Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind



Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Kaze no Tani no Nausicaä) is a post-apocalypic Science Fantasy manga and anime movie by Hayao Miyazaki. In a World dominated by a caustic jungle full of huge (horse-sized to town-hall-sized!) and dangerous insects, one of the few places left habitable is the Valley of the Wind—a place where toxic spores produced by the jungle are kept from settling by the incessant breeze. The crash of a gigantic airplane into the valley leads to an invasion by Torumekia and the revelation of a secret that could destroy what's left of humanity, if not the world...

Visually inventive and quite gripping, the heroine — the eponymous Nausicaä — eventually learns a Green Aesop about how Gaia knows best.

The success of the movie — Miyazaki's first independent work — led directly to the founding of Studio Ghibli and inspired Chocobos; it's also where Hideaki Anno got the prototype for the EVAs (since he actually was the lead animator for the inspiring scene).

Nausicaä suffered from a Macekre in its first English dub: characters were renamed, the Aesop was turned into a fragfest, and over half an hour of the film that lacked any sort of action was thoroughly excised. The resulting mess was titled Warriors of the Wind, and this particular Macekre led to Studio Ghibli's policy to not allow their films to be cut for international distribution. (The current English version is provided by Ghibli's North American distributor — Disney — and it is uncut and unaltered.)

Two video game adaptations of Nausicaä were released; both were generic top-down shooters, which greatly offended Miyazaki, since the games openly subverted the message of his film. He has never allowed video games to be made from his films since.


 * Ace Pilot: Nausicaä, of course.
 * Action Girl: Nausicaä.
 * Action Duo: Nausicaä and Asbel.
 * Adipose Rex: The king of Torumekia and both of his sons.
 * After the End
 * Airborne Aircraft Carrier
 * Alien Blood: The Ohmu have blue blood. This becomes relevant during the climax of the film.
 * Anachronism Stew: A sword-swinging cavalry charge is usually backed up with machine gun fire from levitating bell jars. Not to mention that the Torumekian gunship pilot uniform consists of full medieval-style plate armor complete with a spiked visor helmet.
 * Justified, as most of the more advanced technology in use is centuries old, and the making of things like airships and machine-guns is becoming a lost art. At best, some people have a working knowledge of how to repair them.
 * It's not the airships and the machine guns that are Lost Technology but the engines that power them. There is a scene in the manga where the characters make a point to salvage a gunship's engine with the character remarking that the whole plane could be reconstructed around the salvaged engines. In addition most armor and swords are stated to be ceramic, containing futuristic metallic composite, or made from Ohmu shell (which is supposedly the hardest substance available and acts like a bullet proof ferro-ceramic composite making the plate and scale armors of the comic a sensible retro-modern adaptation). There is even a mine centered around a downed star ship that harvests the metal of the star ship for armor and blades.
 * The starship is supposed to be the Yamato from Uchuu Senkan Yamato.
 * Aristocrats Are Evil: The Torumekian nobility usually combines this with Villainous Glutton and maybe Dirty Coward.
 * Armies Are Evil: At least the Tolmekians are.
 * Artificial Human: The Heedra and.
 * Artistic License: Biology: Even if they are, arthropods simply can't get that big and if they could it's unlikely that they would have blue blood, since hemocyanin is far too inefficient at conducting oxygen for such massive creatures.
 * Badass Grandpa: Master Yupa, a very well-known (and feared, for good reason) Old Master and Master Swordsman.
 * Badass Pacifist: Nausicaä. Most of the time she prefers to solve her problems nonviolently, and the one time she used a weapon to kill (after her father died) she was overcome with guilt. She does use a gun to threaten the Pejite, though.
 * Badass Princess: Nausicaä and Kushana.
 * Barehanded Blade Block: Lord Yupa does this to prevent a slaughter aboard a ship, taking a sword point in the forearm, through his armor. Despite Yupa's calm, unflinching demeanor, Nausicaä is the only one who notices the blood dripping from the hilt, and the shudder of pain in Yupa's body, showing the extent Yupa will go to to keep the peace.
 * Beware the Nice Ones: All semblance of the compassionate, loving and unconditionally kind Nausicaä gets ripped away when her father is murdered: In her place emerges a rampaging beast in the guise of a Princess, who proceeds to slaughter the soldiers responsible. This is even more pronounced in the manga, where Nausicaä's father only dies later of natural causes and she flies off the handle simply because the soldiers were trespassing on her kingdom and getting spores everywhere. She only kills one guy, though.
