YMMV / Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

• Adaptation Displacement: To many a casual Studio Ghibli fan, it's fairly unknown that there even is a manga of Nausicaä, much less that it was made by Miyazaki himself. Although the movie is really just a 2-hour compression of the first quarter of the manga. It doesn't help that the manga only goes into print once every few years, if that. Oddly enough, the magazine where the manga originated from is quite well-known.
• Angst? What Angst?: Asbel took the news of his twin sister's death a little too well. But given that he is trying to stop a nuclear war in a few days, it must be said that he has not much time to grieve. Also, Nausicaa does bring up Lastelle's death again when meeting his mother.
• Anvilicious: Of the Green Aesop variety, mostly for the film though. It gets a bit more complicated, if not somewhat subverted towards the end of the manga. Specifically, the question of whether or not the Master Computer's plan to artificially restore Earth's old ecology is just as bad as the callous environmental destruction that preceded it, since it would mean the deaths of the countless biotechnological creatures (including "Humans") who have made a life for themselves in the new world.
• Broken Base:
  • Despite being uncut and more accurate, Disney's dub of Nausicaä still has its share of harsh detractors, with some declaring that it still fails to do justice to the original Japanese.
  • The movie itself, and how it compares to its Creator-Driven Successor, Princess Mononoke.
  • Fans tend to be split over the manga. Some consider it to be a vastly superior story to the movie; others think the plot gets too muddled and self-indulgent in the later volumes and prefer the movie's Adaptation Distillation.
• Common Knowledge: While the film is currently marketed as part of the Studio Ghibli library and is directed by Hayao Miyazaki, contrary to what many think, it's not made by Studio Ghibli. The film was produced by Topcraft and was released a year before Studio Ghibli's founding in 1985.
• Escapist Character: Nausicaä. Who wouldn't want to fly around the world in a miniature aircraft, exploring beautiful forbidden lands?
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Calling the movie a part of the Studio Ghibli lineup. Although it was indeed directed by Hayao Miyazaki, Nausicaa of the Valley of The Wind was actually produced by Topcraft and released in 1984, before the company itself was founded in 1985. That said, fans have since given up after Ghibli had retroactively incorporated the film into their film lineup, with the current packaging and opening cards listing it as such.
• Faux Symbolism:
  • Aside from Jesus references, the analogy for using Weapons of Mass Destruction.
  • Word of Miyazaki states that Nausicaä's resurrection near the end of the movie was not meant to be analogous to Jesus and that he would have even changed it if somebody had pointed out the similarities before the film came out – Miyazaki is many things, but religious is not one of them. This may well explain some of the open discussion about the permanence of death (and how ways of avoiding it are explicitly unnatural) in later stages of the manga.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • There's a minor case with Neon Genesis Evangelion due to Hideaki Anno's work in Nausicaä and its later influence.
  • It is also this with Godzilla with Hideaki Anno also creating Shin Godzilla and that film being inspired by a live action Toku Kaiju Nausicaä prequel short film also by Anno, with fans theorising that Shin Godzilla is a Stealth Prequel to Nausicaä. Nausicaä is also considered a Kaiju film with the giant insects.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The Warriors of the Wind cut being originally marketed as a Star Wars Mockbuster is this after the fact that two different dubs of the original Star Wars trilogy cast voice actors from this film (Lord Yupa's voice actor was the home video dub actor for Obi-Wan Kenobi, while Nausicaä's voice actress played Princess Leia in the Nippon TV dubs). It became even more hilarious after the release of The Force Awakens, where Rey's introductory scene is an extended Nausicaä homage.
  • In the first two Cantonese dubs, Nausicaä's name was changed to Mulan. And then Disney would acquire the distribution rights to the film in Chinese-speaking territories (among other territories), around the time they would release their own retelling of the story of Mulan, which does have its own Shout-Out to Nausicaä.
• Jerkass Woobie: A number of characters, but perhaps most notably Kushana. Introduced in the film version as a seemingly stereotypical evil queen ("Nice valley. Think I'll keep it."), her status as an apparent Card-Carrying Villain is quickly subverted. This apparently was deliberate on Miyazaki's part — he describes Nausicaä and Kushana as "two sides of the same coin", largely differing in that Kushana has "deep, physical wounds".
• Les Yay: In the manga, Nausicaä and Kushana have some of this going for them as Kushana seems to take a bit of a shine to Nausicaä as the story progresses.
