Do yourself a flava and read the
Manga. The movie ends before where the first volume ends, but the story goes in a completely different and much more interesting direction.
kibwen · 1h ago
Worth mentioning that the manga is itself drawn by Miyazaki, and that he originally stipulated that it should never be made into a film. Fully agreed that the manga is far more beautiful and complete than the film.
tuna74 · 21m ago
Miyazaki was the director of the movie and probably drew a lot more than a traditional anime movie director.
KeepFlying · 1h ago
Don't forget how horribly the first English adaptation of the film went too.
upghost · 43m ago
Was the plot completely butchered...? Yes.
Were there gaping narrative discontinuities...? Certainly.
But that 80s voice acting in the English dub... chef's kiss. The guy who voiced Milo("Asbel" in the movie) was the voice of Leonardo from Ninja Turtles and Kaneda from original dub of Akira!! (Cam Clark)
If I watch any version, I watch Warriors of the Wind. It really is the "Hollywood version" of Nausicaa.
Yeah, the newer one is better, but it doesn't hold a candle to the manga so give me that 80s synth and big hair voice acting any day.
Also I was like 5 when I saw it so nostalgia goggles.
InvisibleUp · 11m ago
It wasn’t that bad. It cut a few scenes but most of the movie is still there perfectly intact. It even won film festival awards. The movie mostly flopped in the US market on account it being distributed on a very low budget limited release against Rambo and The Goonies. SpaceHunterM on YouTube made a good video explaining a lot of misconceptions, if you want to check that out.
Kapura · 1h ago
Glad to know that others agree; this is the elephant in the room that the original link doesn't mention. The manga was completed several years after the film's release, and the expanded freedom allows the story to be expanded in every direction. Many of the themes present in later Miyazaki works (stuff like redemption for certain villains) are absent from the film but have time to develop in the manga.
omnee · 50m ago
Like others I want to recommend the manga. It's a masterpiece and in my opinion Miyazaki's Magnum Opus.
echelon · 42m ago
It's certainly his biggest world, and the themes of climate change and environmentalism are directly relevant.
I still am not sure which between Nausicaa the manga, Nausicaa the film, Princess Mononoke, or Spirited Away are his magnum opus. They are all spectacular.
I posted below about his manga, "Shuna's Journey". It's also exceedingly relevant.
HideousKojima · 1h ago
Also the secret truth about the world in Nausicaa (not going to spoil it here) has been copied by several other animes and video games since, it's been very influential. Notably the anime Ergo Proxy and the video game Nier seem to take some significant inspiration from it.
echelon · 1h ago
There is no work from Miyazaki that should be more relevant to us on HN than Shuna no Tabi (シュナの旅, Shuna's Journey).
It was published during Nausicaa's run and has similar themes to Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke. It's certainly more brutal.
It reads like Cormac McCarthy's "The Road", and the themes are incredibly prescient for the world we're about to be living in [1]. It has direct relevance to everyone on HN.
You should notice the shadow of the traumatic experience from atomic bombs that permeated into the Japanese society throughout the 20th century (vs. concerns around carbon emissions today.)
frollogaston · 57m ago
I'm not into anime, but this is in my top 3 favorite movies. Aside from the sheer coolness, it's environmentalist but not in the typical annoying way like the blue people Avatar movie. It's more matter-of-fact, you won't win fighting against nature or against each other.
And the main character has the right amount of flaws. Even though Nausicaa is totally against war by the second half, the movie shows that this is easier said than done. She has to reach that conclusion after taking part in the fighting herself, and even then she has to use warning shots from a machine gun. She's not invincible until the last scene.
N_Lens · 3h ago
> When analyzing Miyazaki’s films, including Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, often the messages regarding warfare’s effects on the natural world focus more on the direct impacts rather than the indirect ones. Additionally, many researchers look at the film from a spiritual lens with DeWeese-Boyd (2009) believing Nausicaä serves as a Christ-like figure, while both Morgan (2015) and Nunes (2021) believe that Nausicaä serves as an example of how to restore balance between humans and nature. Despite that, these authors see her role in restoring balance differently. Nunes believes that Nausicaä gave herself to nature, sacrificing her free will in order to heal the earth without personal bias. On the other hand, Morgan believes that she serves as an example of how the fragmentation between the mind, body, spirit and nature can be restored through respect and care for the natural world.
I never thought of the parallel with Christ in the numerous times I watched this film but I can understand why someone would make that connection given the final scenes.
But she's definitely not the same throughout the movie, cause she kills 3 guys early on.
tmtvl · 3h ago
As the site is currently getting hugged I will say that Nausicaa didn't quite leave as much an impression on me as Grave of the Fireflies, but Miyazaki's environment design is always spot-on (the entirety of Farewell My Beloved Lupin, for example, improves on every rewatch as you notice more details).
randomNumber7 · 3h ago
Grave of the Fireflies is the most emotionally disturbing movie I have ever watched (including non animes). It is a masterpiece but I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone.
h2zizzle · 10m ago
If you ever do, make sure to do so as a double feature with My Neighbor Totoro (as it was originally released in theaters).
pchristensen · 1h ago
It was definitely not a barrel of monkeys, but I think it is an important expression of the costs of war on the innocent, and the effects of societal inequality in general. It's powerful in a way that statistics cannot deliver. You'd also be hard pressed to find a better story of unconditional love, duty, sacrifice, and maturity.
iamwil · 1h ago
It's the only movie that I liked that I'd only want to watch once.
