Miyazaki and magic go together hand in hand. All of his films have some sort of magical element to them. So when Miyazaki and Takahata were to make a double feature (that ended up never happening since Tale of the Princess Kaguya was delayed), they did the reverse of Grave of the Fireflies/My Neighbor Totoro: Takahata made the magical film while Miyazaki made a non-magical World War II film. And I think it's his second best film.
There were two things that I found out about the film right before I watched it. The first is that the audio is in mono, which I honestly would not have noticed either way. The second is that every sound effect was voiced by a human. This really helped put a lot of moments into perspective. When I couldn't tell if it was a voice or not, I was more impressed by what the human voice was capable of. When I could tell, it put a smile on my face because I was able to hear the man behind the art, which might be the message of the film.
I had planned to watch the film dubbed, as Ghibli films are the only Japanese animated films (excluding movies that are based on TV shows that I watched dubbed) that I would watch dubbed, for either their all-star cast or just simply nostalgic reasons. It wasn't until I read this David Ehrlich quote that I reconsidered:
"Of all Miyazaki’s films, it is most imperative that you see this one in Japanese."
Now I don't make decisions like this solely because of what some critic says but it did put this to light: If I am to watch ANY of Miyazaki's films subbed, it really should be the non-magical down to earth serious film.
Also the main character is voiced by Hideaki Anno, now if I had known THAT prior to watching the film there would have been no hesitation to pick sub over dub. I'll be sure to watch the film dubbed on my guaranteed future rewatch.
I had known that the film was about a man that designed planes used by kamikaze soldiers in WWII and to my surprise, and in hindsight gratitude, they only hint that they were kamikaze planes once, at the very end. This is not about the war. This is not about the planes. This is about the man's life while making these planes and it's absolutely beautiful.
I know Miyazaki is out of retirement because the anime industry is in shambles or something like that but I think it's most fitting that he ends off his career with this. I want to say that he can't top this, but it was after coming out of his retirement post-Princess Mononoke that he delivered his magnum opus Spirited Away, so I'll keep an open mind.