Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

This Ghibli film movie actually predates the studio itself, and so some argue isn't technically part of the Ghibli collection, but the Miyazaki is strong with this one. The titular Nausicaa herself is a strong protagonist with a tremendous appreciation for the value of life—a character you can't help but root for throughout.This title was adapted from a much longer manga series and it shows. The climax is followed by an abrupt ending with virtually no denouement. This is disappointing because it would be great to see what becomes of the Valley of the Wind after the end of the film, but the world Miyazaki brings you to in this title is mysterious, alien, a bit frightening on the surface, but altogether one that wishes to be understood.

This movie is a masterpiece. I was introduced to it in college and I only wished that I'd seen it sooner. It sends powerful messages on the importance of stewardship for the environment, love, and peace. Nausicaa herself, the title character, would be an excellent role model for any child- curious, brave, gentle, intelligent, and kind. The animation is stunningly beautiful, the world is familiar and yet alien. Plus you get to hear young Shia Labeouf voice a prince!

Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli have brought man timeless classics to animated film. His stories always reach the hearts of viewers and the imagination, musical score and characters are some of the best in animation. Miyazaki uses very human-like movements in his animation. In addition, much of the art is done using water colors. These stories offer heart felt compassion, strong moral values and a sense of respect towards nature and man.Nausicaa is among my all time favorites of Miyazaki's films.The Main protagonist, Nausicaa is a young and fun-loving princess of the serene Valley of the Wind. Viewed by her followers as charismatic and peaceful, she is adored by all. With an uncanny ability to communicate with the giant insects that thrive in the forest around the village. The Forest has been stained with poison, which infested the plant-life and takes to the wind in the form of spores. The guardian of this Poisonous Forest is the Ohmu, a larger than life armored caterpillar-like insect. The Insects come in many shapes and sizes with the Ohm being the most feared and revered amongst them. The insects are able to communicate with each other and sense threats in the forest. When the insects become filled with rage their eyes glow red, and when returned to a state of calm they radiate blue. Thanks to Nausicaa's persistent visits to the Poisonous Forest to gather supplies and research the toxic nature of the valley she calls home. The inhabitants of the valley have become accustomed to living with the insects and forest. Nausicca is an adept fighter taught by Lord Yupa a wondering samurai style character. Who mentors her in fighting skills and wisdom. Nausicca takes to the air on a glider with jet proficiency. Her ability in "Wind-riding" serves her well in her exploits and offers a peaceful get away from the hustle and bustle of valley life. But when an airship crashes into the valley things begin to take a turn for the worst. Nausicaa rushes to the wreckage to find a young girl shackled to the burning airship. The young girl turns out to be a Princess from another kingdom, who warns her that the cargo of the plane must be destroyed. The cargo, a "Giant Warrior". An ancient evil created in a time of war. When a form of Military intervenes and tries to rid the forest of the poison and insects alike, the valleys wise woman Obaba warns that doing so will anger the Ohmu and a catastrophe will follow. The people of the Valley of the Wind are in for tough times and Nausicca leads the way to peace.Legends tale of a fabled man in blue, that will appear surrounded by a sea of gold and reunite the people of the valley with the nature that surrounds them.I highly recommend films by Hayao Miyazaki. The are amazing works of art, with meaningful messages and wonderful characters.

