Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Japanese: 風の谷のナウシカ Hepburn: Kaze no Tani no Naushika) is a 1984 Japanese animated post-apocalyptic fantasy adventure film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, based on his own 1982 manga of the same name.
The film tells the story of Nausicaä (Shimamoto), a young princess of the Valley of the Wind who gets involved in a struggle with Tolmekia, a kingdom that tries to use an ancient weapon to eradicate a jungle of mutant giant insects. Nausicaä must stop the Tolmekians from enraging these creatures.
The film was released in Japan on March 11, 1984. While created before Studio Ghibli was founded, the film is considered to be the beginning of the studio and is often included as part of the Studio's works, including the Studio Ghibli Collection.
Plot[]
A thousand years have passed since the Seven Days of Fire, an apocalyptic war that destroyed human civilization and gave birth to the vast Toxic Jungle, a forest swarming with giant mutant insects in which everything is lethal to humans. Scattered settlements exist wherever the Toxic Jungle relents. The Valley of the Wind is one such settlement. The Valley's settlers have a prophecy about a person "clothed in blue robes, descending onto a golden field, to join bonds with the great earth and guide the people to the pure lands at last".
Nausicaä, the agile, cheerful, and peace-loving princess of the Valley of the Wind, has managed to befriend the Toxic Jungle. She explores the Jungle and communicates with its creatures, including the gigantic, armored trilobite-like creatures called Ohmu (pronouned ohm) . She often travels on a compact jet-powered glider to find out about the origins of the Toxic Jungle, understand its nature, and even find a cure for both humans and the world.
One night, during a visit by the Valley's swordmaster, Lord Yupa, a large fixed-wing cargo aircraft from the kingdom of Tolmekia crashes in the Valley. Nausicaä tries to rescue an onboard passenger, the wounded Princess Lastelle of Pejite, who pleads with Nausicaä to destroy the cargo before dying. The cargo is an embryo of a Giant Warrior, lethal genetically engineered bio-weapons that caused the Seven Days of Fire. The invading Tolmekians seized the embryo and Lastelle. The Tolmekian plane, however, was attacked by mutant insects before it crashed. One of the insects then emerges wounded from the wreckage and seems poised to attack the frightened villagers, but Nausicaä uses a small bullroarer, or "insect charm" to create a high-pitched tune that helps calm it and, after mounting her jet-glider, guides the insect out of the village to safety.
The next morning, Tolmekian troops, led by Princess Kushana and Officer Kurotowa, enter the Valley and secure the Giant Warrior embryo, and looting the village, taking hostages in a barge, taking hold of the valleys gunship, and killing Nausicaä's bed ridden father in the process. Kushana plans to mature the Giant Warrior and then use it to burn the Toxic Jungle, even though history warns of fatal consequences, that of the daikaisho, a mass ohmu stampede. After witnessing her father's death, Nausicaä goes berserk and kills several Tolmekian soldiers before Yupa intervenes. Kushana announces her decision to leave for Pejite with Nausicaä along with five hostages from the Valley. Before they leave, Yupa discovers her secret garden of jungle plants. According to Nausicaä, plants that grow in clean soil and water are not toxic. The Jungle's soil, however, has long been tainted by humankind.
Kushana and her detachment cannot reach their destination, as an agile Pejite gunship shoots down the Tolmekian fleet, getting shot down after Nausicaä pleads with him not to kill anymore. Nausicaä, along with kushana and Mito (a hostage who went along to protect the princess) they go down to the storage room and board the gunship, shooting a hole in the hull of the Tolmekian ship, escaping using that route. once outside of the Tolmekian ship, Nausicaä and Mito go below the clouds looking for the barge which should still be gliding, after they find the barge they land in a ohmu nest, disturbing multiple ohmu, which Nausicaä soothes. She then leaves to rescue Asbel the Pejite pilot and the twin brother of Lastelle, but both are swallowed by quicksand after an encounter with an insect damages the glider and knocks Nausicaä out, they end up in a non-toxic world below the jungle. Nausicaä realizes that the jungle plants purify the polluted topsoil, producing clean water that remains hidden underground, first growing, dying, then petrifying, turning into purified sand.
