Miyazaki actually chose this manga and film to stake his career of original works on?? What a statement that was. To me in story, this does not feel like anything directed by Miyazaki I've seen, granted I've only seen Lupin, Totoro, Kiki, Laputa, and Ponyo, and not Mononoke or something.

The plot while slow, feels very deliberate. It feels everything is there with purpose. Things are always happening but the progression from beat to beat takes its time and makes sure everything flows naturally, even if that means it's slow. I think the film is very good for doing that. Films of this sort could be broadly categorized as being adventure films, but adventure films by nature tend to be faster paced. Many are action-adventure films and use such eye candy to keep the viewers interest, as well as these can tend to drive the flow of the film. This structure allows the film to be driven by its emotional moments, allowing each beat to have impact through a plot function and a not a visual function. Obviously, using action to drive the plot is not a problem, but for a film like this, which isn't actually an adventure film, it is a very good method and done really well.

The story is about a girl who can be considered kinda stupid by some metrics. She takes upon the problems of others on herself because no one else understands the attempts she's making, but I don't think this is a problem. The film is about the sins of man and how our blindness to our mistakes can be our downfall. However, we can learn from those mistakes and fix them through empathy and sympathy for others. Nausicaä's role in the film perfectly conveys this theme as she is the intermediary between the multiple factions.

I don't have much to say about the animation since while it is breathtaking, it's the sorta thing I've come to expect with these films and I mainly analyze story and characters anyway. The music was quite interesting as sometimes it felt like electronic 80's music, which is fitting for the time. Sometimes the music felt like a song straight out of a Dragon Quest. This too isn't very shocking as the one who composed that music had quite the reputation as a skilled orchestral composer for film and anime at the time. So I'm sure other classically trained composers like Hisaishi would have similar influences. The most interesting of the musical choices was the sort of Indian sounding music that'd play near the Ohms. Perhaps it's intended to be a broad style akin to the Islamic world and South Asia, which is a very cool choice. This is rarely used outside of, like, desert levels in Super Mario so it really adds a unique flair to the film.

All in all, despite a few flaws, I think the strength of the narrative and themes are so strong that it trumps these things, creating a truly amazing film. It is no wonder Miyazaki and his team was able to create an empire and was one of the largest mainstream factors, if not the largest, in reinventing Japanese animation into what it is today.