 * Blinded by the Light: Nausicaä uses flash grenades to stun the Ohmu and convince them to leave her people alone, since she's not willing to kill them. It works much better than trying to do so anyway.
 * Later on in the film, the people of the Valley use them against the Tolmekians and capture a tank.
 * Bling of War: Kushana's got it, big time.
 * Bling Bling Bang: And a very nice pistol.
 * A Boy and His X: Nausicaä and her pet Teto.
 * Bug War: In the film, anyways. Torumekia is trying to destroy the bugs because the spores they spread are swallowing up their territory. In the manga they're at least smart enough to realize the futility of fighting against a force of nature and start a war with the Doroks to try and take their territory instead. Either way, the typical portrayal of the bugs as mindless monsters is subverted six ways from Sunday. The giant bugs are probably some of the nicest folks in the entire story, and this shows by the end of the movie.
 * Butt Monkey: Kurotowa early in the story. Whenever things seem to go his way or he gets a good line, something blows up. Usually right beside him.
 * Call a Rabbit a Smeerp: Ohmus, or giant trilobites. It translates to "king insect", not too far off given their size and Nigh Invulnerability.
 * Call a Smeerp a Rabbit: Fox-Squirrel, or striped chihuahua-cat-rat life form
 * Charm Person: Nausicaä, which is why the Ohmu listen to her and no other human.
 * The Chessmaster:, who dispenses ancient knowledge to its subjects (and Unwitting Pawns) to keep its plans moving according to schedule.
 * The Chosen One: Nausicaä, as foretold by the prophecy of "The Blue-Clad One."
 * Cool Old Guy: Master Yupa, in times of peace. He's seen as a wise and experienced mentor whose advice everyone seeks, from mothers who want to name their babies to kings and chieftains older than he is.
 * Coat, Hat, Mask: Master Yupa wears an outfit like this when Nausicaä first meets him, which makes sense since humans have to wear gas masks at all times to protect themselves from the Toxic Jungle.
 * Cool Plane/ Cool Ship: Nausicaä's Mehve/Möwe. The Valley's Gunship gets its own share of the spotlight, too.
 * Creative Closing Credits: The film details life in the Valley returning to normal as the invaders peacefully leave. The final shot
 * Crucified Hero Shot: When Nausicaä risks her life to stop the Pejite from destroying the Valley, she flies at them on her glider with her arms outstretched.
 * Daddy's Girl: Nausicaä appears to take after her father quite a bit, which is why she flies into such a rage when he's.
 * Days of Future Past: Of the Feudal Future variety.
 * Depraved Bisexual: The Holy Emperor.
 * Doorstopper: The two volume deluxe edition. With hard covers containing five hundred pages each, the two volumes in their container can bring any door, no matter how big, to its knees. You know regular doorstoppers? They run like crazy when the two Nausicaä volumes show up.
 * Dual-Wielding: A preferred style of Master Yupa, usually wielding a full or short sword and off hand main-gauche, or parrying dagger.
 * Empathic Environment
 * Everything's Better with Princesses: Nausicaä, not that you could tell. Kushana, on the other hand...
 * Evil Counterpart: Kushana to Nausicaä. Both are princesses, but the former is scheming and ambitious while the latter is entirely selfless.
 * Evil Is Visceral: The laser-spitting organism is very much this. Subverted with the rest of the creatures, when it turns out that humans can live together with them peacefully.
 * Expy: Nausicaä is an expy of Maki Oyamada, a character in the final episode of the 2nd series of Lupin III "Farewell, Beloved Lupin". She even shares the same voice actor, Sumi Shimamoto. Of course, this episode was made by Hayao Miyazaki.
 * Eyepatch of Power: Mito has one.
 * Faceless Goons: The Tolmekian soldiers.
 * Fantastic Nuke: The Giant Warrior.
 * A Father to His Men: Kushana to the Third Army.
 * Feminist Fantasy: Like much of Miyazaki's work.
 * The Final Temptation: Nausicaä's (involuntary) stay in the . Just being there saps visitors of their determination, soothing their hearts to the point they forget their mission and even friends who have.
 * Fiery Redhead: Subverted with Nausicaä.
 * Foe-Tossing Charge: Do not stand in front of a red-eyed Ohmu. Seriously.
 * Master Yupa explicitly alludes to this when Nausicaä, consumed by rage, takes on the exact same attitude as an angry Ohmu.
 * Friend to All Living Things: Nausicaä takes this much further than most. She's able to calm the rage of rampaging giant insects in addition to being able to befriend cute-looking animals.
