Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (manga)

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Japanese: 風の谷のナウシカ, Hepburn: Kaze no Tani no Naushika) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hayao Miyazaki. Taking place on a post-apocalypticEarth ravaged by a toxic ecosystem, it tells the story of Nausicaä, the princess of the semi-autonomous Valley of the Wind, who becomes embroiled in a war between kingdoms while an environmental disaster threatens humankind.

Prior to creating Nausicaä, Miyazaki had worked as an animator for Toei Animation, Nippon Animation and Tokyo Movie Shinsha (TMS), the latter for whom he had directed his feature directorial debut, The Castle of Cagliostro (1979). After working on an aborted film adaptation of Richard Corben's comic book Rowlf for TMS, he agreed to create a manga series for Tokuma Shoten's monthly magazine Animage, initially on the condition that it would not be adapted into a film. The development of Nausicaä was influenced by the Japanese Heian period tale "The Lady who Loved Insects", a similarly named character from Homer's epic poem Odyssey, and the Minamata Bay mercury pollution incident. The setting and visual style of the manga was heavily influenced by the works of Mœbius, such as Arzach. It was serialized intermittently in Animage from February 1982 to March 1994 and the individual chapters were collected and published by Tokuma Shoten in seven tankōbon volumes. It was serialized with an English translation in North America by Viz Media from 1988 to 1996 as a series of 27 comic book issues, and has been published in collected form multiple times.

Since its initial serialization, Nausicaä has received widespread acclaim for its characters, themes, and artwork. It achieved commercial success, particularly in Japan, where the series has more than 17 million copies in circulation. The manga and its 1984 film adaptation, written and directed by Miyazaki and released following the serialization of the manga's first sixteen chapters, also received universal acclaim from critics and audiences. The manga and film are credited as the catalysts for the founding of Studio Ghibli, the animation studio for which Miyazaki created several of his most recognized works.