looking for another project. This is when he was approached and encouraged by Toshio Suzuki, who was editor of Manga magazine Animage at the time, to keep going along the same vein and draw Manga cartoons for him. Miyazaki took his advice and although reluctant at first, agreed to develop his ideas into a film and after Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was a success it marked the beginning of a beautiful working relationship and the animation studio that is loved around the world. Without wanting to sound obvious, it is the perfect introduction to both Miyazaki and Ghibli. The story is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi fantasy which incorporates elements of Lord of the Rings, Earthsea (which was later developed into a Ghibli film), Brian Aldiss's Hothouse, Issaac Asimov's Nightfall, as well as Japanese folktales, Homer's Odyssey and a bit of Buddhism (the central idea was developed further years later in Ghibli's highly popular Princess Mononoke). Quite the rich and eclectic mix of ideas and styles but this is very much a work of Miyazaki, who is a genre unto himself. The animation is vivid, colourful, highly detailed and absolutely stunning, Manga suddenly came to life and the world of animation was never the same again, with its popularity soaring soon after. The visuals, themes and music are all sublime and of a high quality that became quite typical of the studio and Miyazaki's work. This style of animation became quite popular in the west as a result of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind but production distributors didn't really know how to market it, the truth is they really didn't have to but New World Pictures bought it, cut it to ribbons taking out all the important aspects such as the environmental issues and what each character represented and renamed it Warriors of the Wind. The narrative was completely lost and it made no sense at all and as a result Miyazaki enforced a 'no cuts' policy when creating Ghibli with his colleagues. This was integral to the studios on-going popularity and has had a big impact in the transfer of popular eastern culture in the west and not just in the animation world. It is hard to overlook the influence and impact Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind has had in the world of cinema, comics and motion animation. The birth of the most gentle of revolutions.