BriggyDwiggs42 · 1h ago
Oh I couldn’t remember what this was called. I watched it for a film class. Utterly devastating.
everybodyknows · 2h ago
Ever seen "Threads"?
khimaros · 1h ago
tell me you haven't seen Old Boy without telling me you haven't seen Old Boy
tialaramex · 43m ago
Oldboy is fiction.
The two children in Grave of the Fireflies are fictional, but they're standing in for a tremendous number of real Japanese civilians killed by these events - in some cases literally starved to death. The Americans really did drop incendiary devices on those cities to burn homes to the ground, in our real world. You can certainly make an argument that it was somehow "justified" but it's a terrible thing to have done even if you're quite sure that it wasn't a war crime (which I am not).
tokai · 1h ago
For a contemporary example of the effects of war on nature the area around Bilohorivka in Ukraine is quite the eye opener. At least it was for me.
On 20 September 2022, Luhansk Oblast governor Serhiy Haidai reported that Russian troops had "razed [Bilohorivka] to the ground" during their failed attempts to recapture it, stating that Ukrainian forces had full control of the town.[78]
On 18 October, Russia attempted an assault with artillery support on Bilohorivka, but the attack was repulsed. Russian troops continued to shell liberated settlements.
The armored vehicle assaults and drones destroy trenches and buildings, make craters too, but the sheer extent and size of those craters is from artillery. The tank battles weren't too destructive relatively IIRC
Blue Gender also good for humanity losing to something
randomNumber7 · 2h ago
> The paper will show that the visuals in the film are not simply aesthetic decisions, but a crucial narrative device to convey the effects of war on both people and nature.
I don't need science to come to this conclusion.
lazide · 2h ago
Nothing about the paper is science hah. But it is a paper!
Isamu · 48m ago
Funny though that “paper” is not about paper anymore.
tokai · 29m ago
The rare skeuomorph synecdoche.
snickerbockers · 1h ago
ARE YOU DENYING THE SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL OF GEEK STUDIES?
Were there gaping narrative discontinuities...? Certainly.
But that 80s voice acting in the English dub... chef's kiss. The guy who voiced Milo("Asbel" in the movie) was the voice of Leonardo from Ninja Turtles and Kaneda from original dub of Akira!! (Cam Clark)
If I watch any version, I watch Warriors of the Wind. It really is the "Hollywood version" of Nausicaa.
Yeah, the newer one is better, but it doesn't hold a candle to the manga so give me that 80s synth and big hair voice acting any day.
Also I was like 5 when I saw it so nostalgia goggles.
I still am not sure which between Nausicaa the manga, Nausicaa the film, Princess Mononoke, or Spirited Away are his magnum opus. They are all spectacular.
I posted below about his manga, "Shuna's Journey". It's also exceedingly relevant.
It was published during Nausicaa's run and has similar themes to Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke. It's certainly more brutal.
It reads like Cormac McCarthy's "The Road", and the themes are incredibly prescient for the world we're about to be living in [1]. It has direct relevance to everyone on HN.
https://archive.org/details/shuna-no-tabi-complete-translate...
It's a hidden gem and often overlooked.
Spoiler: [1]
.
.
.
[1] rot13(Vg'f onfrq ba n Gvorgna sbyxgnyr, ohg Zvlnmnxv'f nqncgngvba zvtug qrcvpg yvsr nsgre NV. Nsgre gur ebobgf gnxr bire naq jr'er yrsg nf n sreny fcrpvrf. Gur oehgnyvgl bs pvivyvmngvbany pbyyncfr nf gur ebobgf pbagvahr gb uneirfg hf naq bhe jbeyq. Ubj jr'er yrsg gb fpencr ol naq qrny jvgu gur pehrygl bs bhefryirf.)
https://rot13.com/
And the main character has the right amount of flaws. Even though Nausicaa is totally against war by the second half, the movie shows that this is easier said than done. She has to reach that conclusion after taking part in the fighting herself, and even then she has to use warning shots from a machine gun. She's not invincible until the last scene.
I never thought of the parallel with Christ in the numerous times I watched this film but I can understand why someone would make that connection given the final scenes.
But she's definitely not the same throughout the movie, cause she kills 3 guys early on.
The two children in Grave of the Fireflies are fictional, but they're standing in for a tremendous number of real Japanese civilians killed by these events - in some cases literally starved to death. The Americans really did drop incendiary devices on those cities to burn homes to the ground, in our real world. You can certainly make an argument that it was somehow "justified" but it's a terrible thing to have done even if you're quite sure that it wasn't a war crime (which I am not).
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bilohorivka,+Luhansk+oblas...
On 20 September 2022, Luhansk Oblast governor Serhiy Haidai reported that Russian troops had "razed [Bilohorivka] to the ground" during their failed attempts to recapture it, stating that Ukrainian forces had full control of the town.[78]
On 18 October, Russia attempted an assault with artillery support on Bilohorivka, but the attack was repulsed. Russian troops continued to shell liberated settlements.
The armored vehicle assaults and drones destroy trenches and buildings, make craters too, but the sheer extent and size of those craters is from artillery. The tank battles weren't too destructive relatively IIRC
https://blog.alltheanime.com/memories-cannon-fodder/
Blue Gender also good for humanity losing to something
I don't need science to come to this conclusion.