Review of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

While I haven't seen all Miyazaki films yet, the ones I have seen do make me slightly question why everyone likes him so much, but this is not about how Miyazaki messed up his later films. This is actually a rather good movie, I would even cal it great if it wasn't for one thing that I'll go into later. So like I mentioned, Nausicaa is a film by Hayao Miyazaki. It is commonly called the first Studio Ghilbi movie, despite the fact Ghilbi wasn't made yet. It is a post-apocalyptic tale. 1,000 years before the film, Earth was destroyed by evil things called Warriors.Nowadays Earth is full of dangerous bugs and people live a life full of war. The Valley of the Wind is still somewhat peaceful though. Young Nausicaa is the princess and spends her days exploring the sea of decay, a toxic area that now covers most of the world. One day, a ship crash-lands in the Valley and Nausicaa comforts the princess of a land before she dies. The ship carries a mysterious red blob. Later, a nearby nation comes to take over the valley, and Nausicaa's life will never be the same again.

Nausicaa does a better job fleshing out its setting better than some full-length anime I've seen. You really get a feel for the world early on, and it never tells you exactly about the setting. It isn't needed as you're able to pick up several details that give you a feel for the world that Nausicaa lives in. The story itself is great. Nausicaa's adventures and character development is fun to watch. Everyone has their own personality, and while there was a few small plot-holes, deus ex machina, and events that were obviously made for the plot (like how the ship that carried the old men as hostages just happened to survive when the ship and shot down the other ships, and how it just happened to end up where Nausicaa was flying, and oh look, boy who shot down the ships is in the same area too!) and some of the villains are rather meh and are just too “I AM EVIL”, its all done with amazing quality, so I can forgive it.

Nausicaa herself is a very good character. Strong and optimistic, perhaps a little too perfect (a bunch of strangers on a ship decide to save her for little reason), it's all nice. The side characters, while not as fleshed out as the lead, are still rather nice and you get a good feel for them and who they are. The music is amazing and adds perfectly to the atmosphere, especially this one, rarara song, Nausicaa's voice actor is also very good, along with all the voice actors actually.
This is random, but everyone seems to like Ghilbi's backgrounds. Now, they are nice and all and look like good paintings, I just don't think they're good for anime backgrounds. Anime needs more realistic backgrounds, not ones that look like paintings. There was especially this one scene when Nausicaa looked so out of place in the background. I do like Ghilbi's movement though, while not as good as their later movies, there's still enough action going around, and it looks good, especially considering this is an old movie.

However, this is one very very bad thing about this movie, and that is that the ending sucks. While I won't say what happens due to spoilers, I will say that the classic line from the anime Fate/stay night “people die when they are killed”, proves yet again to be wrong when it comes to anime. I mean, this movie could've easily had a great ending, but the one they did have might be one of the worst anime endings of all time, I'll even go that far. I actually wonder why no one ever complains about it, or at least I didn't hear about it before I saw the film. I mean, it just comes out of nowhere, doesn't make much sense, and is rather cheesy.

I liked this movie, I would've probably given it 9 stars instead of 8 if it just wasn't for the way it ended. I can certainty recommend that you watch it, it is a classic and I will accept that.