• Macekre: Warriors of the Wind. The disastrous results of the film is the main reason why Studio Ghibli licenses contractually require that not a frame of animation be altered or cut (with the obvious exception of translating the credits).
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • In the movie, the Torumekians (and on a personal level Kushana and Kurotowa) crossed it early on when they enslaved Pejite and assassinated King Jhil. However, the moment that seals them as barbaric and irredeemable warmongers is the invasion of the Peijite aircraft which was filled with children and the words that followed it:
  "Leave no survivors!"
  • The Pejiteans themselves cross this line when they reveal that they intend to bait the insects into the Valley to wipe out the Torumekians there and wrestle back control of the Giant Warrior, an act that would also kill all of Nausicaä's people. Played with however, as it's the Pejite leadership that wishes to see this plan through while the civilians, with Asbel's help, elect to free Nausicaä rather than to be responsible for genocide.
  • The manga, full as it is of Gray-and-Grey Morality, doesn't have nearly as much of this, but there are a couple moments. For instance, when the Doroks are revealed to be manufacturing toxic mold to use its miasma to slaughter the invading Torumekian troops – Charuka pulls his Heel–Face Turn once he realizes how insane that plan is.
• Narm:
  • In the movie, Nausicaä's (pink) dress gets soaked with Ohmu blood and turns blue. Some earlier shots show the blood running down her and starting to change its colour slightly. However, it suddenly turns entirely blue after a quick cutaway - and the blood had apparently been so soaked it got her entire dress, yet none of it got on her skin or her hair. The fact that, despite the Ohmu blood soaking her clothes that fully, the logo on the front of her dress is still there. (It could easily be that the logo was of a different material that blood wouldn't stain. Many pigments will only dye certain fibers; it's possible, for instance, to dye a garment and only color the cloth and not the thread. In any case, red bit seems to be some sort of costume jewel. In the manga, Nausicaä clearly has bloodstains all over herself.)
  • It seems people have flying kettles straight out of a witch's manual.
• Signature Scene: The shot where the title character gives a thumbs up while on her glider.
• Special Effect Failure: The film is one of the most beloved pieces of Japanese cinema ever, but it was also made before Miyazaki & co. got really famous, and was made on a surprisingly tight budget, so as a result there's a few places where... things don't quite work right. Blu-rays and super-large-screen theater projection in the 21st century can make these stand out a lot worse:
  • Especially at extremely high modern resolutions, a lot of the snow-like effects can be much more obvious post-production effects that don't mesh well with the actual scene.
  • At one point, our heroine escapes from the Pejite ship and is pursued by the Tolmekian corvette. One of the turret gunners attempts to fire on her... and at this point, the film ends on a surprisingly sad note, as the tracer rounds from the machine gun are clearly going straight into our heroine's torso.^note She's actually fine, of course, and the film just plows on, but once you see it, you'll never again miss that the gunner is obviously hitting her dead-on.
• Spiritual Licensee: With the film's Desert Punk / Feudal Future aesthetic, the involvement of giant insects/worms, and a Messianic Archetype; the film was often seen as the best film adaptation of Dune. Miyazaki did cite Dune as one of this biggest inspirations for both the manga and the film, and it ironically had to compete against David Lynch's Dune adaptation. These similarities also have people call Nausicaä the best Star Wars animated film, with the film's focus on a strange mostly desert world, Used Future aesthetic, and Cool Airships (which look more like spaceships from Star Wars).
• Squick: Film-only example. When Kushana takes off her glove to show that she no longer has an arm and then says "Whatever lucky man becomes my husband shall see far worse than that," and she retains the armor on both her legs after taking off her armor, implying she also lacks them. About the rest, you can only imagine...
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: There was an outcry when New World Pictures released the film as Warriors of the Wind back in the 1980s, thanks in no small part to numerous visual and story changes. Even Hayao Miyazaki was dissatisfied with it to the point to where later licensors weren't allowed to make major changes like this one, and even very minor dialogue changes have to be approved by Studio Ghibli.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Both the movie and the manga qualify as this. In addition to the melting God Warrior, Ohmu stampede, and a goodly dose of violence, the manga shows people blown or chopped to bits left and right. Oh, and some freaky psychic stuff. This is likely due to the fact that this stars a princess with a animal companion as one would expect from Disney (they distributed the movie under their main brand for 12 years in the US, which likely adds to this). Also, the uncut version is rated PG despite the Motion Picture Association introducing the PG-13 rating in North America, not long after the original release of the film in Japan.

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