 * Friend to Bugs: Nausicaä is sympathetic toward the giant insects of the poisonous forest, particularly the dinosaur - sized Ohmu. In a flashback scene, she's shown trying to keep a tiny Ohmu as a pet as a small child, and tried to hide it from adults.
 * Fungus Humongous: The Sea of Decay.
 * Gaia's Lament: The Earth has been devastated by what appears to be a nuclear war and remains heavily polluted and almost unlivable. The humans' inability to get along with the Ohmu (attempting to destroy their home) leads to Gaia's Vengeance.
 * Gambit Roulette: And it was several millennia in the making.
 * Garden of Evil: The Sea of Corruption,  In the manga, though, Nausicaä considers  to be uncomfortably close to this.
 * Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: so why not combine the two into one terrifying entity?
 * Ghibli Hills: The titular valley. The rest of the world, though, tends to Scenery Gorn more often than not.
 * A God Am I: The Holy Emperor, as well as the.
 * God Save Us From the Queen: Princess Kushana.
 * Heroic Sacrifice: More so in the manga.
 * Heel Realization:, although too late to do anything about it, as well as nearly anyone who takes Nausicaä seriously and isn't a Chessmaster.
 * Heroic RROD:.
 * Hidden Depths: The sons of King of Torumekia at first glance looked like two extremely lazy royalties who don't do anything. But both of them actually have great appreciation for high culture and both of them are pretty good with musical instruments.
 * Hidden Elf Village: The Forest People, who live in quasi-mystical symbiosis with the Sea of Corruption.
 * Hollywood Cyborg: Movie!Kushana's arm, legs and an unspecified portion of her lower body including where her reproductive organs used to be have been replaced with cybernetics after being eaten by a bug.
 * Horse of a Different Colour: Horseclaws, genetically reconstituted, domesticated prehistoric flightless birds serve as the primary mount of the Torumekians and most of former Eftal. The Doroks use creatures known as "Warbeasts" or "long haired cattle", which look like gigantic Irish Setters with horns and lizard feet.
 * Humans Are the Real Monsters: Played with. It's more "Humans were Bastards" and "Most Humans Are Bastards". Even the Doroks have people on their side who aren't bastards.
 * Humans Are Their Own Precursors: In both the Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind manga and anime, the story is set a thousand years after the Seven Days of Fire, a catastrophic event in which many humans and animals perished. The general technology level in the world regressed, but the magnificent machines constructed by the precursor humans still remain, resulting in a Schizo-Tech setting. In the manga, far more elements of the human precursors are explored, including their plans to restore the world.
 * Humongous Mecha: The God Warriors qualify as much as the Evangelions do (and in fact, Hideaki Anno worked on both).
 * Immortality: The is immortal inasmuch as his head can be cut off and he's still as jolly a fellow as ever.
 * Implacable Man: Any enraged Ohmu. Actually used as part of a plot to spread the Sea of Corruption on an enemy country.
 * Important Haircut: Kushana slices off her braids as a pledge to avenge her soldiers who were killed when her brothers betrayed her. Also, Nausicaä in the manga gets an Important Haircut prior to leaving the valley.
 * Implausible Fencing Powers: Nausicaä. Whether wielding an ancestral Big Freaking Sword longer than she is tall, or her signature Ohmu-shell blade, she's a whirl of destruction all on her own. Only Master Yupa stands above her.
 * Who do you think taught her?
 * Improbable Aiming Skills: Again, Nausicaä, oh so much. She doesn't carry a rifle in her glider for ballast.
 * One early example: shooting a rope hanging from a moving vehicle with a pistol while flying a glider at high speeds with the other hand.
 * Improbable Piloting Skills: Who else? Nausicaä's mastery of the winds lets her do things with her glider, even when its engine breaks down, that people in jet engine gunships can only dream of doing.
 * The Ingenue: Nausicaä, sort of. She's kind, gentle and forgiving but instead of child-like innocence it underscores her maturity instead. She's also much more physically inclined as well.
 * Intimate Healing: In the manga, Nausicaä saves a Torumekian soldier who was poisoned by the miasma by taking the poisoned blood from his lungs into her mouth via his mouth.
 * Inferred Holocaust: The defeat of marks a subtle endgame scenario. Selm tells Nausicaä that the center of the forest,   The forest will survive, but   The final confrontation reveals   plans to restore the world to it's pre-Days of Fire state using its , which are destroyed by Ohma. Without the advanced engineering   possesses, humanity is doomed to slow extinction. This fulfills Nausicaä's role as
 * And yet, Nausicaä assures him that In fact, her own experiments about the Sea of Corruption, as well as the Dream of the Ohmu, point to . It is only the
 * Kill It with Fire: How the people of the Valley deal with the spores. The difference is that they only do this when their own trees have been infested, whereas the Tolmekians want to burn down the entire forest.
