Review by C.J. Bunce

The 2013 Academy Award-nominated animated film The Wind Rises is brilliant in its originality, and so different from the other works of writer-director Hayao Miyazaki, probably the best director of our time.  Notable as Miyazaki’s final film–until he would return a decade later with the Academy Award-winning The Boy and the Heron–The Wind Rises is a fictional angle on two historical figures in the first half of the 20th century: aeronautical engineer Jiro (pronounced “hero”) Horikoshi, who designed the Mitsubishi Zero fighter plane, and writer Tatsuo Hori, whose works included the novel The Wind Rises.  The movie is not an adaptation of the book, and Jiro in the story is a mixture of both men.  As recounted in The Art of The Wind Rises, Viz Media’s incredible look at Miyazaki’s ideas, vision, concept artwork, and animation methodology (available here at Amazon), readers will get an unprecedented look at Miyazaki and how he blended fantasy and reality into a major international film.

Told using Miyazaki’s words, notations, and concept art, and the production leadership who implemented Miyazaki’s ideas, this book is one of the best training grounds you’ll find for what “world-building” means and how it’s done by a filmmaking master.

As a collection of original Miyazaki artwork, the book is indispensable.  All three components of Miyazaki’s role are presented.  First there is the story, which in addition to the two characters merged into the hero Jiro, includes a dream-world mentor for Jiro in the form of another historical figure, Gianni Caproni, who designed airplanes for Italy during the World War I era.  Only as a starting point is the film a drama about the man who created the Zero aircraft that was a key tool of warfare for Japan during World War II.  At times the film echoes the struggles and excitement of Jimmy Stewart’s portrayal of aircraft designer and pilot Charles Lindbergh in the movie The Spirit of St. Louis, at other times you can see the determination and focus of Hardy Krüger’s toy plane engineer in The Flight of the Phoenix.

Digging into Miyazaki’s role as director, key production staff share their recollections of working with Miyazaki on the film, providing specific moments from production and insight into Miyazaki’s process.  Interviews feature Kitaro Kosaka, supervising animator; Yoji Takeshige, art director; Michiyo Yasuda, color designer; and Atsushi Okui, director of digital imaging.

The movie is an account of changing times in Japan more than a chronology of events and happenings.  Miyazaki’s notations are incredible in their specificity, in his desire to create a fantastical world to tell his story that is also grounded in the locations and settings of the real world.  His color choices defy other depictions of the Great Depression through the Great Kanto Earthquake, along with the two World Wars as an almost distant background for much of the film.

Last but not least is Miyazaki’s artistic vision, contained in his drawings and paintings.  His landscapes are astonishing in what they are able to convey and how they set mood.  You can imagine the storyboards, paintings, and concept sketches are like paging through Leonardo Da Vinci’s original drawings.  Miyazaki is able to take the fantasy airplanes featured in so many of his films and adapt them into planes in this movie.  The film skips time periods, and the historicity leads up to a scene of the Enola Gay flying away over a defeated Japan, leaving fields of Jiro’s Zero fighter craft destroyed as far as the eye can see.

The film isn’t a statement about war, but a celebration of machinery and invention and an appreciation for the designers of airplanes.  It’s also about a dreamer and designer, and the toll pursuits can take, and to a lesser extent an ill-fated romance.  Readers will be surprised to see how Miyazaki created Jiro’s love interest.  Many of his decisions seem to be the opposite of what you’d find from any other artist, which makes his work fresh and exciting.

The Art of The Wind Rises includes an appendix featuring all 42 pages of Miyazaki’s screenplay from the English translation of the film.  It also includes the complete film credits and images of marketing and poster art.

For Miyazaki fans this is as good as it gets.  The Art of The Wind Rises is available here at Amazon in a full-color, 280-page book with a glossy hardback cover, from VIZ Media.

*Preview images above are from the Japanese edition.