VIDEO: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)

by · March 6, 2014

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Sofie’s Miyazaki March continues in this second installment of the month.

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Tag: Movie Dorkness: Miyazaki March

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  • Muthsarah

    This was my first Miyazaki. Prolly saw it about 15 years ago, but never since. Guess I’m overdue.

    You still should rope Renegado into making a brief cameo. Just him laughing for a couple seconds or something. ‘Cuz you just can’t get past it once you know. :p

    P.S. Oh yeah, this episode’s title. Even if it wasn’t intentional, keep it this way.

    • Joseph Patrick

      Absolutely! Nausicaa IS a valley full of win!

      • Sofie Liv

        wauw… that is the first time I made a typo that actually improved the title.. oO;

  • danbreunig

    Wow, this looks deep. Strange how I never jumped on these films before. My own animes are pretty few.

    Off topic: is this the end of the Friendship Is Magic recaps? I was really enjoying those. I even really got into the show because of the recaps, so…thanks?

    • Muthsarah

      Have you seen ANY Miyazakis? If not, I wouldn’t recommend starting with this one. It’s good, but it’s not the best. Try Princess Mononoke if you want something more action-orientated (but very, very similar in most respects to this film) or My Neighbor Totoro if you want the best damn kids’ anything ever anywhere. Porco Rosso would be a fun place to start too; it has action, but isn’t as serious or “deep” as Mononoke.

      • Sofie Liv

        Actually, the thing about Miyazaki is that all of his movies are great for each their reason, so people can have different favourites and there is no way to argue with that.

        I’ve first saw Mononoke years ago, and I loved it back then, still love it now, though I actually like Nausicaa just a little bit better.

        That doesn’t make Mononoke a less special movie, it’s a very special movie, I just happen to prefer Nausicaa a little bit more, and I am looking very much forward to read the manga ones I get it.

        The only one I wouldn’t recommend to start off with is “Ponyo.” not because it’s a bad movie.. just because it’s the only movie I can genuinly say is less good than the others, it just seems apparent that Miyazaki was growing tired while making that one.

        Porco Rosso not as deep? Dude! The beautiful thing about that movie is that it’s all beneath the surface!
        There is so much background stuff and so much speculation about that movie, that just makes it a more fullfilling exsperience, it’s maybe Miyazakis ultimate “Anti-war.” movie, without ever dealing with the battle field at all, but deals with the remains, telling the story of what is left of ones hopefull happy young people, and Porco finding his faith in himself and humanity again, As he priorly became so de-humanitised with the human world, that he chose being a pig so human rules wouldn’t have to apply to him any-more… and I shouldn’t take about that right now, i’ll safe it for a video!

        But truth to be told, it’s one of those movies it seems fairly simple and just light fun at first glance, but the more you analyze and think about it, the more meat and soul it has, the deeper it gets.

        Great movie! Both very funny and very deep. And due, AIR PIRATES! I think three different Miyazaki movies has air pirates in them, and it doesn’t get old X)

        And no, the MLP recaps are still going on, I got caught up last week, the next one should be up soonish.

        • Muthsarah

          I put “deep” in quotation marks for a reason. Mononoke has a reputation for being “deep”, when I would personally consider it to be more like “heavy”. Mononoke is heavy with symbolism, heavy with supernatural/mythological references, heavy with action, heavy with visuals, heavy with its soundtrack, heavy with blood as far as Miyazaki goes. It’s also pretty slow-paced as these films go. It’s grand opera.

          Porco Rosso is a character-based action/adventure film that can get serious, but combines it with a lot of fast-paced whimsy; despite moments that only an teenager or above would likely appreciate, it still feels like a kids’ film. Mononoke is one that might actually be a bit…much…for a child. Not just for the violence, but just because I would suspect it’s the hardest to follow and requires a greater knowledge of history and mythology to fully grasp what he’s trying to convey.

          • Sofie Liv

            Dunno if I would call Mononoke darker than Nausicaa.. they are both dark, probably the two “Darkest.” films that Miyazaki has ever made.

            Nausicaa is also a very dark movie, we see people getting slaughtered pretty violently, we see the baby Ohmu getting tortured.

            Pretty early one we see the main character, the person we are supposed to vouch for, becoming so blinded by anger that she kills all the enemy guards around her, because they killed her father in front of her eyes.

            There’s some very powerful and dark scenes in Nausicaa, the big theme seeing to be about that blindness that anger and fear can bring upon humans and creatures alike, and what those feelings can do in worst case scenarios.

            The scene where the valley gets invaded by the enemy country also seemed very powerful, and of course, we see ruins of prior cities that has been swallowed by the swamp, and it’s been implied the people whom lived there are all dead due to poison.

            That’s not kids stuff man.. not kids stuff!

