DGFischer

The Wind Rises is a depiction of the life of Jiro Horikoshi, his dreams, his genius, his courage, his vision of his nation rising from the ashes of war, only to find that it would be pushed back into destruction by those who would exploit his engineering achievements.  And, oh, yes, one more important theme.  The thought that love overcomes a sea of misery.

It is a story of Japan in between the world wars  ... impoverished, wracked by social and financial insecurity.  Growing up in these times, Jiro is consumed with a love for flight, but his near-sightedness prevents him from being a pilot.  The first twist in the plot was the first of a handful of fantastic encounters with Count Caproni, an Italian aviator.  The count's encouragement prompts Jiro to pursue a career in aerodynamics.  It is on the way to college when he saves the life of a young girl, Naoko Satomi, Jiro's future bride and tragic love.

On his graduation, Jiro comes to Tokyo to work at a struggling company ... Mitsubishi.  He needs to transcend the wood and nails concept of building aircraft.  But his first designs fail due to the stresses flight would have on such weak materials.  He is sent to Germany to study the engineering skills of Hugo Junkers, whose massive all-metal aircraft has left Japan decades behind in development.  Dodging secret agents, Jiro returns with new inspiration to design the fighter plane A5M Zero.  Jiro's progress is accelerated by Japan's ambitious military industrial complex.  Jiro's importance in the development of the Zero forces the young genius to go into hiding as he works through the last stages of what would create a swift, easily maneuverable aircraft ... doomed to be the fiercest fighter plane of WWII.

The music was awesome, a parade of masterfully orchestrated short pieces which define the weariness of Japan struggling after WWI, the majesty of flight, the grit and determination of Jiro and his fellow engineers honing their craft to produce the technology which would pull Japan out of its industrial lethargy.  The animation was solid with scenes of dark rushing toward scenes of brightness, interweaving the turmoil of the twenties and thirties as Japanese banks fail, lines of the unemployed search for the elusive opportunity.  Masterfully rendered.

The strength of this movie is centered on its sorrow being overcome by the love of Jiro’s life encouraging Jiro to live on (Horikoshi will do so, until 1982).  So gripping was that double poignancy of JIro's short love affair with the tuberculosis victim Naoko and the realization that his pristine aviation creation the A6M Zero would be finally obliterated by 1945.  This is Hayao Miyazaki at his best story-telling.  The Wind Rises was slated to be Miyazaki's last, but his post-retirement How Do You Live? might give us one last blaze of anime glory.