AYAKO - TEZUKA Review

NAUSICAA of the Valley of the Wind

Just Breathtaking. I had seen the film before reading the manga, but the original art by HAYAO MIYAZAKI is spectacular. It's as though one day Miyazaki woke up and drank a tall glass of Moebius juice and released it onto the pages of Nausicaa. The art was beautiful, just gorgeous details, stunning atmosphere and such a captivating explenation of the world. It's a slow introduction where we have to figure out for ourselves certain things. Such as, why do the bugs dominate so quickly, what time period is this? The world has questions and we the reder try to answer it with clues of the surrounding illustrations. A huge inspiration of course from Moebius. The inflated technology reminds me a lot of his own artworks. Giant ships of hard metal but they look so round and alive, even the technology looks like it is breathing. It's this touch of magical and life to everything that makes the manga so captivating. Additionally, its nice to have the manga physically because you can hold it and look at each image and try to make some sense of the magical world.