Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is a manga by Hayao Miyazaki that ran off and on in Animage magazine from February, 1982 to March, 1994 and collected in seven volumes. A theatrical anime based on the first two volumes and directed by Miyazaki was released in March, 1984. The manga contains several elements that were used in Eva including:

The great disasters of each story (Nausicaa’s Seven Days of Fire and Eva’s Second/Third Impact) were the result of the misuse of technology. Both stories have humanity facing extinction with the cause, in Nausicaa’s case being a high percentage of children dying early (in the manga, Nausicaa herself had ten other siblings who did not make it to adulthood). This is mirrored in the world of NGE as described by Anno in his July, 1995 confession where he states that the number of children in that world is very few.

As later seen in Eva, the world in Nausicaa before the Seven Days of Fire had an extensive genetic engineering capability where one of the manga’s characters states that the people “remolded life forms like clay.” This included not only major changes to existing life forms (horses were eventually turned from mammals to birds) to creating new life forms called Heedra that are practically immortal to major adjustments to the human body to prolong life (Nausicaa finds out that humans were genetically modified to be able to survive despite all the pollution on the planet).

The mother of Princess Kushina appears to be the inspiration for Asuka’s mother Kyoko. Like Kyoko, Kushina’s mother has been driven insane where she believes a child’s doll is her daughter while not being able to recognize her real daughter.

The serum of the Ohmu, which is considered legendary of some of the manga’s characters, has many of the same properties that would be found in LCL, allowing people to breathe the poisonous air of the Sea of Corruption without the need for masks.

In both the manga and the movie, Nausicaa is seen as someone with a positive outlook on life and she has many attributes that are also found in Miyazaki’s later heroines. However, there is point in the manga where Nausicaa succumbs to despair and nihilism calling human beings “the ugliest of all creatures” for the harm they did to the planet and trying to die with the Ohmu as they sacrifice themselves to stop a mutant strain of mold from destroying everything in sight. This attitude and wish for death is very similar to that o several characters in Eva, especially Shinji and Asuka.

Another aspect that the creators of Eva took from Nausicaa is the relationship between the main character and her mother. Nausicaa’s mother is dead before even the story begins so we have to rely on what Nauscicaa says of her. She says that her mother was kind; but she had, as Nausicaa put it, “the face of a stranger,” and that her mother would often stare out of the window for long periods of time not noticing her daughter. Nausicaa also states that the reason for her mother’s behavior was that the ten other children she bore who later died due to absorbing all the toxins in her body. Nausicaa concluded in the end that her mother never loved her Nausicaa’s relationship with her mother is very similar to several of the characters and their parents.

In the final volume of the manga, Nausicaa discovers that the Seven Days of Fire was intentionally set off to help purify the world and that the Sea of Corruption was designed to remove toxins from the ground and dispose of them over a period of millennia. This process would lead to a reborn Earth with a human population genetically engineered to be peaceful and nonviolent. The Keeper of the Crypt of Shuwa (an AI housed in an organic computer) claims that is was the only way to save humanity. It says, “Have you ever tried to imagine the pain and despair that filled the world in those days... Poisoned air. Punishing sunlight. Parched Earth. New illnesses coming into being every day. Death was everywhere. All kinds of religions. All versions of justice. Every party with a different interest…we created a god to arbitrate [the God Warrior]. Our choices were limited.” A very similar reasoning is used by SEELE in their justification of Instrumentality. Nausicaa rejects this reasoning and destroys the computer saying that if the Earth wants humanity to survive, it will. Shinji’s decision to reject Instrumentality mirrors Nausicaa’s decision.

The God Warriors

Perhaps one of the most poignant similarities is the fact that the God Warriors, the human-created monsters that destroyed the world in the Seven Days of Fire, was one of the inspirations for the Evangelions themselves. Both are biomechanical having both an artificial skeletal frame and organic material that grows around it to give it its shape. The God Warriors, like the Evas, are capable of independent thought and action and even possessing a soul. Both seem to have a sense of special purpose with the God Warrior in Nausicaa declaring itself an arbitrator of the human race. Both can harness massive amounts of energy and the God Warrior can even sprouts wings of light similar to Unit 01 in EoE. The God Warrior also has what might be considered a forerunner to the AT Field: an effect when it flies that is described by Yupa as "twisting space."

