Hayao Miyazaki would grow to become one of the most well-known Japanese animators all over the world for his contribution to the world with Studio Ghibli, and it’s interesting looking back at his history and seeing where he started his film-making career. After working on several projects as an animator and directing his first film with the 1979 film, The Castle of Cagliostro, it was his second film that he directed, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds is often considered his official start to stardom and cemented him as an animator and director worthy of greatness. In a post-apocalyptic future where civilization has mostly been destroyed and an ecocide has caused nature to grow poisonous and deadly as well as the insects large and ravenous, a little village in the Valley of the Wind is guarded by Princess Nausicaä (voiced by Alison Lohman). The surrounding areas of the world are in ruin and despair while her home is safeguarded from the earth’s now toxic forests and giant destructive insects called the Ohm, and she hopes to find a way to allow both nature and her people to co-exist together. Out of nowhere, war comes to them when they are attacked by two neighboring kingdoms who are in search of age-old monsters who they hope to use and exploit in their own wars as weapons against the other. One invades Nausicaä ’s village led by Princess Kushana (voiced by Uma Thurman) which results in the death of her father, who hopes to mature the monster and let it burn the toxic jungle, while the other kingdom plans to manipulate the ohmu to attack the village and destroy every living creature, innocent and enemy, in its path. Looking for a peaceful solution, Nausicaä joins forces with a boy on the other side named Asbel (voiced by Shia Labeouf) and desperately struggles to stop these two opposing forces destroying the little earth they have left and make it home for both humans and bugs alike, now that she has discovered the cause of the Toxic Jungle. For only a second film, the film’s passion and effort is all over the project with how giant the movie is and how much it throws at the audience. It has enjoyable characters, interesting story, beautiful animation, and a large epic feel that captures an atmosphere on pare with any classic fantasy.

The story for this film does a great job at allowing its audience to breath and live in this world, and it’s one that is full of intrigue and mysticism. Even though the film does have a grounded Lord of the Rings-style political struggle conquest, the various environments, creatures, and unique mythos adds that extra touch of surreal reality that the film balances out to help create its own environment, and its own personality. There’s a lot of discussing and planning without that much action which could become a problem if the dialogue and the characters weren’t engaging enough, but watching these characters interact and work off each other is enjoyable and the discussions are much more engaging because of their interactions. The film has an obvious pro-environmental and anti-war message which is something that Miyazaki would become known for with his later works, but it doesn’t overstate itself too much and creates an engaging story around it that helps enforce its point more, actively letting the audience get engrossed and understand what they’re saying rather than having it forced down your throat. With that said, the film piles on a bunch of exposition and world building that could have been spaced out better in more than one movie. Coming from a manga that Miyazaki himself wrote and created in 1981, most of the background information, character backstories and world building was most likely better established in other material, so it does feel like certain aspects are missing in regard to some of the background and establishing elements of the story, but it gives exactly what’s needed for this specific story and works with it. Even though the film has a decent length and keeps at a fast pace, many elements of the film feel like they could have been established more flowingly and given more time to better set up the final battle at the end. The film’s pacing always keeps the energy high, always throwing something either strongly energetic or subdued and full of emotion, keeping the film from getting overly busy and leveling the faster pace with the characters with the slower moments.

The characters are all very likeable and engaging to observe in this world. Each one of them have such great chemistry with each other, regardless of how long they share the screen together. Even though Miyazaki might be one of the only other people in the world who uses Princesses more than Disney, Nausicaä still makes for a really solid lead character. She is a peaceful person with a kind heart and a pacifistic nature but has the ingenuity, strategist mind and aggressive skill to fight back quite brutally when pushed too far. Though it seems inconsistent, it works to its advantage when the film reaches its end and the resolution is discovered, she’s a ton of fun to watch and Alison Lohman does quite good as the voice. She also has a great supporting cast. Even though not much is known about them, the connection they share with one another easily sets up who’s important to everyone and what everybody’s motivation is. The reason for this is most likely due to the amazing cast behind them. People like Mark Hamill, Uma Thurman, Patrick Stewart, Chris Sarandon and even Shia Labeouf add so much credibility to their roles and make them all so interesting and entertaining. The film could have benefited with more time dedicated to the characters instead of more flying scene shouting orders at each other, despite how well they are done. They do have their slower moments to just be characters and they are done very well, but for built-up that is being given to this giant climax, knowing some of the characters more would have really upped the stakes, particularly with the villains.  Even though Uma Thurman and Chris Sarandon act their parts very well and work very well off each other to create this interesting back and forth love-hate relationship with each other, it’s something that’s never properly explored or explained, so that could’ve been very fascinating if there was more time to flesh that out.

The film, as to be expected when it’s helmed by Miyazaki, looks beautiful. For a film made in the mid-80s without any computers involved, it looks like something that could be made today with how clean the environments look and how crisp the lines and expressions feel throughout. True, the difference does show compared to recent times, but the effort is all over the backgrounds, the environments, the different monsters, the action scenes, the lighting, and colors, all of it is wonderful and helps in creating a very distinct visual identity for this world. For something that’s supposed to be set in an apocalyptic future where society is destroyed, its pleasantly colorful and even incredibly earthy and vibrant, which you don’t normally see in this kind of story, so that is appreciated. It still has its fair share of dead lifeless grey cities, but it also has some beautifully green lively farmlands and valleys that gives the world more variety than simply all-destruction landscapes. While the climax is sadly not as epic as it’s been presented as, the visuals are very strong in this section and are portrayed in a much harsher manner than the rest of the movie, more than likely coming from animator Hideaki Anno (who would later go on to write and direct Neon Genesis Evangelion) who assisted in the fight scenes involving the gigantic threat. For one of his first movies, the sprouts of Miyazaki’s earlier tropes brought to life for the first time have their own way of giving the movie its own personality compared to other films of its type, including the mix of machinery and nature and how they have to coincide with each other, the clear appreciation of nature and the real importance of it without having it shoved in your face, the monster and how they can make them look creatively grotesque and bizarre, the imaginative technology that mirrors the world the movie create, and the overall large scale that keeps the audience wanting to see what happens next. The film has an atmosphere that feels submerged in dreary despair and panic, but also contains a fair amount of hope and enchantment that levels out the serious tone. The musical score by Joe Hisaishi (who would later become a frequent collaborator with Hayao Miyazaki) has such a fantastic feel to its sound and rhythm that manages to sound classical through its instrumentation, but is still able to capture that grand scale and even passionate energy the movie is getting across.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds has a lot of creative and likeable aspects that paid off in bucket loads with this film, not just for itself but for its director as well. It was a great starting point that would only continue to grow in quality for the Studio Ghibli films that captures the spirit and wonder of all of Miyazaki’s work. The characters are engaging, the voice acting is very well done, the animation is amazing in quality especially for its time, the story is interesting, the message is subtle, but effective, and the film’s size heightens the film to epic proportions. If the characters were developed a bit more, this film could have been an animated equivalent of a Lord of the Rings film in terms of weight and scale, but excluding that nit-pick, it’s still an impressive spectacle. A great film with a lot of amazing elements, keep gliding high and keep an eye out for this work of art.

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