Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

There are two versions of this. The first is a perfect bound edition. The second is the larger version here. Both are excellent reads but the larger versions allows you to see the brilliance of Miyazaki's artwork (from a guy known more for animation). I have been told that the newer version is a more accurate translation but, not knowing Japanese, I can not confirm that. It is certainly an easier read because one does not have to squint. In terms of story, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is a masterpiece. It blows Lord of the Rings out of the water. And this is coming from a person who hates almost the entire post-apocalyptic genre. I did think the ending came a bit suddenly and it did not necessarily wrap up every question I had. However, it is still one of the best graphic novels you can get. Highly recommended.

This graphic novel is as rich a world-creation as any I've seen. It contains surprising plot twists which often hinge on some character's psychological growth, and new and interesting life-forms which evolved from genetic engineering experiments. "The Sea of Corruption was the new world .. an ecological system born in the polluted wastelands created by civilizations long past. Only the great insects could live amongst the giant fungi and the miasma they exhaled, and so the earth was slowly submerging beneath that decaying sea .. A thousand years had passed since the mammoth industrial civilizations of the past had diminished, and faded into the dark vastness of time. It was the closing of the Ceramic Era." Set in the post-apocalyptic kingdom of Torumekia, it begins in the Valley of Wind, where our soon-to-be heroine Nausicaä is flying around in her mehve (a glider). She gets a telepathic message of pain and anger, and sets out to find its source. It took me awhile to get into the story, but when I did, I was hooked. Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind is full of political intrigue, subtle psychological interactions, war strategy, and big explosions in the air. It also contains surprising episodes with the numinous, including encounters with an evil man both in ordinary physical reality and in non-ordinary reality, where he appears as dark energies; a surprising journey down the gullet of a giant bug leading to the Buddhist PureLand; and another trip to a trickster place where nothing is as it seems. Encounters with holy beings are here, as well as with political beings masquerading as holy. The best parts, though, are these: 1) Many of the strongest characters, including the protagonist heroine, are young women and girls. The male characters are seen first challenging them and then becoming respectful aides-de-camp. Furthermore, these women are allowed to be nurturing - in one scene, Nausicaa takes in orphaned children - but are not seeking wife-and-motherhood as the inevitable triumphant end to their adventures. They have important work to do, and their very femaleness leads them to do it differently than a male character would. 2) The author does not beat you over the head about good and evil - each being is portrayed as having both elements. Miyazaki has accomplished the rare feat of creating a piece of fiction which revolves around warring factions and is centered on the adventures of a small-village eco-heroine, in which nevertheless you as a reader are not allowed to purely hate any of the characters. The concept of satyagraha subtly emanates from the piece, as Nausicaa's encounters with the various characters reveal their complexity both as individuals and as beings in cultural context. Neither they nor the affairs they find themselves wrapped up in are simplistic, so you can't easily dismiss them as `the bad guys'. 3) The story promulgates a vitally needed animistic message, without being sickly sweet about it or overly proselytizing.

I can flip through a typical "trade" graphic novel (usually a compilation of six issues of a monthly book) in less than an hour. I found myself luxuriating in the dense richness of Miyazaki's world and sometimes only getting through a dozen pages in an evening. The concentration of writer and artist in a single voice mean that there are no throwaway panels that serve just to stretch out dialogue, nor dialogue that seems there only to fill up a panel... When you read this work, you'll realize the weakness inherent in the separate writer/artist system so common in comics - writers (verbal people) often just can't pace a story visually like a graphic artist can. True, Miyazaki's dense dialogue is a little forced and unnatural at times, but the story and imagery unfolding before you literally have no precedent in the world of art. There are not many works which reward this level of attention: Maus, or the complete Akira collection, are the only ones that come to mind. I had avoided this work for years, somehow getting it confused with fluff trash like Escaflowne or something. Not so. Recommended.

... in a better edition and better size. Only one warning: the previous box set "Perfect Collection" is more friendly to read. In this new edition you must read from right to left and the sound effects are in "japanese" (is included a guide to descipher the meaning of these sounds).

Master of Japanese animation Hayao Miyazaki found himself without any film prospects on the horizon in 1982 and so agreed to begin work on a manga (comic) story to be serialized in the popular Japanese animation magazine, "Animage." After going on for thirteen years, in 1995 the beautiful and moving epic "Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind" finally came to an end. Now collected into seven trade paperback volumes preserving the same back to front, right to left reading format of the Japanese originals, in terms of scope, grandeur and emotional impact, this science fiction/fantasy saga is the "Lord of the Rings" of comics (and since comics are both written words and pictures, this analogy holds true whether the comparison is with J.R.R. Tolkien's books or Peter Jackson's films). I have not been this enraptured by a work of graphic literature in a long time, if ever, and the experience was one of the most engaging and moving I have ever had in any form of fiction. Nausicaa is a Princess in the Valley of Winds, located near the borders of the Sea of Corruption, a dense jungle of fungus that constantly releases a miasma of poisonous spores deadly to anyone but the giant insects who live there. The environment has been devastated by a global war, the Seven Days of Fire, that took place in the distant past, and now the few remaining human settlements vie for what little inhabitable land is left. Nausicaa is a remarkable character in a story filled with remarkable characters. She is a pacifist in the truest sense of the word, not only rejecting violence and war as a means of solving problems, but having a calming effect on both the animals and people she encounters. She possesses an uncanny psychic ability to communicate with animals from her faithful fox-squirrel companion, Teto, to the whale-sized armored caterpillars known as the Ohmu. Her powerful charisma gains her the unwavering devotion of friends and the admiration of her enemies. Despite her commitment to peace, she is also an accomplished fighter, which is evident on the rare occasions when her rage overpowers her compassion. Lastly, she is an expert wind rider, sailing through the clouds in her jet-powered glider and performing aerial acrobatics no other pilot would dare to attempt. When her beloved Valley faces invasion by the imperial forces of Torumekia, lead by Princess Kushana (sort of the "shadow" Nausicaa, although not without many redeeming qualities), Nausicaa and Teto embark on a journey to save not only her people, but also the world. The adventures that follow form an eco-feminist fantasy about courage, honor, compassion, the folly of tampering with nature, and the power of love and friendship. Storytelling does not get any better than this.