In the early nineties, one of my pre-school daughter's favorite videos was something entitled WARRIORS OF THE WIND. As an adult, I found much in it to be of interest, and much of the animation to be of an exceedingly high quality, but overall the film lacked balance and a cohesive structure to make it a truly great animated film. Later I learned that the animator/writer/director Hiyao Miyazaki had been horrified with the way his Japanese original had been transferred into English and that many of the ecological concerns of the film had been muted by aggressive editing on the part of the American distributors. During the past two decades the English-language revision of NAUSICAA AND THE VALLEY OF THE WIND, the film which through reediting became WARRIORS OF THE WIND has generated as much anger as any film ever made. Now, however, arguably the greatest injustice in the history of animation has been redressed with a marvelous new edition of what is easily one of Miyazaki's greatest achievements.There is a lot of debate about where NAUSICAA AND THE VALLEY OF THE WIND stands among all of Miyazaki's films Even while there has been a growing consensus that Miyazaki is the greatest maker of feature length animated film ever, there is controversy as to whether this film is or is not his greatest film. I'll confess my bias that it is his finest film, though I certainly can understand why someone would defend the assertion that THE PRINCESS MONONOKE or SPIRITED AWAY deserves that designation. Both of those films are a bit more polished and even more lavishly and elaborately drawn. My own reasons for preferring NAUSICAA are several. First, I personally believe that NAUSICAA is the first truly great Miyazaki film. Although he had done many superb films before this one, it was at this point that his art reached an apex that he has matched on other occasions, but never unquestionably surpassed. Second, I loved the story, both the scope of Miyazaki's vision, the cohesiveness of his narrative, and the richness of the moral message underlying the film. Finally, the animation of the film just blew me away even in the bowdlerized version of the film, and does so even more in this fully restored version. Miyazaki pioneered in animation the framing of images in cinematic fashion. For instance, Miyazaki manipulates in scenes in which Nausicaa flies her glider beside a larger ship to be from the same point of view a camera would be if it were a live action scene. His perspective is always driven by an imaginary camera, unlike, say, the Disney films, in none of whose films from the forties to the eighties can be found a similar manipulation of perspective. Several Disney films from the late eighties to the present display such perspective at times, but I would suggest that it is not an accident that these were made after Miyazaki had perfected the technique in a number of films. Perhaps Miyazaki has made minor improvements in his films since NAUSICAA, but none represent the quantum leap forward that this one did.One reason my daughter watched and rewatched WARRIORS OF THE WIND, until she literally wore out the video, was the lead character. If my memory serves me correctly, they changed the central character's name from Nausicaa to some far blander name, a change that is emblematic for the production as a whole. But even in that version, Nausicaa stood out as not merely one of the most compelling heroines in animated film, but in all films. In fact, even today Nausicaa compares favorably with such characters as Ripley from the ALIEN films and Buffy Summers as a compelling heroine. She is at moments subject to the kind of preciousness that mars many moments in anime in particular and Asian film in general (think of key moments in films when Jackie Chan ceases his chase of the villains to save a baby in danger, or the way in this one where Nausicaa cuddles with the half cat/half fox creature that attaches itself to her), but all in all, she is utterly courageous, amazingly inventive, unstintingly moral and compassionate, fiercely uncompromising in her principles, and unfailingly resourceful. In scene after scene after scene, Miyazaki invents new and strangely believable ways for his diminutive heroine to resolve seemingly impossible crises. By the end of the film, one has as much confidence in Nausicaa to save the day as Superman or Batman or Indiana Jones. As the father of a girl I can't express how important it was to her when she was young to have such a female heroine to enjoy. Male or female, heroic characters do not come any better than Nausicaa.No review of this film would be complete without adding some praise for the score. Although I had a tad bit of trouble with the childlike voice that intentionally intones lyrics slightly off key (Sarah Vaughan would famously sing out of tune when she would sing the Ira Gershwin line "The way you sing off key," but she even sang off key musically in a way that enhanced the song as a whole) to produce a decidedly irritating effect, the score as a whole is amazingly effective.The wonderful thing about the entire series of new issues of the entire Miyazaki catalog is that they consistently provide both the original which can be watched with subtitles and an extremely high quality dubbed version. In live action films I am an unstinting purist. I simply won't watch a dubbed version of a film with live actors, since one gains so much from hearing the actual voices of the actors. I always get a kick on the X-FILES DVDs listening to the various foreign language dubbings and chuckling at the gap between, say, the voice of Gillian Anderson as Scully and the voice of the low-voiced actress dubbing her into German. But with animation it is a different matter. For one thing, the animated characters do not possess actual voices, but have only what any actor gives them. Additionally, animation is even more than live action films driven by the images on the screen. I find I always enjoy the visual aspect of the film more by not having to focus both on what is on the screen and on subtitles. Luckily, one can with this DVD set do both, watch it first in the dubbed version and then in the subtitled, or vice versa. I very much enjoyed the actors used to dub the English version. There were some obligatory big names-Patrick Stewart, who is outstanding as Lord Yupa, Alison Lohman (who voiced Nausicaa), Uma Thurman, Edward James Olmos-but most of the people were highly appropriate for the character they were dubbing.My only complaint with the DVDs is the way that Disney programs the DVDs to try to steer you to an endless series of Disney commercials when the discs are first inserted. Such spamming is just not appropriate to DVDs and especially not to an otherwise high quality version of a Miyazaki classic. Still, I applaud Disney for taking the effort to make almost Miyazaki's entire incredibly impressive corpus available. Only a few years ago, before the release of PRINCESS MONONOKE, Miyazaki was still unknown to most American filmgoers. He still doesn't enjoy the reputation that he deserves, but the release of his films on DVD is treated as event even by Wal-Mart and Target. He truly is without his peer in the world of feature length film animation, for not only does he do an amazing percentage of the animation himself, he also writes the stories, and acts as both producer and director. No other great animator has involved himself in his films at such great length and in such detail.

I bought Nausicaa - another Japanese animated film - for my granddaughter who enjoys watching them. Nausicaa is a film full of wonderful detail and such imaginative storytelling. The film is anjoyable for all the family and the animation is a real eye-opener when it comes to any detail.I would recommend Nausicaa to anyone interested in animated films - the whole concept pays great attention to the smallest detail and the graphics are amazing. At my last count, my granddaughter had 14 such films in her collection!Thank you.

This movie was among the best animated feature film in Japan during the 1980s. I love the animation and especially the music. A Miyazaki movie just would not be a Miyazaki movie without Joe Hisaishi. The disco score, however, was composed and performed by Giorgio Moroder, though he was uncredited. A mixture of an orchestral composer and a disco composer. The voice casting in this is amazing. All sorts of well known actors here. English dubbing in Studio Ghilbi films is best. Normally anime dubs are rubbish but not this one. I like Patrick Stewart very much.

Not my favourite. It's a Ghibli film and is obviously of the same high quality as the rest of their movies, but the main characters just rub me the wrong way. They are too perfect at absolutely everything and don't seem to have any flaws. Maybe that was part of the point, but if so I didn't get it. Uma Thurman, Edward James Olmos and Patrick Stewart voice acting really saved this one for me.

A beautifully told story of friendship and strength. Fantastic animation, voice characterization and music. Great escape into a world full of magic and thought provoking events.

Incredible film! Only complaint is the DVD tray in the case came broken. Other than that if you haven't seen nausicaa and are a fan of anime then this is a must watch film!