Hayao Miyazaki’s Most Personal Film
Ghibli Month — Chapter 20: The Wind Rises
Director — Hayao Miyazaki
Year of Release — 2013
Language — English
How Many Times Watched? — 2 times
Rating — ★★★★★
This is a Must Watch. Please watch Miyazaki’s most personal film
“All I wanted to do was make something beautiful.”
— Jiro Horikoshi
The Wind Rises may very well be Hayao Miyazaki’s greatest film. Which feels like a crazy thing to say considering the rest of his filmography (ahem, Spirited Away). But The Wind Rises is different. It’s not fantastical. There’s no magic. No fun creatures. Just a man with a desire to make something beautiful. And this simplicity speaks volumes.
The film follows the real-life Jiro Horikoshi, a Japanese engineer that designs planes for the military during World War II. He is the man responsible for the Mitsubishi A6M Zero plane, also known as the Japanese Zero Plane. If you don’t know what that is, it is a masterclass of airplane design, the best plane the world had ever seen; a thing of beauty. But it was also an instrument of war, one that caused a level of death and destruction never thought possible.
The Wind Rises is a tale of inner conflict: is following your dreams worth the cost? Jiro dreams of designing planes (Jiro Dreams of Mitsubishi?), but the only way to do so is to design military aircraft.
If I know anything about Hayao Miyazaki it’s that he is a pacificist and anti-war at all costs. He’s spoken out and made films against violence his entire life. He did a whole movie just to show his opposition to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. This dude hates war. So it’s interesting that he would make a biopic about the guy that gave Japan the power to kill at unprecedented rates.
I think Miyazaki sees himself as a modern-day Jiro. Making something beautiful within a dangerous medium. It is no secret that Miyazaki is one of the greatest living filmmakers in the world. His work has inspired generations of children and adults alike. He has arguably never even made a bad movie. His art is beautiful, simple, and ground-breaking. Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli singlehandedly pushed the boundaries of anime.
However, Miyazaki has a love-hate relationship with anime and its surrounding culture. You may have seen pictures of Miyazaki with the quote, “Anime was a Mistake” attributed to him on it.
As you can probably guess, Miyazaki did not actually say “Anime was a mistake.” This quote was never even uttered by the great animator. It must have been misinterpreted or mistranslated from an interview with a Japanese news site where he talked about the overall state of anime.
This is what he actually said:
“If you don’t spend time watching real people, you can’t do this, because you’ve never seen it. Some people spend their lives interested only in themselves. Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know. It’s produced by humans who can’t stand looking at other humans. And that’s why the industry is full of otaku!”
Otaku is a confusing word. In the West, it pretty much means someone who likes anime a lot. However, in Japan, it cares a much deeper connotation. They are still someone who likes anime a lot but to an unhealthy point. All they do is stay home and obsess over their favorite animes; their everyday lives revolve around it.
Otaku culture can often lead to some negative things. Fanservice is a big debate in anime. It is basically doing something solely for the benefit of the fans without adding anything to the actual show. This is why many anime girls have ridiculous, unnatural, bouncy chests and why they often wear practically nothing.
I could show examples of this, but that really doesn’t feel appropriate. If you really care, just search “anime fanservice” and you’ll see what I mean (slightly NSFW).
Instead, here’s a picture of young Jiro flying a plane:
Anyway, the general idea is that otakus often create anime without depth or any sense of reality. This is what Miyazaki is railing against. He believes that otakus are ruining anime because they are creating content that doesn’t represent actual living, breathing humans.
I know old men often go on rants saying that everything new is destroying the work of the past, and at 79, Miyazaki is no stranger to them, constantly criticising CG and AI animation, but I actually kind of agree with him. I struggle to find anime that I like because so much of it is just fanservicey and tough to watch, often because of its depictions of women. Anime is flooded with this crap. Like Miyazaki, I prefer having a sense of reality in a show/movie even if it is rich in deep fantasy.
But this gets to my point: like Jiro, Miyazaki lives, works, and plays in a dangerous medium that he constantly subverts. Anime can often be harmful and insulting, presenting a view of people and reality that is a flat out lie. Miyazaki has always rebelled against the norm since The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), giving his characters a depth not seen before in animation. Even within an often nasty and dangerous medium, Hayao Miyazaki and co. have consistently created something beautiful and sublime that stands next to no one.
Jiro Horikoshi wanted to create a plane that would put all other planes to shame. And he did so through the military, an organisation that promotes violence and death. While not exactly a 1-to-1 analogy here, Miyazaki clearly sees himself in a similar position. He eats, sleeps, and breathes stories and characters just how Jiro does planes.
In The Wind Rises, there is a scene where Jiro is eating mackerel and notices the way its bone bends. He then incorporates that into his plane design successfully. No one else was doing this type of stuff which cemented Jiro as one of the greats.
Looking back at his quote on otakus, Miyazaki finds ideas by observing the world. It seems so simple, but his imagination is heightened by his reality, just like the mackerel bone. This philosophy is what sets Miyazaki above the rest.
The Wind Rises is the perfect film for Miyazaki to retire with, to hang up his pencils and paper and call it a successful thirty-five years. It perfectly encapsulates everything Miyazaki is known for: realistic characters you can’t help but root for, ordinary people doing extraordinary things, and, of course, planes and gorgeous flying sequences.
There is so much to love about this film. It feels like what Miyazaki’s dreams must be. It is him at his most esoteric. It may even be Miyazaki’s best looking film. The animation is truly stunning, in a way that only Studio Ghibli can pull off.
You can’t go wrong with any Miyazaki movie, but The Wind Rises is a completely different animal. It deserves your attention and it will sit with you long after the credits roll in a way that no other Miyazaki will.
Look, The Wind Rises probably won’t be your favorite Miyazaki movie (for me it’s Kiki’s Delivery Service) but it may be his best. While not a film I’m dying to watch again like some of his other work, it is the ultimate swan song for such a prolific director.
It’s not his magnum opus (that’s Spirited Away, of course), but it’s his masterpiece nonetheless. No one but Miyazaki could have made this movie. His whole life has pointed toward this film. He could never have done it at any other point in his career. The perfect cap on a long career. The cherry on top of a very dense, multi-flavored, heart-attack-inducing sundae.
But this sundae hasn’t killed us yet. Miyazaki’s back, baby. He is currently working on How Do You Live? at an excruciatingly slow pace of a minute per month, so who knows if it will ever release. However, his reasoning for the film is absolutely touching. It is Miyazaki’s way to say to his grandson, “Grandpa is moving onto the next world soon but he is leaving this film behind because he loves you” (bit.ly/3f5ybkl).
I’m as excited as the next person that Miyazaki is making another film because of course he is, but new movie or not, The Wind Rises remains the perfect sendoff for the great Hayao Miyazaki.
Just live long enough to finish the next one, please.
