The Wind Rises

It’s no secret that Miyazaki is a big giant grump who looks down on practically every part of anime culture that doesn’t include flying or trees, and while it’s true that allowing that abomination known as Project Ice to exist was a bad movie on the industry’s part, it would really help if he controlled his own fetishes when trying to show people what he thinks animation should be like. Whilst I’ve enjoyed everything he’s made before his (fourth) final film, it’s pretty clear that he’s been losing control when it comes to delivering what’s fun over what’s important to him and I’ve always fearedthat he would eventually let his biases overwhelm general entertainment if he didn’t stop soon, so hopefully he stays retired this time. Of course, it would have been even better if he did it before Wind Rises came into existence, because my god was this one fucking dull movie. The genre that Miyazaki tackles with his latest flying extravaganza is the biographical one. Whilst it’s true that stuff like Porco Rosso and Kiki were films centered around one protagonist’s life, Wind Rises goes a step further by detailing the life of our main hero, Jiro, as he grows from a boy to university to adult to irresponsible fuckwad. We see that he’s acrophobic but still wants to build planes as inspired by his dream friend and famous plane designer Caproni. As such he grows into a man who builds planes that are eventually used for war – who didn’t see that coming? – and eventually gets to marry a girl he knew when she was only twelve or so whilst he was in college. More things happen later, but it’s not really my place to spoil that stuff, so I’ll just go into “complaining mode” now. Okay animation guys, I’m going to establish a new rule. You know those slice-of-life stories where we follow a dude as he learns about new things and the charm apparently relies on how much you like the focus character whilst throwing in a few comedic scenes that make up the crux of anime like Silver Spoon or Uchouten without any real conflict that can’t be solved through a counselor on Skype? You’re NOT allowed to do that anymore! You can still have them as downtime or whatever, but you have to have something else, even if you have to hire the Kanon car or introduce a sick mum who’s not really that sick, Totoro-style. Why? Because it’s boring! It doesn’t allow the audience to learn about the subject matter you’re probably trying to teach. And it’s #1 on my most hated anime cliche list for a reason. Even if I was into Jiro as a character, I still wouldn’t find following him for two hours all that interesting because there is no real personal conflict that happens to him throughout the majority of his life. He likes planes. Some plane-related/war-related incidents happen that have fuck-all tension and don’t really affect him all that much. He meets the girl he’s going to marry and we get a few playful scenes before they decide they want to be together. He goes through a bunch of timeskips that have no subtitles to indicate when they’re happening and come off as jarring when they occur without incident because after he stops being a kid, he looks the same in his thirties as he does in his twenties. And to make it worse, the finale of the film is that the story just ends. No real big scene. No big climax. It’s just a revelation where the message overrides the story and then it just ends without a second thought. That’s got to be the most sudden “okay we’re done” ending I’ve seen since that godawful Steins;Gate movie. I won’t say the film isn’t without merits. The stretch of time where Jiro gets married and has to care for his wife is decent, if only because it actually introduced a personal conflict to his life. The way it all ends up is sad, even though the finale became a little manipulative in that Up sort of fashion. Unfortunately, that only takes up about twenty minutes of the film at most and it only happens in the last act. I suppose Wind Rises is worth watching if you’re a plane geek who’s into all the “many” historically accurate details that are peppered through the film’s early 90s setting, or if you’re a die-hard Miyazaki fan (despite the fact that I didn’t like this film, I’ll probably still buy it just to complete the collection), or if you’re into “feels”, whatever the fuck that means. But dude, that’s a lot of hype and talent to use up on what comes across like a nature documentary with a plane dude as the main subject. Personally, I want to free up time to watch Castle in the Sky again. Whilst eating Papa John’s pizza.