Movie

The theatrical anime was released on March 4, 1984 with the story based roughly on the first two volumes of the manga along with some original elements. While the events of the movie that corresponds to events in the manga have already been discussed above and original material providing nothing new, it is the production of the movie that warrants our attention because Nausicaa is one of the anime where Hideki Anno got his start in animation. According to the “Birth Story of Studio Ghibli” featurette that’s included in the North American DVD release of the movie; by late 1983, production on the movie was falling behind schedule because of Miyazaki’s demanding standards. In order to catch up, an ad was placed in Animage magazine to recruit more animators. Traveling to Tokyo to answer the ad; Anno went to the animation studio, knocked on Miyazaki’s door, and he handed Miyazaki a storyboard he created. Impressed by his work, Miyazaki gave Anno the job of animating the God Warrior. Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki states in the featurette that Miyazaki considered the God Warrior scene at the climax of the film to be one of the movie’s key scenes and that it would be extremely difficult to animate in order to show the audience something they have never seen before. Suzuki goes on to say that Miyazaki, “wanted something with impact. Very detailed with a unique sense of movement.” The way Anno animated the God Warrior, along with the movement of tanks and the massive explosions seen in the movie impressed many including Miyazaki.

Anno & Nausicaa

It is clear that since, Nausicaa, the movie as well as Miyazaki’s other works have influenced Anno since he began directing (see the articles on My Neighbor Totoro and Visual Motif: Blue Octahedrons (Nadia, Laputa and 2001) for further information). Since his time with Miyazaki, Anno has been known to criticize Studio Ghibli’s later works saying that they don’t have “’blood’ that is surely flowing through everyone,” according to an essay he wrote in the Ghibli Ippai Liner Notes. There have even been claims such as in the Evangelion Kaibunsho that Miyazaki and Anno actually hate each other, though this has been refuted. However, it is important to note that in the same essay mentioned above , Anno does say that he considers Miyazaki along with Ichirou Itano to be his teachers, not only on the technical aspects of animation, but also on how to be a filmmaker. Anno says that, “[m]y posture on filmmaking is nothing more than an attempt to hang on to the things I learned from the two of them. So while there is probably some philosophical disagreement between the two in regards to filmmaking, it is clear that working on Nausicaa did influence him later on as a director.

By the way,
Mr. Miyazaki Hayao and Mr. Itano Ichirou are those I consider my teachers.
I brag and say that I'm probbaly the only one in the world with that
combination.
I was greatly influenced, not just in the technical points of the animation
craft, but in the mental portion of filmmaking.
My posture on filmmaking is nothing more than an attempt to hang on to the
things I learned from the two of them.
I have nothing but words of gratitude for both of them.

>The great disasters of each story (Nausicaa’s Seven Days of Fire and Eva’s Second/Third Impact) were the result of the misuse of technology. Both stories have humanity facing extinction with the cause, in Nausicaa’s case being a high percentage of children dying early (in the manga, Nausicaa herself had ten other siblings who did not make it to adulthood). This is mirrored in the world of NGE as described by Anno in his July, 1995 confession where he states that the number of children in that world is very few.

These connections are too tenuous.

In many ways Neon Genesis Evangelion is social criticism and commentary beyond the "otakudom" problem that's commonly singled out. NGE's world could be characterized as "Japan in 1995 if there was giant robots running around". This antifuturism is reflected in its retrodesigns etc. It's obvious that there are connections between WWII and Second Impact and they can be easily made. Thus Nausicaä is not needed.

Same holds for dropping birth rates. Miyazaki has ecological and philosophical musings going on in background, in NGE it is once again example of "portrait of nation": there's no instory reason given for dropping birthrates. It just happens. This reflects Japan's dropping birth rates in those years (which are still dropping AFAIK). It most definetly isn't reference to Nausicaä.

>As later seen in Eva, the world in Nausicaa before the Seven Days of Fire had an extensive genetic engineering capability where one of the manga’s characters states that the people “remolded life forms like clay.” This included not only major changes to existing life forms (horses were eventually turned from mammals to birds) to creating new life forms called Heedra that are practically immortal to major adjustments to the human body to prolong life (Nausicaa finds out that humans were genetically modified to be able to survive despite all the pollution on the planet).

