Recent reading

[luzula]

Shuna's Journey by Hayao Miyazaki (1983)
Well, I see why this is not as famous as Nausicaa--it's a much slighter work, and more broad strokes both in the artwork and in the story and worldbuilding. I also didn't feel that the worldbuilding made as much sense as in Nausicaa, though I think it was meant to have a more mythic feel where things don't have to make sense. Apparently I was unable to really enjoy this on its own terms without comparisons...oh well.

You May Well Ask by Naomi Mitchison (1979)
Her autobiography 1920-1940. There are lighter sections, but on the whole it is rather grim because of being bracketed by two world wars! It ends with some ominous diary entries from the beginning of WWII, with the very last sentence But my baby died. Oof. But also it's chock full of notes on everything from her love life, to politics, various of her friends, her writing, etc. I'm sure I missed lots of references, but one I did catch thanks to people in my DW circle who like reading about spies was this: I think it was in Vienna [in 1934] that I had lunch with a nice young Englishman called Philby; no doubt we talked politics. *boggles* Also she met Selma Lagerlöf! I wonder what they talked about. Also you get passages like this: We would go to the local café or Chez Louise, where I occasionally danced with the lesbian professional ladies who came to eat and dance in congenial surroundings before they went to other bars to earn their living. Louise herself was that way, with the barmaid as her wife. I remember once in the late Thirties going there with Margaret Cole; Louise thought I had at last seen the light. Heh. Also, I am not quite sure if "professional ladies" means they were selling sex or perhaps strip-dancing or something, or are they just barmaids?

Comments

[osprey_archer]

Yes, Shuna's Journey almost feels like a storyboard for a longer work, or concept art perhaps - it's impossible to avoid comparing to his later work because it many ways it's a trial run for things he developed more fully later. It's been years since I've seen Nausicaa so I didn't compare it to that specifically when I read it, but that's probably the most one with the most direct and obvious connection, but so many other things come back in other forms: the boy saves the girl and then the girl saves the boy in Spirited Away, the interest in strange flying machines comes up again and again, the protagonist wandering through strange fantastic landscapes too, most recently in The Boy and the Heron.

[luzula]

I guess I was more comparing it to the Nausicaa manga than the Nausicaa movie, since that's the other manga I've read by Miyazaki (and the manga he's famous for)! But yes, of course, there are a lot of themes which were developed more in many of his later works.