Nausicaä and Asbel return to Pejite, only to find it ravaged by the insects. While boarding a single plane, the surviving villagers reveal that they lured the ohmu to eradicate the Tolmekians and do the same in the Valley to recapture the Giant Warrior. To prevent any intervention, they capture Nausicaä. Later, with the help of Asbel and his mother, Nausicaä escapes on a glider, while the ship was getting attacked by a Tolmekian corvette, the corvette chases after her but gets intersepted and shot down by Mito and Yupa in the valley gunship. Nausicaä warns them that the valley in in danger, and Mito drops Yupa to the Pejite ship getting attacked, and Nausicaä takes Mito's place place as pilot, While flying home, Nausicaä finds a team of Pejite soldiers using a wounded baby Ohm to lead a furious Ohm herd numbering in the thousands into the Valley. The Tolmekians deploy tanks and later the Giant Warrior against the herd, but to no avail: the tanks' firepower is nowhere near enough to harm an Ohm, and the Giant Warrior, having been hatched prematurely, soon disintegrates, despite successfully destroying a few waves of Ohm.
Nausicaä liberates the baby Ohm and gains its trust; in the process, her pink dress becomes stained by its blue blood, turning completely blue. The two attempt to stop the raging herd but are run over, with Nausicaä seemingly killed. The herd, however, calms down, and the Ohmu use their golden tentacles to heal Nausicaä. She awakens and starts to dance on top of the hundreds of glowing golden tentacles. Clad in blue and walking as through golden fields, Nausicaä has fulfilled the prophecy. The Ohmu and Tolmekians leave the Valley afterward, while the surviving Pejites remain with the Valley people, helping them rebuild. Meanwhile, a new tree is beginning to grow underground.
Voice cast[]
| Character | Original | Manson International dub | Disney dub |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nausicaä/Princess Zandra | Sumi Shimamoto | Susan Davis (uncredited) | Alison Lohman |
| Jhil/King Zeal | Mahito Tsujimura | John Hostetter (uncredited) | Mark Silverman |
| Muzu | James Taylor | ||
| Obaba/Old Lady | Hisako Kyōda | Linda Gary (uncredited) | Tress MacNeille |
| Yupa | Goro Naya | Hal Smith (uncredited) | Patrick Stewart |
| Mito/Axel | Ichiro Nagai | Edward James Olmos | |
| Gol & Gikuri | Kōhei Miyauchi | John Hostetter (uncredited) | Frank Welker |
| Jōji Yanami | Jeff Bennett | ||
| Niga | Minoru Yada | Mark Silverman | |
| Teto/Foxy | Rihoko Yoshida | ||
| Asbel/Prince Milo | Yoji Matsuda | Cam Clarke (uncredited) | Shia LaBeouf |
| Mayor of Pejite/Mayor of Placeda | Makoto Terada | John Hostetter (uncredited) | Mark Hamill |
| Lastelle's Mother | Akiko Tsuboi | Linda Gary (uncredited) | Jodi Benson |
| Kushana/Queen Salena | Yoshiko Sakakibara | Uma Thurman | |
| Kurotowa/Rogan | Iemasa Kayumi | John Hostetter (uncredited) | Chris Sarandon |
| Pejite Girl/Placeda Girl | Takako Ôta | Susan Davis (uncredited) | Ashley Rose Orr |
| Narrator | N/A | Hal Smith (uncredited) | Tony Jay |
Additional Voices[]
- Original: Masako Sugaya (Girl A), Takako Sasuga (Girl B), Rihoko Yoshida (Girl C), Chika Sakamoto (Boy A), TARAKO (Boy B), Miina Tominaga (Lastelle), Tetsuo Mizutori (Commando), Takeki Nakamura (Pejite Citizen), Bin Shimada (Pejite Citizen), Shinji Nomura (Torumekian Soldier), Hôchû Ôtsuka (Torumekian Soldier), Hisako Ayuhara (Boy)
- Disney dub: Newell Alexander, Rosemary Alexander, Tom Amundsen, Stephen Apostolina, Emily Bauer (Lastelle), Paul Butcher, Mitch Carter, Robert Clotworthy, David Cowgill, Wendy Cutler, Ashley Edner, Ike Eisenmann, Jean Gilpin, Nicholas Guest, Bridget Hoffman, Sherry Hursey, Rif Hutton, Molly Keck, Edie Mirman, Richard Miro, Jordan Orr, Peter Renaday (Valley Soldier), Aimee Roldan, Grace Rolek, Ross Simanteris, Lynnanne Zager
Uncredited[]
- Manson International dub: Cam Clarke, Susan Davis, John Hostetter, Riley Jackson, Hal Smith
- Disney dub: Dee Bradley Baker (Torumekian Soldier), Jeff Bennett (Pejite Citizen, Torumekian Soldier), John Schwab (Torumekian Soldier), James Taylor (Young Soldier, Additional Voices)
Gallery[]
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This page uses content from the English Wikipedia page Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. Text from Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. |