Not necessarily direct influence though correlations are there.

>The serum of the Ohmu, which is considered legendary of some of the manga’s characters, has many of the same properties that would be found in LCL, allowing people to breathe the poisonous air of the Sea of Corruption without the need for masks.

Too generic. Besides, I've always thought LCL had something to do with Mazinger Zesque "cockpit filled in fluid" thing... whatever

>In both the manga and the movie, Nausicaa is seen as someone with a positive outlook on life and she has many attributes that are also found in Miyazaki’s later heroines. However, there is point in the manga where Nausicaa succumbs to despair and nihilism calling human beings “the ugliest of all creatures” for the harm they did to the planet and trying to die with the Ohmu as they sacrifice themselves to stop a mutant strain of mold from destroying everything in sight. This attitude and wish for death is very similar to that o several characters in Eva, especially Shinji and Asuka.

Now now, let's not try to simplify perhaps most complex (who made loads of morally ambigious decisions towards end) messiah figure in all fiction into good natured girl who had a bad day.

Anyway, this is WAY too general to be direct influence.

>Another aspect that the creators of Eva took from Nausicaa is the relationship between the main character and her mother. Nausicaa’s mother is dead before even the story begins so we have to rely on what Nauscicaa says of her. She says that her mother was kind; but she had, as Nausicaa put it, “the face of a stranger,” and that her mother would often stare out of the window for long periods of time not noticing her daughter. Nausicaa also states that the reason for her mother’s behavior was that the ten other children she bore who later died due to absorbing all the toxins in her body. Nausicaa concluded in the end that her mother never loved her Nausicaa’s relationship with her mother is very similar to several of the characters and their parents.

Absolutely. But I think this is case of "correlation does not imply causality" in the end.

>This process would lead to a reborn Earth with a human population genetically engineered to be peaceful and nonviolent. The Keeper of the Crypt of Shuwa (an AI housed in an organic computer) claims that is was the only way to save humanity. It says, “Have you ever tried to imagine the pain and despair that filled the world in those days... Poisoned air. Punishing sunlight. Parched Earth. New illnesses coming into being every day. Death was everywhere. All kinds of religions. All versions of justice. Every party with a different interest…we created a god to arbitrate [the God Warrior]. Our choices were limited.” A very similar reasoning is used by SEELE in their justification of Instrumentality. Nausicaa rejects this reasoning and destroys the computer saying that if the Earth wants humanity to survive, it will. Shinji’s decision to reject Instrumentality mirrors Nausicaa’s decision.

Apart from mankind playing God and arrogantly trying to control all life for sake of some future utopia there are too many philosophical etc. differences in themes to claim direct influence.

I'm not saying Nausicaä's philosophy and thematical depths didn't have influence on Anno: in fact I'd claim it had big impact on NGE's thematics but that's too broad subject for this topic.

But in any case you cannot build too far going connections between mass hivemind and Lord of Shuwa's plans apart from the whole "denying reality and arrogantly trying to build utopia" thing.

This is a bit off-topic IMO but anyway Anno and Miyazaki are great friends and respect each other very much. Anno's criticism of Ghibli took place right before Mononoke came out: I'd be interested to see if Anno would whine about same things after seeing that film, heh. I doubt it.

Xard wrote:Too generic. Besides, I've always thought LCL had something to do with Mazinger Zesque "cockpit filled in fluid" thing... whatever

Sailor Star Dust wrote:The short manga is "The con where anime died" and IIRC, Xard has a copy.

ObsessiveMathsFreak wrote:I believe you're looking for The Crimson Suset of Anime.

ObsessiveMathsFreak wrote:I believe you're looking for The Crimson Suset of Anime.

Dr. Nick wrote:For example, I consider my own Ideon entry to be already stretching those boundaries, and I've thought about streamlining it just a bit.

Truth to be told, I've only seen the movie and I haven't read the manga, but Xard's editing suggestions seem rather sane to me. Not knowing the source material but based on my experiences about animu villain motivations, the Keeper/Seele connection indeed appears rather generic, so at least more hedging would need to be added there. You could mention it by way of Xard's trope summary phrase or something similar.

The part about God Soldiers is quite solid. I know Reihu will want to mention the eye color similarity too, so you can put that in pre-emptively.

I believe you're looking for The Crimson Suset of Anime.