thousand years ago, a vast and powerful industrial civilization
consumed itself in war, poisoning the world in the process.
Humanity now exists
in a sort of feudal twilight realm, living on the fringes of a vast
contaminated forest called the Sea of Corruption. The Sea is inhabited by
giant mutant insects and plants that give off a deadly toxic miasma. One
small human enclave, the Valley of the Wind, survives at the edge of the Sea,
remaining livable thanks to the purifying winds that sweep through the valley
from the ocean, keeping the miasma back. But most of the Valley's children
die young, and its adults gradually collect poison in their bodies and die
of the "hardening disease."
The Valley's residents protect their autonomy with the help of an ancient flying gunship,
bound by old treaties to the service of the Torumekian Empire. When the
Emperor rises up against the Dorok Principalities, the Valley's gentle
crown princess Nausicaä is obligated to go to war. But the meaningless
killing nauseates her, and she repeatedly sets out on her own to try to
understand what's gone wrong in her world. The giant insects are in an
uproar of vengeful fury. Torumekia has obliterated one of its own ally
enclaves, leaving behind only an angry young prince who carries a horrific
secret from the ancient world. The Doroks have an unthinkable weapon
that they're prepared to loose on their own lands to defeat the
Torumekians. To Nausicaä, who attempts to befriend every living thing she
encounters, none of it makes any sense, except as an indication that
humanity is irretrievably doomed.
As she travels from camp to camp and city to city, sometimes alone,
sometimes with friends or followers, she slowly uncovers the
secrets of the diseased forests, the battling empires, and the hidden past
of her ruined world. She changes the lives of everyone she touches, and
almost always manages to make friends out of deadly enemies. But one voice
of sanity in a world of ignorance, violence and fear never seems to be
enough to stop humanity's increasingly rapid degeneration.
A masterful expression of joy
Hayao Miyazaki has said in interviews that he only agreed to write and
draw a manga series as a fill-in job between animated films, and
only under
the conditions that he could break off work whenever animation
projects became available, and that it would never be used as the
basis for
animation itself. The first condition was met, and the Nausicaä
manga went on hiatus many times before it was completed, as Miyazaki
directed such films as Laputa: Castle in the Sky and Kiki's
Delivery Service. The second condition, however, soon fell by the
wayside, and the animated Nausicaä--not currently
available in the
United States--premiered in 1984. While the movie depicts some of the action of
Nausicaä, Vol. 1 accurately, and borrows a little from Vol. 4, it
barely touches on the vast political complexities between them.
But it's impossible to look at this series as a hobby Miyazaki
worked on
between jobs; it's a tremendously intricate story, drawn in minute and
beautiful detail. It can be hard to follow at times because the
panel order
doesn't quite follow American conventions, and because the cast is so huge
and the alliances and enmities between them so convoluted. It really
requires at least a couple of readings for full comprehension.
But it's quite worthwhile reading this story over. The characters,
particularly brave, sad, determined Nausicaä, are instantly
engaging, their
emotions heartfelt and believable. The art--typically simplified iconic
characters contrasting with lavishly expressed landscapes--exhibits the
obsessive perfectionism that makes Miyazaki's movies so breathtaking. The
themes--environmentalism, the beauty of the natural world, and
the joyful
rewards of unselfish love--are found in all of Miyazaki's works,
but never
on this scale. This massive project allowed him 12 years and a
thousand pages of scope to fully express himself, and the results are
unparalleled.
