I've read and watched a lot stuff that came from Japan over the years. Certainly not as much as diehard fans but I think I have (or I had) a relatively good grasp of the manga universe. The journey through it changed a lot of assumptions that I had about Japanese comics, their tropes and such. Truth be told though I rarely revisit comics. Sure I'll read a volume or two prior to reading a new one just to remember what the hell is going on or I'll breeze through a Maruo comic just to look at the art but I rarely come back to read something again wholly. Of course as with everything else there are exceptions to this rule.
The first exception to this rule is Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. I'll assume the setting is familiar to most of you but in case you haven't watched the movie here's the jist of it: the world was blown up by colossal mythic robot-like dudes (Shinji wasn't around) and now the planet is a barren desert with pockets of human civilization. The twist is that the world is regenerating itself but it decided to kick the humans out of the equation so you have these vast "corruptions" throughout the desert of huge fungi and similar plant life filled with gigantic insects that thrive but are super-deadly to humans.
When I first saw the movie I was completely captivated by it. I absolutely adored the atmosphere of it, the soothing and somewhat Buddhist nature of the movie and the Greek mythos vibe which is deeply ingrained in me since most "fairy tales" that were read to me as a little kid were Greek myths. The Vangelis-like soundtrack also helped a lot to make me fall in love with the movie as well and I really liked how the world isn't really post-apocalyptic but more something like some story or legend from dawn of an era theme.
Naturally after finding out that there's a manga version of the story I immediately sought it out and it turns out that the manga version is pretty much an improvement over the movie in every way (except for the animation, voice acting and music due to obvious reasons). It is so much more fleshed out, there is so much more politicking and so much more mystery that it's always fun to come back to it again and again. The central character is still Nausicaa who has a much more apparent messianic figure but often times the story can go for pages without her even being mentioned. The setting offers much diversity in cultures, settings and characters (despite being a desert world!) and they all feel distinct to me. It plays on the themes of desert and antic worlds which is something that's often absent these days in stories that I come across. The gripes that I have with this manga is that the drawings can be often too cluttered, Miyazaki sure liked to draw a shitload of things into one frame. This can distract from the enjoyment because I sometimes don't exactly get what's going on from all the shit that's...going on. And yeah the story suffers from some common tropes but the overall felling and my personal affection to the setting makes me not bother about it very much.
So yeah. Big favorite. Check it out. You might like it. Or not.
Vol: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.
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