 * Lady of War: Princess Kushana. Nausicaä strikes a balance between this and straight up Action Girl.
 * Last Fertile Region
 * Let's Get Dangerous: Lord Yupa. For most of the film, his sword-fighting skills are just an Informed Attribute, until he takes down a squad of Mooks with them.
 * Light Is Not Good: In the manga, . It's even worse when it tries to fly, because its light-wings are blinding-white.
 * Loyal Animal Companion: Teto to Nausicaä. Kai and Kui also sometimes act like this towards Nausicaä and Master Yupa.
 * Lost Technology: Pretty much all the technology, actually, including the God Warriors and the Möwe: light enough to be carried, strong enough to survive hundred-foot drops, and apparently runs on Aether. Not much for safety, though. Its fuel consumption is also probably quite low, as it only fires its thruster in short, periodic bursts for acceleration and takeoff.
 * Ludicrous Gibs: Quite a few manga deaths, including one poor soul who rode into the path of a massive siege gun.
 * Made of Explodium: The airships, especially when they crash.
 * Magic Skirt: Played straight with in the introductory scene where Nausicaä is landing her glider, but otherwise averted as her skirt flies up all the time (she's wearing tights).
 * Martial Pacifist: Nausicaä, and all the people of the Valley.
 * Master Computer:.
 * Medieval Stasis
 * The Messiah:.
 * Missing Mom: Nausicaä's mother appears in a flashback, but at the time of the film only her father is alive.
 * The Messiah: Nausicaä, no matter how much she tries to deny it.
 * Mordor: The Holy City Of Shuwa. Tolas has a bit of this going on, too.
 * Modest Royalty: Nausicaä is a princess, but you'd never know it by looking at her.
 * Named After Somebody Famous: Nausicaä is also the name of a character in The Odyssey.
 * Nay Theist:  of a sorts. There are creatures running around that are pretty close to PhysicalGods, like the God Warrior and the God of the Crypt, but she refuses to treat them as deities.
 * New Eden: Mild subversion; the New Eden scenario is only beginning to happen.
 * No OSHA Compliance: Justified in that the OSHA died out along with Industrialized Civilization. The Pejiti excavation is really not safe and has a lot of accidents, including one of Kurotowa's soldiers falling a hundred or so feet to his death in front of him.
 * Not Quite Dead:, after being severely injured and thrown around like a rag doll, is rescued by . Then he recovered unexpectedly soon.
 * Not So Different: Nausicaä outright tells the Pejite they aren't any better than the Tolmekians, which they don't take kindly to hearing.
 * Not So Harmless: Rather spectacularly, the manga version of Kurotowa manages to pull this off in the space of his first appearance, going from a seemingly buffoonish lackey to proving himself dangerously competent. If he pulled the switch any faster, he wouldn't count at all.
 * Nuclear Weapons Taboo: The God Warriors. Somewhat averted in that they are actually radioactive, and merely being in their presence is akin to standing next to an open reactor.
 * Old School Dogfighting: The airships engage in plenty of it. See Cool Plane.
 * : But not for long.
 * The Password Is Always Swordfish: The challenge and response chosen by the kids guarding Kushana? "Valley - Wind".
 * Path of Inspiration: The religion founded around the . All "holiness" that radiates from it is actually a plot.
 * Person of Mass Destruction: Again, the God Warriors. Made even more evident in the manga, when the single Warrior that awakens during the story is given an actual name and personality (.)
 * Prophecies Are Always Right: But see below.
 * Prophecy Twist: "And that one shall come to you garbed in raiment of blue and descending upon a field of gold..." But the prophecy didn't foresee that the "raiment of blue" would only be so because it was, and the "field of gold" consisted of . Even the tapestry depicting the prophecy tries to subvert the audience's expectations by displaying The Messiah as a male figure of Middle Eastern appearance with some sort of brown pheasant perched on his shoulder.
 * Psychic Link: Nausicaä (and Selm) can project her will, and sometimes actual thoughts, upon other people, as well as perceive the same from Ohmu and the hivemind of lesser insects. This is part of what makes her a Friend to All Living Things, and often results in Psychic Dreams for Everyone.
