Precursors and early development Miyazaki began his professional career in the animation industry as an
inbetweener at
Toei in 1963 but soon had additional responsibilities in the creation processes. While working primarily on animation projects for television and cinema, he also pursued his dream of creating manga. In conjunction with his work as a
key animator on the film ''
The Wonderful World of Puss 'n Boots (1969) his manga adaptation of the same title was published in 1969. That same year, a pseudonymous serialization started of his manga People of the Desert. His manga adaptation of the film Animal Treasure Island'' (1971) was serialized in 1971. After the release of
Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), Miyazaki, now at the
Tokyo Movie Shinsha (TMS), began working on his ideas for an animated
film adaptation of
Richard Corben's comic book
Rowlf and pitched the idea to Yutaka Fujioka at TMS. In November 1980, a proposal was drawn up to acquire the
film rights. Around that time Miyazaki was also approached for a series of magazine articles by the editorial staff of
Tokuma Shoten's
Animage. During subsequent conversations, he showed his sketchbooks and discussed basic outlines for envisioned animation projects with
Toshio Suzuki and Osamu Kameyama, at the time working as editors for
Animage. They saw the potential for collaboration on Tokuma's development into animation. Initially, two projects were proposed to Tokuma Shoten, that are significant for the eventual creation of
Nausicaä: , to be set in the
Sengoku period, and the adaptation of Corben's
Rowlf, but they were rejected, on July 9, 1981. The proposals were rejected because the company was unwilling to fund anime projects not based on existing manga and because the rights for the adaptation of
Rowlf could not be secured. An agreement was reached that Miyazaki could start developing his sketches and ideas into a manga for the magazine with the proviso that it would never be made into a film. Miyazaki stated in an interview, "
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind only really began to take shape once I agreed to serialize it." In the December 1981 issue of
Animage, it was announced that a new manga series would start in the February 1982 issue of the magazine, even though Miyazaki had not completed the first episode. The illustrated notice introduced the new series' main character, title, and concept. The first chapter, 18 pages, was published in the February 1982 issue. Miyazaki would continue developing the story for another 12 years, with frequent interruptions along the way.
Influences , whose name means "burner of ships". Miyazaki had given other names to the main character during development, but he settled on Nausicaä based on the name of the
Greek princess of the same name from the
Odyssey, as portrayed in
Bernard Evslin's
Encyclopedia of Greek Mythology, translated into Japanese by Minoru Kobayashi. In his essay , printed in volume one of the manga, Miyazaki wrote that he was also inspired by
The Lady who Loved Insects, a Japanese tale from the
Heian period about a young court lady who preferred studying insects rather than wearing fine clothes or choosing a husband.
Helen McCarthy considers Shuna from ''
Shuna's Journey'' to be prototypical to Nausicaä. The story’s
fantasy and
science fiction elements were influenced by various works from Western authors, including
Ursula K. Le Guin's
Earthsea,
Brian Aldiss's
Hothouse,
Isaac Asimov's
Nightfall, and
J.R.R Tolkien's
The Lord of the Rings. The setting and visual style of the manga often reference
Jean Giraud (Mœbius), whose wordless 1975 comic
Arzach had deeply impressed Miyazaki. Among the inspirations for the environmental themes Miyazaki has mentioned the
Minamata Bay mercury pollution. The Sea of Corruption is based on the forests on the Japanese island of
Yakushima and the marshes of the
Sivash, or Rotten Sea, in Ukraine. The works of botanist were among Miyazaki's inspirations for the environment of the story. Miyazaki mentions Nakao in the context of a question he was asked about the place
Nausicaä takes in the
ecology boom, explaining his shift from a desert to a forest setting. Nakao's influence on his work has been noted by Shiro Yoshioka. Miyazaki has identified Tetsuji Fukushima's '''' , a story he first read while still in primary school, as one of his earliest influences.
Kentaro Takekuma has also observed this continuity in Miyazaki's work and places it within the tradition of illustrated stories, , and manga Miyazaki read while growing up, pointing out the influence of Fukushima on Miyazaki's
People of the Desert which he in turn identifies as a precursor for both ''Shuna's Journey
, created in watercolour and printed in colour, and Nausicaä''.
Creation Miyazaki drew the
Nausicaä chapters primarily in pencil. The work was printed monochrome in sepia toned ink.
