When I was little, my parents used to watch old Studio Ghibli movies with me. We would watch classics like Howls moving castle, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Ponyo, Castle In The Sky, and many other good movies. Nausicaa of The valley of The Wind stuck out to me when I first watched it, I loved it all; the characters, the setting, the story. It had been awhile since I had watched it and for some reason I was thinking about. I was in my school library and I passed the graphic novel section when the name Nausicaa caught my eye. I had found the whole original manga of the movie. I immediately checked the first of seven books out and read vigorously.

Nausicaa of Valley of The Wind has a post apocalyptic setting where the whole world is thrown into chaos and everyone is forced to restart and lived on old technology, which creates memorable characters and conflicts in the book.  The main character, Nausicaa is shown to have a spiritual connection to everything that lives without knowing it. She becomes this protagonist that the reader gets attached to as they read more and more into the book. What makes this book keep the reader interested is how its use of characters isn’t all focused on the protagonist. Every character is unique and has their own story. I was engaged and I actually cared whether certain characters died or not. The antagonists weren’t generic bad guys and the mysterious story made me want to keep reading page after page after as it revealed little by little and then finally ending it with a fantastic finale.
What’s great about a manga like this is that it still makes you wonder even after you have finished it. When the manga was finished it left room to build a movie, which how I previously mentioned is how I found it.  The author Hayao Miyazaki has written many successful books and directed many successful movies.

Reading this book could open you up to a whole new genre, and is a must read.