What we have here, is a movie that takes place 1000 years into the future. The phenomena called the sea of decay, a huge forest full of highly toxic plants who breathe out poisonous gasses and which is swarmed with huge insects, has devoured a great part of the earth. What do humans generally do when they face this kind of crisis? Right. Declare war on the insects and on each other. The insects, however, have proved to be unstoppable when attacking with millions at a time. The main character, Nausicaa (hence the title) is against all of this, loves each and every insect and is opposed to killing in any way.
This movie works pretty well. The great thing about this, is that you won’t be able to tell which ones are the real bad guys. Everyone and everything in the movie, except for Nausicaa perhaps, does some evil deeds, however, all of them have very good reasons to do so. Everyone is a victim of each other. This movie portrays it perfectly. It’s great to see Nausicaa trying to calm each and every stakeholder in this.
The movie starts out a quiet, and it takes about fifteen minutes to get into it. From that point, the tension rises by every scene. No scene feels that it’s draggin on too much. About halfway through the movie, the illusion is given that the main "bad guy", if you can call her that, will learn her lessons and stop hurting the insects. By not fulfilling this illusion, the creators just made me more curious about how this crisis was to be solved. I also foun it brilliant that the main power of the bad guys never actually gets used to its fullest powers. You rarely see that these days. I appreciated it.
Anyway, from the middle of the anime, almost all the boundaries of good and bad are shifted, until they’re shattered at the climax. Each and every character develops thoughout this period. Some may not seem so obvious, but if you pay close attention, you may notice it. The climax itself has been brilliantly done, and for a moment, it does seem that all hope is lost. The ending has been done decently, although it feels a bit rushed.
After seeing this movie, I found out that this movie ahs huge religious themes. I can’t help to agree with that statement. After thinking about it, this movie flows with all sorts of Christian and Messiah-like references.
Why you should watch this: If you have the time to watch a good movie, and aren’t bothered by the really old-looking character design, then you definately have to watch this.
This is one of my favorite animes. I saw it years ago, heavily cut under the americanized/terribly altered title “Warriors Of The Wind”. Personally, I’d give this a higher grade, but I didn’t even know the term “anime” when this came out, so maybe I see it through rosey hued glasses. I’m not at all a manga fan, but the seven part collection available through Viz is highly recommended. It shares very little in common with this anime. A completly different take on the same story. Fleshed out and with a lot more characters. Now that I think about it, I like the manga better.
Hmm, interesting. I quite liked this anime when I saw it as well, I can’t remember why I gave it this low of a score. Ah well, I’m glad that you like it. 😉