            Mononoke also have some really dark stuff, and some very philosophical stuff going on, it talks a lot about the nature of life and death, and ones again we see main characters die, not only die, but slowly succumb to a kind of curse.. poison… thing…

            The movies remind of each other a lot, they both have this “Technology vs. Nature.” thing going on.

            Where humans tries to control nature using force, but ends up having to pay for it, as they have messed with some-thing that should never have been messed with.

            Both a great movies, both deserves to be watched really.

          • Muthsarah

            I agree. I wasn’t saying that Mononoke was darker than Nausicaa, just darker than Porco Rosso. Nausicaa and Mononoke are eerily similar films. Almost as if Miyazaki wanted to return to his first big story, now with a bigger budget and 15+ years of additional experience, and make a version he thought would be even more impressive. By (perceived) consensus, he succeeded, as Mononoke seems to be his most popular work, possibly tied with Totoro.

          • Sofie Liv

            I thought Spirited away was his most popular work. In fact, I am pretty damn sure that Spirited away is his most popular work.

          • Muthsarah

            We have a disagreement about what other people think of something we both overwhelmingly like. Let us now fight about it!

          • Sofie Liv

            HAHA! That’s right!

            Spirited away is not my personal favourite Miyazaki movie, I was just lead to believe that one is his most popular movie.

            As well as his actual big breakout movie overseas, yeah he was a thing before hand, but more in small cultish sort of way. Spirited away is what made him a western house-hold name isn’t it?

          • Muthsarah

            Not in my parts. I recall Mononoke being the first Miyazaki to get a theatrical release over here. Didn’t do well at the box office, but I don’t think Spirited Away did that much better, nor did Howl’s. There just isn’t much of a market for foreign films of any sort, especially for children. There’s a lot of indifference to anything that seems different from what we’re used to. Most of us are quite provincial that way.

            But it seems Mononoke was the first one that actually got some attention – from teens and people in college. They tried releasing Kiki’s on video even before that (my first memory of anything Miyazaki, though I didn’t see it), but I don’t think it caught on either.

          • Sofie Liv

            You don’t say… the wind rises lost to Frozen at the Oscars.

            And not that Frozen isn’t a good movie, it’s a very good movie. But.. also is it’s a pretty damn safe movie, just all the more recent disney movies.

            Huh, I thought that Spirited away did very well at the US box offices, being a suprise smash hit in the US. Am I compleately wrong about that?
            If so.. how the hell did I get that notion. I’m trying to wrack my brain, and some-how I am just convinced that Spirited away is the movie most people connect to Miyazaki.
            Not that it matters that much, there’s clearly a lot of people enjoying all of his movies on a higher, and which one is more popular is a pretty dumb argument to have as we clearly all like all of them. Just as you said above X)

            It’s just… curious. And now I can’t help but obsess about it… damn..

          • Muthsarah

            Yep, completely wrong. BoxOfficeMojo says it made about $10 million. That’s…peanuts. Stale peanuts.

            A barely-seen foreign film about the guy who designed the Zero would probably not be a popular choice among the septugenerian set who dominates the Oscar voting. Most of them prolly didn’t even see it.

            Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs would have beaten The Wind Rises. So would have The Croods. Though had there not been Frozen, it would have gone to Monsters University. Because it looks familiar and is Pixar. And it features the voices of Billy Crystal and John Goodman, people the voters would have actually heard of.

          • Sofie Liv

            Oscars are bullshit -_-;

          • Muthsarah

            Silver lining: I think word’s getting around. Coupled with increasingly awkward hosting gigs, I suspect the awards are steaming straight towards irrelevance. Fashion-watching and the occasional scandal seem to be the only thing keeping it in the public eye.

      • danbreunig

        Sorry to say I haven’t, maybe a clip or two in passing. There are so many recommendations on my list already that I may not get to anytime soon this year. I’ve heard so much praise for My Neighbor Totoro so that may be my starting point.

        • Muthsarah

          Excellent choice. Totoro is in my Top 10 of all time. I’m still pissed off that nobody showed it to me when I was a kid; it is just THE most wonderful kids’ movie. And it’s probably the only film I’ve seen that has dubbing that I don’t mind.

          If you like Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service is a perfect follow-up (fitting, as it came out a year later). Miyazaki’s earlier stuff tends to be lighter and breezier than his later works, and his later stuff more dramatic, but arguably more visually-impressive, at least more complex. But they can be viewed in any order.

        • Sofie Liv

          I know the feeling, dude, I havn’t seen one single episode of “Games of Thrones.” yet.
          And that is the one single series people has been trying to make me watch ever since it began. The list of things people want me to watch is just endless, and they keep on piling up more stuff on it.

          I can’t watch every-thing unfortunately. But well, now you see these videos, perhaps that will put you in the right mood to watch some of these.

          My Neighbor Totoro is perhaps the happiest film I have ever seen, the film just makes me smile so much, it makes me happy, in the best possible way.
          Perhaps not the biggest things going on there, but it’s so good at tapping into just simple childish wonder and that feeling that it becomes a pure joy ride.

