Is the Wind Still Rising?: The Wind Rises Re-Review

Greetings, people!  Today marks the first anniversary of Hanime on Anime, and the beginning of the Miyazaki May event.  As promised, I will be revisiting the first anime I reviewed for the site and be giving a fresh new review on it.  Kicking off Miyazaki May will be Miyazaki’s final work before his retirement.  It’s a work that I entitled in my first review as “Miyazaki’s Farewell.”  Though Miyazaki may be out of the anime business, his legacy certainly won’t be, and neither will this film.  So enough talk and let’s get to my review on “Miyazaki’s Farewell” masterpiece, The Wind Rises.

Since this is a re-review on a film and I already have a decent one available and see no reason to rewrite it, I will be using the synopsis from the first review:

“The Wind Rises is Studio Ghibli’s latest film that tells the story of Japanese engineer Jiro Horikoshi and his life, up until his creation of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero- one of the most well-known fighter planes in World War II.  As a young boy, Jiro has always dreamed of making planes.  He gets much of his inspiration and motivation from Italian engineer Giovanni Battista Caproni, whom he sees in his dreams throughout his life.  Much of the film by this point shows Jiro’s ventures in college and in the airplane manufacturing company he works for shortly after.  Eventually, he climbs the up the ranks and is put in charge of creating a fighter plane.  This fails, miserably.  After this, he decides to go to a resort for the summer to help clear his thoughts and get some spark back.  While at this resort, he meets-or should I say is reintroducedto- Naoko, the daughter of the resort owner.  Now I say reintroduced because Jiro met Naoko earlier on in the film as a young girl.  Anyways, by the end of the summer, he falls in love with her and proposes to her.   It is here that Naoko tells Jiro that she has tuberculosis and asks to postpone the wedding until she can get better.  Jiro is very nice and understanding (unlike a lot of guys these days.  T_T) and agrees to wait.  Unfortunately, this becomes a problem when Naoko gets worse.  Eventually, the two wed despite the fact that Jiro is working on a major project-which later becomes the Zero- and is in hiding from the Japanese authorities and Naoko’s health continues to deteriorate.  Jiro eventually finishes the project and the Zero completes a successful test flight, but Naoko leaves.  At the end of the film, Jiro joins Caproni, looking back on the Zero project and its contribution to World War II.”

The last time I reviewed The Wind Rises a year ago, I gave it a five out of a five star rating.  After seeing the film one year later, I definitely have some new opinions on it.  But one thing has not changed, that five star rating; after one year of seeing the film, I still give The Wind Rises a five out of a five star rating!  What can I say?  Studio Ghibli films are definitely the crème de la crème of the anime world, and this movie is no exception.  With that said, animation and story are fantastic.  And let’s not forget, the music is also a treat to listen to.  Written by Studio Ghibli’s go-to music man Joe Hisaishi, it always is.  I don’t think there’s much more that I could say there.

Now granted, after watching the movie again, I did find some other problems-aside from a sad ending.  While watching the film, I couldn’t help but wonder if the sound effects in the film were made by Mel Blanc.  Seriously, I could literally hear a man’s voice when plane engines started or when the earthquake hit Tokyo at the beginning of the film.  That could’ve been a little better.  Also, I felt that the time jumps that happened throughout the film were very unannounced.  This made the plot a little hard to follow and made me wonder what point I was in the movie.  Still, despite these issues, this Miyazaki classic is not to be missed!

After seeing this film a second time, I can certainly say it was not a disappointment.  Miyazaki’s last film was definitely a masterpiece, and it certainly goes down in history as one of Miyazaki’s greats.  The film is available on DVD wherever anime is sold.  I don’t think I can really say if it’s streaming online, but I certainly recommend buying the film.  Trust me, it’s definitely worth the money.  Anyways, that’s all I have for this post.  Be sure to stay tuned for more because next week will continue with part two of Miyazaki May.

-Hanime on Anime

Checkout the original review here!: Miyazaki's Farewell: The Wind Rises

P.S.: Be sure to hug your mom and tell her you love her because it is Mother’s Day.  Happy Mother’s Day! J