Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind holds a very special place in my heart. I feel in love with the story and Nausicaä herself from watching the film when I was thirteen and my grandmother gave me the DVD as a present. Since then I've watched the film more times than I could ever keep track of. Until 2012 I had no idea that this story was also in graphic novel form and written by Miyazaki himself! I always considered him to be a director and screenplay writer so seeing that he has also worked in print was a pleasant surprise.

When I started reading I encountered another pleasant surprise. I've always known how dear to me this story was, but when I started reading I was almost overwhelmed with emotion. I know it sounds cheesy as hell, but I was shocked by how excited I got just reading the first volume.
When it comes to the story itself, because I was introduced to this at a relatively early age, Nausicaä was pretty much my first example of a feminist heroine and large scale environmentalism.

Nausicaä is the Princess of the Valley of the Wind and she is everything you would expect a Princess to be. She is kind, intelligent, rebellious, curious, strong, brave, and has an unspoken connection to nature. At her core it is her ability to use empathy to communicate with the natural world around her, even when the natural world around her is slowly destroying humankind, that makes her stand out. I imagine Nausicaä as almost a darker version of a Disney Princess and a lot of that has to do with the amazing fantasy world that she lives in. Nausicaä's world is war stricken as she is forced to fight both for and against people and nature to try and ensure the survival of the Valley of the Wind.

The graphic novel is beat for beat the same as the film from what I've seen in this first volume. The art style is also the same style as the film. From my experience this repetition does not detract from either formatt. The film and the manga still come across as very unique because of the things that makes them different. Part of what makes the film so beautiful is the colouring and the movement of the environment. In the manga the basic line art gives more focus to the characters and the expressive nature of the artwork. Either way it's enjoyable.

When it comes to the look of the manga the size and format of the book is a lot more like an American comic book than what I associate with manga. Logically, I believe any graphic novel from Japan should be called manga because of the cultural association, but it was still surprising to see the book in this format. The unorthodox large pages actually really work to the book's benefit because it gives it more space to play. This is undoubtedly important when it comes to the scope of the more vast flying scenes. I can't imagine it would be as visually appealing if the planes had to be squished into smaller panels. Seeing this makes me wonder why more manga isn't formatted this way. So many fantasy and science fiction manga spring to mind that would also benefit from having a larger form. In the manga section of my library Nausicaä stands out among all the other perfectly uniform books and I'm really curious to find out why. It's something I'll have to look into.

Right now I have the next two volumes from the library and I can't wait to continue reading. This is my first manga I've read in months due to my reading hiatus and I could not think of a better way to start again then to read something that I know I'll love.