Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Amanda and Patrick are back for day 3 of Anime August Week, and this time they’re diving into the world of revered director Hayao Miyazaki, starting with his 1984 film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind!

Believe it or not this is the first episode in GateCrashers history talking about Studio Ghibli or Miyazaki! Amanda and Patrick are huge fans of Miyazaki’s films, so they are very excited to talk about this movie.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is often considered the beginning of the Studio Ghibli era, even though Miyazaki made it before founding the studio. As such, Amanda and Patrick talk about how it feels so classically Miyazaki, fully formed and fledged right from the start, even though it was only his second ever full-length film. There are plenty of classic themes in this film we’ve come to appreciate in Miyazaki’s canon, including environmentalism, Marxism, and our favorite, some funky little airplanes!

To that end, this Amanda and Patrick episode has all the classic Amanda and Patrick themes too: yelling about the English dub, learning things in real time about the manga that they absolutely did not read before recording the episode, and going on tangents so deeply unrelated from the topic of the episode that they have to hard segue back to talking about the movie. Ya know, a classic Amanda and Patrick episode!

Amanda and Patrick do genuinely believe that this is one of the Miyazaki’s best films. They talk about how important and relevant Miyazaki’s message in this film is, even 41 years later, as we continue to live in a world affected by ecological disaster, war, and hatred. But importantly, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind has a message of hope for a humanity that chooses to coexists with nature and the Earth instead of dominate it.

Come and join us as we continue our annual dive into the world of Japanese animation! And keep an eye (or ear) out for tomorrow’s episode about another Hayao Miyazaki movie!