May 8th 1-2-3: Hayao Miyazaki - From Manga To Film
1: From Manga To Film ( 4 minute read )
Off in the distance of a dusty, sand-filled landscape, beyond the heated haze you can see a girl in blue, calming a behemoth sized armored bug called an Ohm. Its many eyes are enraged and red, and while many would see it as an enemy to humanity, the girl does not. She alone can calm it, and care for it along with the rest of the Ohms. Her name, is Nausicaä .
It is 1980, and both Future Boy Conan and Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro had been completed and released. While Future Boy Conan wasn’t considered a huge hit, Lupin was a success.
Since the dawn of film, Filmmaking was centered around the idea of the director and his vision. Directors who had the eye to see, the individual style, and the influence to control and bring to life the most focused of filmic art. These directors were named, auteurs.
Hayao Miyazaki was yet considered to be an auteur, even after his first two films. He had a vision for Nausicaä, but not yet the status to be given the resources to bring to life the story on film the way he had wanted to.
So he started by making a manga instead.
“I wanted to make a film, but nobody would invest in it unless it had a built-in audience. So I drew the manga first. I didn’t want it to be just a storyboard—it had to stand on its own.” - Hayao Miyazaki
Japanese animation studios were only focused on a couple of stories: children’s stories or space operas with an emphasis on action. No one was looking for a more thoughtful, nature-focused, morally ambiguous story. So Hayao Miyazaki went searching and eventually found the Publisher, Tokuma Shoten. They agreed to work on a serialization of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind in their magazine, Animage.
There was only one condition, this was to be “just manga”, no film.
So Miyazaki agreed, and began work alone on bringing to life Nausicaä. In February of 1982, the serialization began.
It was a beautiful, richly detailed world along with themes and depth that was rarely seen in mangas at that time. It resonated with its readers, and little by little, readership grew.
Enter Toshio Suzuki. He was an editor at Animage, and saw how the readership continued to grow for this manga. Even though there was a condition of no films, he played a particularly important and crucial role in convincing the studio to take the leap with Miyazaki.
“We knew we were pushing something too big, too complicated. But Miyazaki had this aura—like if we didn’t do it, we’d regret it forever.” - Toshio Suzuki.
Miyazaki agreed, and was given a small budget of around $1 million USD, and an extremely tight production timeline of 9 months. The entire animation team was assembled from scratch, and production begun in mid-1983.
Mangas can continue for tens of volumes, but animation has limitations. With a team, budget, and timeline like Miyazaki was given, he decided the film could only cover the first two volumes of the ongoing manga. He would have to rewrite and condense the world if the film he hoped to make would have any chance at being made.
“It felt like trying to finish a sentence while still thinking of the grammar. But I had to try—because if I didn’t do it, who would?” - Hayao Miyazaki
With the help of Toshio Suzuki securing funding, Isao Takahata giving emotional and creative support, and Joe Hisaishi giving emotional weight to the film through his musical score, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was completed. The film premiered on March 11th, 1984.
It was a box office success.
It earned nearly $5 million, and received strong critical acclaim. People had been yearning for this change in animation, even with the philosophical overtones and themes.
This success led to the founding of Studio Ghibli in June 1985 by Miyazaki, Takahata, Suzuki, and Tokuma Shoten. Work would then begin on their next feature film, Laputa: Castle in the Sky.
Miyazaki was not done with Nausicaä however. The manga was still ongoing, and he had plenty of story left in him for this girl and world. He had a vision, and so he continued drawing and writing. This continued for a total of 12 years, with the final volume being completed in 1994. He said upon finishing the manga,
“I felt sorrow and relief. It had lived with me for so long, like a shadow.” - Hayao Miyazaki
While all of the Studio Ghibli films are powerful, and special films, Nausicaä will always hold a special place in my heart. Her tenacity mirrors Hayao Miyazaki’s, and her vision, his.
We oftentimes wait for the perfect path to be laid out for us in order to work on the vision we have received, and yet, like a mirage in the desert, it doesn’t exist. We can take a queue from Miyazaki, and start where we can. Forge your own path, and don’t be afraid to take risks.
There are many ways to bring your story to life, and they all require you taking action.
Don’t worry, there are people out there who will resonate with it.
2: Creative Prompts From Us (ex. Write a short story, a poem, a song, or draw a quick illustration of these! Let your imagination run free.)
I. What vision do you have that you have been holding out on making? Start bringing it to life today, even if it is just one pen stroke.
II. What kind of time constraint can you realistically add to your project? Constraints are good, they worked for Miyazaki when he brought the manga to film.
3: Inspirational Quotes From Hideo Kojima
I. “In the end, I am not telling people to be environmentalists. I am telling them to think. To feel something. That’s enough.”
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Miyazaki, quoted in Starting Point: 1979–1996
II. “I didn’t want to make a film where everything is resolved. Because in real life, nothing is really resolved.”
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Miyazaki, 1984 press conference for the film release
III. “I didn’t expect it to resonate with so many people. But perhaps we all long for a world where we live in balance with others and with the earth.”
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Miyazaki, on the film’s reception in an Asahi Shimbun interview, 1985
Thank you so much for reading!