Review of The Wind Rises

Minor spoilers ahead! The Wind rises is a bitter sweat story based on the life of Jiro Horikoshi who was a aircraft designer in the early to mid 2oth century. Directed by none other that Hayao Miyazaki as his "final film" up until the future release of his new movie How do you live? You can certainly feel all those years of Miyazaki's amazing work in this but there in i find also lies this movies biggest problem, The pacing it pretty much covers Jiro's life from being a child until the end of ww2, A colossal amount to try and fit into 2 hours andit shows. Luckily I am quite interested in history and was able to follow the time skips and important events but some one who isn't familiar with the time period might get lost quickly. Some areas also feel a lot more rushed than others specifically the whole marriage proposal it was so fast it made me laugh a little. That would be my biggest issue with the movie.

The animation once again is incredible probably the best for me since spirited away or howls moving castle it looks modern but some how classic at the same time and it suits the early 20th century Japan amazingly well. The dream scenes also look incredible. The story as stated is a bit rushed but i think the movie does a good job in establishing its characters well and the time period. I quite liked the scene when they went to Germany and found the Germans unwilling to share tech with them because they were Japanese. Very true to the time period as many western nations didn't view Japan as equals.

Over all its a 8/10 for me and what made it fall just short was the pacing which in turn made the ending not as emotional as it should have been. Still well worth the watch though