  • George

    Beautiful Movie…One that all should see once in their lives…I was really young when I saw it…It was one of the most favourite of the animation pirate tv channels that existed in Greece in the early 90s. Amazing what pirate television did for our imagination back then…

    • Sofie Liv

      Pirate television?

      Lol, that’s a new concept to me, that sounds pretty fun.

      Yeah, I agree, I was just stunned and blown away of it all of this movie.

      • George

        Yeah there were a lot of those back in tha day. It was the first years off private channels and the legal framework was (deliberately) a bit abstract. So semi-legal channels popped-up in big cities all the time. The interesting part was that half of them were made by people that really liked what they were doing and were quite cultured, as oppossed to the mainstream “legal” private channels that were run by people that only understood animation as disney kids shows. Beautiful times. Channels such as these taught many of us about don blooth, anime and even the first japanease sentai live action series.

        The corrupt administration of the time eventually just closed all of them down instead of helping them legalize themselves to continue what they were doing. All except the pirate 24hour porn channels, which for a “strange” reason they were left untouched for a least 5 more years.

        • Sofie Liv

          Well, as a country girl from a pretty small country, I grew up with having only two channels, at one point we ended up having three. Hallelujah what a day that was!

          And getting up at eight in the morning every saturday and sunday to catch any animated shows, because those channels that only ever run cartoons was not some-thing I had, so it was pretty exclusive to weekend mornings, thus I just HAD to catch it. Good times, good times.

          I first got really into anime and so on in my later teens when the enternet era began, and well of course, when Manga started to come to Denmark when I was around thirteen I got very hooked up upon that. I think Spirited away was the first more serious anime movie I ever saw, and well, that one was easy to get a hold on because of it’s national recognision, you could get it on DVD and they would air it on television.
          The rest, I kind of have to pick up over the enternet later on as time went on.

  • Jerkyoz

    Your voice is almost as annoying as the mexican guy on this site. 0 stars out of 5000.

    • The Horror Guru

      In my head the above poster sounds like Droopy Dog. Your welcome, internet.

      • Sofie Liv

        And well, clearly there are people disagreeing as I got fans, and I doubt that guy does.

        I’m Danish, thus I have an accent.. Oh my gosh! that’s news to me!

        Look, I appreciate constructive critism so I can improve my work, as I do in fact, care about this.
        But lashing out on my voice, which I can’t control, and accents, which neither me nor Film Renegado (The Mexican guy.) can control, that’s just rude behaviour. And we do not welcome it.

        Dunno what you wanted to gain by saying some-thing like that, other than slightly annoy us.
        Our voices aren’t magically going to change, and we are not going to stop making videos.
        If you don’t like our work, feel free to just ignore us and stop watching, I am not making you watch a thing.

        Also, I can’t help it if you are jalouse that we got incredible sexy exotic accents and you don’t :P

        • Muthsarah

          Deleted. Not worth it.

          • Sofie Liv

            Well you gotta admit its a bit fascinating, what on earth he wants to gain by writing such a comment.

            I am not even really upset, i’m just highly amused right now.

          • TheRedWorm

            Probably just trolling, and not even good trolling.

        • Jerkyoz

          I am very jealous (was that the word you were looking for?) and thus I lashed out. I apologize to my Danish superiors.

          Please make more videos post haste and add the Mexican Guy as well so I can have aural bliss…

          By the way my accent is super sexy. Watch a movie with Clint Eastwood in it and then add Martin Short, James Hetfield, Axl Rose, Gilbert Gotfried and Mr. T … unstoppable I tell ya!

          alsoiamsorryyouseemniceandididntmeantobemeantoyou

          • CaptainCalvinCat

            Hey, Knallkopp!
            Accents are awesome and Sofies and The ones of the Film Renegardo are the most awesome of the bunch.

        • MichaelANovelli

          Mexican Guy has a name, you know. I think it’s “Spinky…”

  • Mike

    Great work once again.

    I think one of the reason you may not have heard of this one as much as some of Miyazaki’s other work is becuase until 2005, the most widely released english language dud was an embarrassingly pure edit that cut out chucks of the plot (which the voice may not have even known at the time) to make it more kid friendly and even changed the title.

    For a comparison between versions check this out:
    http://blip.tv/planet-rob/cartoon-clipshow-17-warriors-of-the-wind-4925773

  • ricky joya

    As someone who has a fanatical devotion to the movie and comic, Well done! I have seen this movie dozens of times and I never connected her fall from grace leading to the sacrifice that saves everyone. When I first saw this movie as a child I was confused and the god warrior terrified me but I would often watch it for its score. If you are still searching for the comic, there are a few editions you can chose from. I recommend the newer ones because they come with Miyazaki’s watercolor paintings.

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