I had the good luck to be able to watch The Wind Rises on the big screen in a theater not long after it screened in Japan, for it had a theatrical release in Korea. Although due to the amount of controversy it was generating among Korean audiences (and a fair amount of hate, which I found was a bit too overblown after I finished the movie), the movie was only available in a few select theaters, I say it was quite worth the long trip I made to find a theater that screened this movie. So, The Wind Rises is a movie that focuses ona man named Jirou Horikoshi, the designer of the A6M Zero fighter plane of World War II, notoriously known for its use in the kamikaze, or suicide, missions back in the war. That said, this is far from a biographical movie. It's a fictional work loosely based around the historical figure known as Jirou Horikoshi. Wikipedia classifies this movie as an "animated historical fantasy film" and I think that classification fits the bill perfectly. The story focuses on the life of Jirou Horikoshi and the romantic relationship between him and a woman named Setsuko, who suffers from tuberculosis. Overall, I felt the pacing of the movie was pretty well done, starting from childhood and slowly progressing through different stages of his life in a very fluid manner, although there were moments that felt rushed from time to time (the romantic relationship between Setsuko and Jirou for example). The animation was of course amazingly detailed and well done (I loved how they paid attention to giving the animation depth; little mannerisms like a guy habitually shaking his legs under the desk while he’s working or the main character’s suit crumpling up when he sat down on a stool). One other thing I loved were the “dream sequences”, basically portraying Jirou’s dreams in a very surrealistic manner, as they were very vibrant and made for perfect transitions between different parts of the movie. These things, combined with an amazing soundtrack that fit perfectly with the mood (as expected of Hisaisi Joe), made some scenes truly amazing. Well, I had expected nothing less from Ghibli and Miyazaki Hayao, but even with that in mind, it blows you away. The characters are overall unique and likeable. We also have some glimpses of other historical figures such as aeronautical engineers Giovanni Batista Caproni (who serves as a role model of sorts in Jirou[‘s dreams] in the movie), and Hugo Junkers. And of course there’s Setsuko, the lover of our man, Jirou. The romance in this movie of course tugs right at your heartstrings. It's not burningly flamboyant nor overly exciting; rather it is one of those faint, calm romances that makes you feel calm and happy inside. It makes you shed a few tears (and be on the brink of shedding more on other occasions) for the romance for it was absolutely beautiful and heart-wrenching. (Fun fact: Giovanni Batista Caproni’s aircraft manufacturing company, Caproni, manufactured a plane called the Caproni Ca.309 Ghibli, which served as the inspiration to Ghibli’s name) On a side note, the voice acting by Anno Hideaki (famous for being the chief director of Evangelion TV and movie series) I thought was quite amusing; it fit the out-of-it character of the main character pretty well, although at the more emotional moments of the movie, it lacked depth. Overall, it was a very enjoyable 2 hours. It made me laugh, it made me cry at the right moments, it made me stare at the screen with a slack jawed expression because some scenes were just too beautiful. Finally, I found the criticism and controversy it’s generating (especially in Korea) was a bit overblown. If anything, I found it to be quite critical of war and Japan attacking other nations (at several points in the movie, the characters say that Japan is going down a path of ruin [along with Germany] ). I think it’s best to enjoy this as a piece, a work of art, rather than read too deep into it. I advise you to watch it just as a story of the life and love of a man who simply loved aircrafts.

I think the movie has 2 major problems. One is that the movie has no focus. The movie is about 2 hours long and tries to cover the life of the plane engineer Jirou Horikoshi, with his childhood, his experience with the Tokyo earthquake of 1923, his travels to europe, his plane building career and his love life with his wife. In addidtion to all of that the movie has a lot of dream sequences. I think of all these aspects only the dream sequences seemed finished, everything else is just an unfinished product, cut short of what its suppost to be. Take his wifefor example: they spend so little time introducing his wife and his relationship to her that ultimately we, as the audience dont care about her and everything that happens to her. I mean, really , what do we know about his wife?... that she likes to paint and loves the main character... thats it. The parts the movie should have focused on (the plane building parts) where cut short and rushed to find time for unecessary "slice of life" elements half way through the film. This completely ruins the tone of the movie. The second major problem is the main character. He is too unemotional and boring. His life goal is to create planes, but did we ever see him get upset when one of his designes didnt work, or really happy when it does? Sure Japan has a more emotionless culture but at home when he is not under people there should have been at least a few scenes where we can see his frustration or joy. Nothing is seen from this character. He