Frederik L. Schodt observed differences between
Nausicaä and other Japanese manga. He has noted that it was serialized in the large
A4 size of
Animage, much larger than the normal size for manga. Schodt has also observed that Miyazaki drew much of Nausicaä in pencil without inking, and that the page and panel layouts, as well as the heavy reliance on storytelling, are more reminiscent of French comics than of Japanese manga. In appearance and sensibilities,
Nausicaä reminds Schodt of the works of
Mœbius. Takekuma has noted stylistic changes in Miyazaki's artwork over the course of the series. He points out that, particularly in the first chapters, the panels are densely filled with background, which makes the main characters difficult to discern without paying close attention. According to Takekuma this may be partially explained by Miyazaki's use of pencil, without inking, for much of the series. Takekuma points out that by employing pencil, Miyazaki does not give himself the option of much variation in his line. He notes that in the later chapters Miyazaki uses his line art to draw attention to individuals and that he more frequently separates them from the background. As a result, there are more panels in which the main characters stand out vividly in the latter part of the manga. Miyazaki has stated in interviews that he frequently worked close to publication deadlines, and that he was not always able to finish his monthly installments for serialization in
Animage. On such occasions, he sometimes created apologetic cartoons. These were printed in the magazine, instead of story panels, to explain to his readers why there were fewer pages that month or why the story was absent entirely. Miyazaki has indicated that he continued refining the story before the publication of the
tankōbon volumes, in which chapters from the magazine were collected in book form. Changes made throughout the story, before the release of each
tankōbon volume, range from subtle additions of shading to the insertion of entirely new pages. Miyazaki also redrew panels, and sometimes the artwork was changed on whole pages. He made alterations to the text and changed the order in which panels appeared. The story as re-printed in the
tankōbon spans 7 volumes for a combined total of 1060 pages. Miyazaki has said that the lengthy creation process of the
Nausicaä manga, repeatedly tackling its themes as the story evolved over the years, changed the material and affected his personal views on life and politics. He also noted that his continued struggle with the subject matter in the ongoing development of the
Nausicaä manga allowed him to create different, lighter, films than he would have been able to make without
Nausicaä providing an outlet for his more serious thoughts throughout the period of its creation. Marc Hairston notes that, “Tellingly, Miyazaki’s first film after finishing the
Nausicaä manga was
Mononoke Hime, which examined many of the themes from the manga and is arguably the darkest film of his career.”
Localization Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was initially translated into English by
Toren Smith and Dana Lewis. Smith, who had written comics in the U.S. since 1982, wrote an article on
Warriors of the Wind (the heavily edited version of the film adaptation released in the U.S. in the 1980s) for the Japanese edition of
Starlog, in which he criticized what
Manson International had done to Miyazaki's film. The article came to the attention of Miyazaki himself, who invited Smith to Studio Ghibli for a meeting. On Miyazaki's insistence, Smith's own company
Studio Proteus was chosen as the producer of the English-language translation. Smith hired Dana Lewis to collaborate on the translation. Lewis was a professional translator in Japan who also wrote for
Newsweek and had written cover stories for such science fiction magazines as
Analog Science Fiction and Fact and
Amazing Stories. Smith hired
Tom Orzechowski for the lettering and retouching. Studio Proteus was responsible for the translation, the lettering, and the retouching of the artwork, which was flipped left-to-right to accommodate English readers. The original Japanese dialogue was re-lettered by hand, the original sound effects were replaced by English sound effects, and the artwork was retouched to accommodate the new sound effects. When Miyazaki resumed work on the manga following one of the interruptions, Viz chose another team, including
Rachel Thorn and Wayne Truman, to complete the series. The current seven-volume, English-language "Editor's Choice" edition is published in right-to-left reading order: while it retains the original translations, the lettering was done by Walden Wong. The touch-up art and lettering for the Viz Media deluxe two-volume box set was also done by Walden Wong. Eriko Ogihara-Schuck compared the Japanese-language manga and anime with their English translations, and demonstrated that American translations resulted in the "
Christianizing of Miyazaki's
animism", especially in the film version. One cause is the lack of English equivalents for some Japanese concepts; the other is the
Judeo-Christian background and
idioms of the Western translators, which introduced a
dualistic worldview absent in the original. == Publication history ==