In this age of eco­log­i­cal cri­sis, Nausicaä’s mes­sage is more vital than ever

A thou­sand years after the col­lapse of indus­tri­al soci­ety, human set­tle­ments are sparse and civil­i­sa­tion has revert­ed to feu­dal­ism. Most of the earth’s sur­face is cov­ered by the Sea of Decay, an intri­cate, tox­ic for­est where the air is so pol­lut­ed that humans can only sur­vive for five min­utes with­out wear­ing a mask.

Gigan­tic, trilo­bite-like arthro­pods – called Ohmu – live peace­ful­ly in their poi­so­nous habi­tat but angri­ly swarm the earth when attacked. There’s a val­ley though where gen­tle winds keep the spores at bay and peo­ple live in a peace­ful com­mu­ni­ty ruled by an inspired king.

The first time we meet the king’s daugh­ter, Nau­si­caä, she’s brav­ing the Sea of Decay, for­ay­ing into the for­est on one of her sci­en­tif­ic explo­rations. Respect­ful of all the liv­ing things she encoun­ters, we see her tak­ing notes, col­lect­ing sam­ples of spores and stum­bling across an enor­mous exoskele­ton of an Ohmu.

She mar­vels at its beau­ty but she’s also aware of how such a find­ing would be use­ful for her vil­lage. Nau­si­caä is a per­fect blend of sci­en­tif­ic explor­er and spir­i­tu­al mes­si­ah; as not­ed in an essay by Andrew Osmond, her enlight­ened con­nec­tion with nature is ulti­mate­ly what leads her to a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion of all the film’s conflicts.

Nau­si­caä is an incred­i­bly com­plex and nuanced char­ac­ter. She is half-Dis­ney princess, demon­strat­ing piety and a close bond with nature, but she also dis­plays traits more com­mon­ly asso­ci­at­ed with male pro­tag­o­nists. In one scene, she res­olute­ly takes vengeance on a bunch of sol­diers who attacked her vil­lage and killed her age­ing father.

Moments lat­er, in the calm of her secret cel­lar where she cul­ti­vates the flo­ra of the Sea of Decay, she bursts into tears in the trav­eller Lord Yupa’s arms and admits to being fright­ened by the thought of what her rage might lead her to do. Yet while she may be fierce and free-spir­it­ed she is above all a paci­fist, and she recog­nis­es that the key to the planet’s sal­va­tion lies in let­ting nature puri­fy the earth that humans have polluted.

Amid our cur­rent eco­log­i­cal cri­sis, with some gov­ern­ments still open­ly deny­ing the full scale of the prob­lem, Nausicaä’s mes­sage is more vital than ever. Described as a man­i­festo of ​“rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal ethics” by Thomas Gid­dens in ​‘Law and Jus­tice in Japan­ese Pop­u­lar Cul­ture: From Crime Fight­ing Robots to Duelling Pock­et Mon­sters’, Hayao Miyazaki’s film calls for humankind to find a way to coex­ist with the nat­ur­al world in a bal­anced and sus­tain­able way.

For Nau­si­caä, there’s no oth­er viable option – all the more so because in her com­pas­sion­ate and gen­tle vision human’s life is nev­er val­ued more than an animal’s. By adher­ing to such a rad­i­cal phi­los­o­phy, the self-imposed sov­er­eign­ty of human­i­ty over nature ceas­es to exist and the door to a mutu­al under­stand­ing between humans – although pri­mar­i­ly embod­ied by Nau­si­caä – and Ohmu is deci­sive­ly open.

For all these rea­sons, the World Wildlife Fund, the world’s largest non-gov­ern­men­tal organ­i­sa­tion com­mit­ted to wilder­ness preser­va­tion and a reduc­tion of human impact, rec­om­mend­ed the film in the hope that it could help to spread the mes­sage for envi­ron­men­tal peace with Nau­si­caä lead­ing the way as a green heroine.

Yet the film’s les­son is also rein­forced by Miyazaki’s mas­ter­ful atten­tion to detail with regards to set­ting. Where­as cities and ham­lets have a medieval, mid­dle-Euro­pean vibe to them, the Sea of Decay’s flo­ra reminds us of the coal forests cov­er­ing the Earth’s dur­ing the Car­bonif­er­ous peri­od while the giant insects that intim­i­date humans are rem­i­nis­cent of the ones rul­ing the pre­his­toric skies before the advent of birds. To think that such is the land­scape of a future Earth is the ulti­mate reminder of our own triv­i­al­i­ty against the macro­cyclic essence of nature.

By envi­sion­ing a tale of eco­log­i­cal aware­ness and paci­fism, Miyaza­ki cre­at­ed a self­less hero­ine who can exer­cise com­pas­sion as much as she can wield firm hand on who­ev­er threat­ens to tread over nature to regain their sta­tus. In between these two forces, Nau­si­caä finds her strength, and with that she shines as the Earth’s saviour.