Nausicaä, Ghibli, & Environmentalism

Miyazaki's Nausicaä of The Valley of The Wind is truly a visual feast. The intricate and fluid pen work, combined with Miyzaki's deep worldbuilding, brings the reader into complex world of the Tourmekia War and the flora and fauna that compose the subcontinent. Each stroke is purposeful and produces a powerful result. The nature areas are drawn with a certain fluidity that flows with the rest of the world whereas the mechanical man-made objects are rough and imposing. The battleships are obnoxious and violent; Miyazaki has always placed emphasis on mankind's involvement in the desecration of nature. However Nausicaä's wing glider is always presented in a similarly fluid manner, as she races through the plains and forests of the subcontinent. The detail in the mechanics of her glider are very particular as well. Miyazaki takes care to detail the nature and mechanical aspects of Nausicaä.     

From the beginning, we are introduced to the importance of the forest and its creatures to Nausicaä and how it's production of spores is deadly to humans although they have invented ways to safely cohabit. Later, Nausicaä meets Asbel, her male companion on this journey. Asbel believes that the forest may produce these spores because of the damage that humans have done to it in the past. Asbel's character is established to have been raised in a factory town, opposite of Nausicaä's more natural upbringing and interests. Miyazaki uses these two characters to again comment on the parallel between nature and humankind.

Burning the great tree was a great sacrifice, this again pushes Miyazaki's consistent theme of ecological preservation. The collective conscious of the forest composed of the insects that speak to Nausicaä is also interesting. Although it was made after Nausicaä, I viewed Princess Mononoke years ago and feel similarly about its message concerning ecological conservation. Humanity's interaction with nature and the true emotions expressed between the worlds is a concept ever-present in Miyazaki's work. The forests in both films (& manga) feel alive, but they have their own source of trauma and history. Specifically in Princess Mononoke, we see the forest heal from the damage done to it, but there are scars left behind in the forest.