succeeds in so many parts that he as a character seems unrealisticly anyways( he is a genius plane designer, speaks multiple languages, is physically strong, etc). All characters around him have more emotion and feel more realisitc than this guy. The art of the movie was fine, it was the usual ghibli style but I find unusual that many scenes seemed kinda weird, either out of propotion or unrealisitic stuff happens (like the earthquake). The sounddesign was not so fine, the soundtrack itself was fine and the voiceacting as well, but often backgroundnoises were cut to such a minimum that the whole scene seemed unrealisitc. Its such a weird design choice. So now I go into a few minor things that bug me about this movie. First of all, at the start of the movie the main character defends a young kid, which kinda tells you he has some sense of justice, which then later was completely contradicted by the fact that he builds warplanes. Sure I can understand him for just building plane for the purpose of building planes, but activley helping a nation that kills millions of people in war (an he should know that, I mean he hangs around foreingers all the time) is at least worthy of discussion. In my opinion they should have given his sister this sense of justice and SHE should have confronted him with this dilemma... he then defends himself and we understand him as a character better. The way it is, the main character hardly ever talks about his point of view or his opinion about MANY things going on around him, which is weird since the movie is a biography about the dude. Second point: In the japanese version his wife yells "Nicu catchu" in the scene where he catches the umbrella. A very weird thing to say and it more reminds me of Japanese spoken in modern times than back then. Sure she has been around foreigners, but then she would have a better accent. Its just something I saw in no other movie depicting Japan before WW2, which is btw a lot. Third and last point: the ending is very unfulfilling and weird. The dialoge spoken in most of the dream sequences is utterly idiotic and shallow but the ending takes the cake. They always speak about Japan blowing up, the millions of life it will cost isnt even worth wrapping your head around, it seems. Then the Italien says something like: "Why would the pilots want to come back from war anyways?"... I dont know, maybe to live their lifes? It seems like the dreamsequences wanted to be profound and symbolic but it came around as more shallow and idiotic in my opinion. So in gerneral: This movie was terrible. If it wasn’t for the sudden inclusion of slice of life romance half way through and the idiotic ending I could have accepted it as a decent shallow movie about an emotionless character building planes. The movie would have been pretty boring for everyone not interested into planes or technology in general but it would have been a nice watch for me. Now the only thing that makes this movie watchable was the artstyle and maybe the premise, but you sure notice that the premise tricks you into such a flat storyline.

Ladies and gentlemen... This is it. For over 35 years, Hayao Miyazaki crafted stories and worlds that felt more than just watching animated movies made in Japan but became an experience for audiences to be part of those worlds. Seriously, I love Hayao Myazaki's movies and say what you want about them being repetitive but goddamn, does his movies always bring me a smile on my face. I'll never forget the beauty of the trees and open fields from My Neighbor Totoro with it's giant furry Totoro flying on it's magical yoyo at night while the girls tag along for the ride, the atmospheric andspiritual world that Spirited Away was, the epic battle of man and nature from Princess Mononoke, the cartoony adventure of Lupin in The Castle Of Cagliostro and I will never forget the engaging world that Miyazaki crafted in Howl's Moving Castle ( That's right, I love Howl's Moving Castle, so bite me). When the news hit that The WInd Rises will be Miyazaki's last film, I did cry but understood his reasonings over this film being his last work since the man is getting old and he can't direct animated films forever. Hell, the man deserves a damn long rest cause he earned it and looking back on all the work he had to go through, it's no mystery why and I wouldn't mind if Goro Miyazaki took over directing and writing duties for his father on possible upcoming Studio Ghibli films. Released back in July 20 2013 in Japan, the film received huge critical acclaim while causing some controversy that I will later talk on the review. After getting out of the showing with a couple of my friends, we were breathless and we had no idea how we could describe the film on words but as for me, there was only one word that describes The Wind Rises. The Wind Rises is just... just... lovely. To be sincere, words are weak when describing the pure ambitious scope and scale that Miyazaki went with this. He takes old animation tricks that he mastered in the past and just expands on the limitless possibilities that hand-drawn animation can be capable off while giving his damn best into crating a wonderful story of dreams and ambitions and in the end, he pulls it off perfectly in the end. Mesmerizing, breathtaking and ambitious, The Wind Rises is Miyazaki's greatest achievement in his career and a fitting end to his legacy that he created all those years ago. The Wind Rises tells a fictionalized story of Jiro Horikoshi, an aircraft designer that created both