The Wind Rises

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"Tell me Japanese boy. Is the wind still rising?"

Giovanni Battista Caproni: Airplanes are beautiful, cursed dreams, waiting for the sky to swallow them up.

The Wind Rises is a 2013 film directed by Hayao Miyazaki animated by Studio Ghibli. It is his last film before a prolonged period of retirement, before the release of The Boy and the Heron 10 years later, and one of the last films produced by the studio before their restructuring. The film was based on Miyazaki's own manga, which itself is based on a biographical novel, The Wind Has Risen, written by Tatsuo Hori. The Wind Rises was released to critical acclaim, being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature (losing to Disney's Frozen). The score was composed by frequent collaborator Joe Hisaishi.

The film follows the life of aircraft designer Jiro Horikoshi (voiced by Hideaki Anno in Japanese, yes, the same Hideaki Anno behind Neon Genesis Evangelion), and his life leading up to designing the Mitsubishi A6M Zero — one of the most deadly planes when it was introduced in early World War II. Latter parts focus on his romance with the fictional Nahoko Satomi. During this, Italian aircraft designer Giovanni Battista Caproni offers advice and insight to Jiro inside his Dream Land. Its primary conflict revolves around the beauty and magnificence of airplanes versus how airplanes are used as weapons of destruction. Of course being a Miyazaki and Ghibli production, it features many instances of lush, rolling hills and long shots into the distance.

Tropes used in The Wind Rises include:

• All Just a Dream: The opening sequence. Jiro's plane is crashing, and he is falling from the sky... then he wakes up.
• Arc Words: Japanese Boy, frequently said by Caproni to Jiro.
  • To a smaller extent, "You must live" from Nohoko, her very last words to Jiro in the film. This is also the last words in Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind manga. Considering that Ghibli made a film titled How Do You Live?, we can conclude that these are the arc words of Studio Ghibli as a whole.
• Animation Bump: The animation becomes much smoother during the Great Kantō earthquake. The film, usually animated in threes (~eight frames a second) switches to ones (~twenty-four frames a second) an twos (~twelve frames a second) to reflect the intense shaking caused by the earthquake. Bonus points for the Cast of Snowflakes in the backgrounds.
• Bilingual Bonus: Jiro obtains an English magazine about aviation. The magazine features on topic English sentences regarding the topic of aviation, and is readable by a native speaker despite it containing major grammatical errors.
• Bittersweet Ending: In their Dreamland, Jiro and Caproni comment on the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, stating that they are magnificent machines, even if they are used for war and destruction. Nohoko waves goodbye to Jiro and tells him to live.

Nohoko: "You must live, darling. You must live." Caproni: "She was beautiful, just like the wind."

• Blood From the Mouth: Nohoko due to her tuberculosis. The shot in which this occurs mirrors an earlier shot where she stands on rolling hills and paints, painting the previous shot in a much darker light.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Visible in almost every single long shot depicting people. What makes this more impressive is the fact that people are depicted doing their daily lives, like shopping or designing airplanes, creating an immersive and realistic environment.
• Cool Plane: There is a cool plane every other scene. The film is about the creation of a cool plane. Cool planes star in Jiro's dream. Jiro designs cool planes. Cool planes take test flights. Jiro goes to Germany and studies their cool planes. We can keep going...
• Creative Closing Credits: The ending credits are imposed over a slideshow of backgrounds from the film.
• Dashed Plotline: Covering the life of an airplane designer from childhood to adulthood is a daunting task, and there is no way a two hour film can show all of it. Thus, the film chooses to focus on only the most important scenes, with plenty of Time Skips in between. The film does not explicitly communicate that a time skip has occurred (no three years later title cards), and it is up to viewers to figure it out.
• Dream Land: Jiro's dreams takes in a place with ornate and spanning grass fields. In these sequences Caproni and Jiro marvel at the various airplanes as they take off and fly. These dream sequences are composed of multiple aspects of humanity, including the Japanese Jiro, the Italian Caproni, and the various aircraft Caproni and his designers built.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: The aforementioned English magazine.
• Ghibli Hills: Yet another entry on the Trope Namer's filmography. In the beginning of the film, Jiro flies through these. These are a frequent shot in scenes around Nohoko's home, and they are prominent in all Dream Sequences in the film. If Ghibli Hills aren't in these shots, then Ghibli Plains are.
• Gratuitous French: The film opens with Le vent se lève! . . . il faut tenter de vivre., a quote by Paul Valéry. Corresponding translations in Japanese and English are provided, depending on the language of the titles. The English translation is given as The wind is rising! We must try to live.
• Opposite Gender Protagonists: Nohoko and aircraft designer Jiro. Jiro meets Nohoko during the Great Kanto Earthquake, and helps her and her family. Several years later, the two fall in love. This trope is used to develop their relationship, and create sweet romance scenes.
• Precocious Crush: Jiro first meets Nohoko during the Great Kantō earthquake, when she hasn't come of age yet. The latter parts of the film focuses on the romance of Jiro and the grown up Nohoko.
• Retraux: The film's audio track was mixed in mono, and many engine sounds were produced by the human mouth. The mono track is meant to distract audiences from the sounds around them and to focus their attention on the film. Ghibli also added artificial film grain to the film, despite it being a fully digital production free from cel imaging grain. The intent is to simulate a cinematic experience when viewed with home media.
• Scenery Gorn: The Great Kantō earthquake scene, featuring destruction of the environment and terrain animated in stunning detail. The epilogue opens with a shot of destroyed planes on fire, contrasting with the Scenery Porn of Ghibli Hills in the same sequence.
• Scenery Porn: The film often comes to a standstill for a long shot focused on scenery. Ghibli Hills are common in the backgrounds of the film. Long and slow shots of flying planes and the sky are also quite prevalent.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Jiro cannot be with Nohoko due to her tuberculosis.
• Thematic Theme Tune: The ending credits track, "Hikōki-rubber", explores themes of dreams, flight, and love, just like the film.
• Together Umbrella: Nohoko and Jiro uses one of these during an abrupt and sudden rain. After the rain finishes, Nohoko marvels at the environment and a rainbow.
• War Is Hell: The film mostly glosses over this aspect, choosing to focus on the beauty of planes and the moral questions of how these magnificent machines are used for war and destruction. In the last scene in the film, we see the trope played straight, with many ruins of crashed planes on fire.