- So it has taken me quite some time to finally get back around to this goal, but I am finally back again to try and finish every Ghibli movie I missed when I was a kid, which is honestly all of them except for Ponyo, this time around I am back to talk about Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. I’ve known for some time now that the next Ghibli movie I would embark to watch would be their very first feature film, and after almost 40 years, I still think it holds up quite well, and honestly a lot better than some of their later films. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind has a lot of similarities with Castle in the Sky (although I guess if you watched the movies when they originally came out, it would be the other way around) except this story has significantly better pacing. - In fact, this might sound odd, but that was actually the part of the movie that surprised me the most, how good the pacing is in this film that originally aired in 1984. I have found that the aspect of many older films that frequently puts me off the most, is just how drawn out and slow the pacing usually it. That is not a dis on all old films, just that by today’s standards, it is hard for me to really get invested in a story when it spends so much of its running time doing basically nothing, just sitting idle wait for “something” to happen. But here the pacing in this film works very well, there is not a single moment where it felt slow or needlessly drawn out, it just kept going until the very end, which really helped me feel more invested in the story that was being told. - The story is of course not perfect, Nausicaa’s whole nonviolence stick got very old very fast, but luckily the rest of her personality I quite fun, and since the main message of the film is basically violence is bad #ProtectTheEnvironment, I do have to admit her stick does make sense for the plot, I just felt her sticking to her ideals even when they are getting shot at by a giant flying airship was kind of silly. That’s really all I wanted to say about the film, yes the music and the visuals still hold up incredibly well, especially when you consider that they are almost 40 years old, and when you consider this was Studio Ghibli’s first real feature film, it is no wonder that right out the gate they left such an impression on people with their stories. - With all that being said, since I already said that I liked this film slightly more than Castle in the Sky I will give it a slightly higher score, so 90/100. Right now for me, it would rank above Princess Mononoke and Castle in the Sky, while still being under Kiki’s Delivery Service and Howl’s Moving Castle. This film also highlighted an interesting fact for me, which is that I probably should be watching these films in release order, just because I am starting to see how their past films influence their future films, and jumping all around kind of messes up this picture in my head. So the next Ghibli film that I am planning to watch is either My Neighbor Totoro or Grave of the Fireflies, honestly, I am leaning more towards the former rather than the ladder, because I just would prefer a happy time, but you can give your recommendations for the next Ghibli film I should watch in the comments😊 - P.S. Is it just me, or are Castle in the Sky and Nausicaa of the Vally of the Wind in the same universe? idk I could have sworn I saw the same weird cat/squirrel thing in that film too, maybe it is a prequel😅