the Mitsubishi A5M and the Mitsubishi A6M Zero aircrafts that were used by the Empire Of Japan during WW2 including on the assault on Pearl Harbor. In the film, it tells the story of Jiro's journey into becoming an aircraft designer because he loved planes and he was inspired by the dreams he had about Caproni (his full name his Giovanni Battista Caproni and he is a real life person that worked as an aircraft designer. aeronautical, civil and electrical engineer) and his fascination into creating planes because he wanted man to fly the skies but instead, men uses planes for war or their own selfish needs. Later on, we see Jiro working on crafting the best airfighters that he can come up with and while he had it's ups and downs, he still kept on going and in the end, he succeeded into making the best planes in his career, even it his creations were used for war in the end. Now, this is where a lot of people took a lot of criticism over the story in The Wind Rises like the inaccurate portrayal of Jiro, the romance between Jiro and Naoko that never happened in real life or the fact that our main character is a man who designed planes to be built as killing machines during WW2. To be honest, I would like to say that I barely cared if Miyazaki took historical liberties while making the movie because it is historical fiction and by that, I mean that it isn't supposed to be accurate to the real life Jiro Horikoshi cause this is his own unique take on the life of the famous aircraft designer while still respecting the hardships that the man went through. Look at films like Anonymous, Amadeus, Prince Of Egypt and Titanic. All those films I mentioned are historically inaccurate but they were still good movies because they understood the importance of that certain famous person and filmmakers do their best into making a film that deals with important people in our human history while taking liberties from the biography of certain real-life people. It's just a movie and people today should stop complaining on how filmmakers handle real life people because in the end, we all know that it isn't real and we will always have books that tell the actual true story of that certain real life person. I also didn't mind the romance subplot between Jiro and Naoko cause for me, those moments with Jiro and Naoko are my favorite moments throughout the entire film. I love their relationship on how they met or just how cute they play off each other. I won;t ruin it for you but man, Jiro and Naoko are cute couples together. Also, the main journey of Jiro himself was engaging and while it is inaccurate, you can see the hardships, effort and confidence that Jiro went through into making his planes powerful and strong despite his creations being used for war cause in WW2 in Japan, they used planes as weapons or to be designed as bombers. The animation in The Wind Rises is absolutely breathtaking. As if Studio Ghibli movies cannot look any better than this, Miyazaki went balls out on the animation and visual style on the film as the backgrounds look phenomenal, the sheer detail put into the design and colors of the planes (THOSE PLANES LOOK AMAZING IN ANIMATION FORM) or the wonderful atmosphere that the film portrays, The Wind Rises excels in the animation department and offering one of Ghibli's best artistic efforts ever put on an animated film. The animation shines even higher during the fantastical dream sequences that evokes an atmosphere that triggers emotions of happiness, calmness and dreadfulness that few animated films don't rely on. The music by Joe Hisaishi is, once again, pure musical bliss with powerful piano pieces and fantastic use of orchestral music that adds an extra layer of depth to an already wonderful journey of dreams and hardships. Since this is the last Miyazaki film, the English dub team had to make sure that they would be up for the task on making the best English dub version for The Wind Rises and surprise, the English dub is perfect in every way. Thanks to the wonderful effort of ADR director Gary Rydstrom, who directed the dubs for other Ghibli films like From Up On Poppy Hill and The Secret World Of Arrietty, and it's well chosen cast, the dub is now one of my favorite dubs I've ever had the privilege to listen to. Joseph Gordon Levitt is perfectly casted as Jiro as he delivers a strong performance that not only he proves that he is a great actor but that he can expand into different territories of performances aside from doing live-action projects. His lines and emotional deliveries are wonderfully executed and I can't wait to see Gordon tackle on more animated projects in the future. As for the other roles, Emily Blunt was beautifully casted as Naoko and adding a sense of tenderness and warmth into the role while Stanley Tucci was fantastic as Caproni and his Italian accent is spot on, Martin Short was hilarious as Kurokawa and all the other actors including William H. Macy, Elijah Wood, John Krasinski, Werner Herzog, Mae Whitman and Zach Callison were all wonderful in their roles. Hands down, the best English dub that Disney ever put on a Studio Ghibli film. The Wind Rises is a another masterpiece from the great Hayao Miyazaki himself and a farewell to one of Japan's greatest film animator and director of all time. There's not much else to say about the film but that you should go see it now cause it is one animated film like no other and it looks like we won't get another one quite like this. "The wind is rising. We must try to live" - Paul Valéry