 * Psychopathic Manchild: In the manga, the God-Warrior that Nausicaä basically raises. When she has to raise her voice, the building sized radioactive engine of destruction starts cowering with its hands on its head, whimpering that Mommy is angry. She wasn't even yelling at him.
 * Quicksand Sucks
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning: Ohmus when enraged.
 * Redheaded Hero: Or auburn, technically.
 * Ribcage Ridge: The overgrown, hollow exoskeletons of the fallen God Warriors are everywhere—in fact, a massive 'skull' rising from the Sea of Corruption is one of the first images of the manga.
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Every single time an insect, particularly an Ohmu, is hurt, will bring on an onslaught from the bugs. See Implacable Man above for how it's deliberately used by the warring nations.
 * Royals Who Actually Do Something:
 * Nausicaä and Kushana.
 * All the Former Eftal chieftains. It's in their treaties with Torumekia that they have to fight alongside them in wartime if they want to retain their nominal independence.
 * Rule of Symbolism: The Holy Temple of Shuwa uses crosses and Eyes of God as its primary icons.
 * Save the Villain: Nausicaä rescues Kushana when their ship is going down. This turns out to have serious consequences later on.
 * Scavenger World: People have forgotten how to replicate most old world technologies. Almost all machines are built from scavenged parts.
 * Secret Underground Passage: Nausicaä has one in her room leading to a garden.
 * Schizo-Tech: Medieval castles and armor coexist alongside WWII fighter planes and tanks. See Anachronism Stew.
 * Science Hero: Nausicaä, to an extent. As the scene in her underground greenhouse shows, she's able to solve the problems between humanity and the Ohmu because she understands them and realizes why the balance of nature needs to be preserved.
 * Science Is Bad: In the manga, this is subverted. While the scientists who are responsible for the world's current state almost certainly caused more problems than they solved, their creations are shown to be just as capable of kindness and wisdom as any natural lifeform. Nausicaä also dabbles in botany and chemistry, using science to determine that which is a subversion.
 * Shout-Out: Kushana and Captain Ahab have more than a few traits in common.
 * Small Girl, Big Gun: Nausicaä when she grabs a hold of a Pejite machine gun. She doesn't actually kill anyone with it though, just intimidates them.
 * The Siege
 * A Storm Is Coming: Before the climax of the film.
 * Surrounded by Idiots: The men under Kurotowa's command seem to be rather incompetent, which annoys him to no end.
 * Sword and Gun: All over the place, including the knife and rifle carried by Nausicaä herself. Guns are used as ranged weapons and swords as melee weapons (and in an interesting twist, the guns are rather archaic but swords are incredibly durable).
 * Take That: Miyazaki's dim view of militaristic themes in anime probably had something to do with the fact that a city built around the pathetic, rusted-out shell of the Space Battleship Yamato features prominently in the manga.
 * Teen Hero
 * Unfinished, Untested, Used Anyway: Kushana's attempt to use the Giant before it's complete.
 * Unstoppable Rage: Nausicaä, after her father is murdered by the Tolmekians. She kills nearly everyone in the room before Master Yupa intervenes.
 * Victoria's Secret Compartment: When her ship is going down, Nausicaä stores Teto in the front of her shirt.
 * Waif Fu: Nausicaä. Like you wouldn't believe.
 * Warrior Prince: Kushana, of course; Nausicaä to a lesser extent.
 * Wave Motion Gun: Primary weapon of the God Warrior.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: At the very end of the manga, it's revealed that.
 * The Holy Emperor also started out like this, thinking he could fix the world's problems and bring peace to everyone. Sadly, he was only and quickly slipped into authoritarian (and genocidal) rule.
 * In the film, the Pejite were this. They were prepared to destroy their own capital city  if it meant annihilating the Ohmu.
 * What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: Aside from The Messiah references, the analogy for using Weapons of Mass Destruction.
 * Word of Miyazaki states that Nausicaä's resurrection near the end of the movie was not meant to be analogous to Jesus and that he would have changed it if somebody had pointed out the similarities before the film came out.
 * Winged Humanoid: Explicitly averted and ridiculed: when Nausicaä is identified as The Messiah by a throng of religious people, they wonder where her (prophesized) angel wings are. Chikoku angrily states that only a monster would have wings and that, instead, Nausicaä's white glider fills this role.
 * The X of Y: The X of Y of Z, in this case.
 * Youngest Child Wins: Nausicaä is younger than any of her siblings and, unlike any of them, lived long enough to become an adult.
 * Zip Me Up: Kushana asks Nausicaä to fasten her armor at one point in the manga. Les Yay? Of course.