Nausicaä – On my Ohmu

Full transcript of Nausicaä – On my Ohmu.

0:00KT: Skull, friends and lovers. Welcome back to the For Your Reference podcast. We are now at the fourth course of the Reference Degustation. Mhmm. And what a delicious time it is. Just to give a quick recap, we started with a ever so palatable Spirited Away. We moved on to a crackling Porco Rosso episode. And earlier this week, we dived into some more complex sort of themes and, you know, tasting sort of notes. We had Princess Mononoke, and today, we are diving into

0:34KT: well, you're going to see it. We're going to go to Nausicaa, so it's very exciting. And we finish off with a nice little dessert of Howl's Moving Castle next week. So hopefully, you guys, you are enjoying our month long celebration and Miyazaki masterpieces. Let's take it away. Hey, friends and lovers. Welcome back to For Your Reference. You've got your host, KT.

0:34Oti: And Oti.

0:34KT: And grab your skin colored panties, but keep your bug spray at home because today, we are covering otherwise known as Valley

1:34Oti: of the Wind.

1:35KT: Or as I saw, upskirt of the wind. Thank you guys so much for joining us along the journey. If you are nasty and you joined us on the fourth course of this degustation, welcome, welcome, welcome to For Your Reference. If you followed us along the way or you've listened to quite a few of our episodes, we fucking love you guys. Mhmm. But if you have followed us along the way, we are covering sort of tasting notes, tangible sort of themes that Miyazaki

2:09KT: is known for. So we are going to frame the episode after we go through the stats in regards to the themes. So grab yourself a snack, grab yourself a drink, none of the bug sort of variety, and we can get straight into the movie, Oti.

2:09Oti: Oh, yeah.

2:09KT: Again, these are Miyazaki sort of masterpieces. It's the first kind of official film coming out from the powerhouse of Miyazaki as well as Joe Hisaishi. He has composed the music throughout this degustation and we have all been most welcome. This film came out in March 1984.

2:46KT: The budget was estimated to be 1,000,000 US dollars and the worldwide gross was 2,300,000.

2:54Oti: That's a neat return.

2:56KT: Yeah, but it's not a lot, is it? Considering at the time. Considering at the time, thank you. Do you want some time to pull both of your glasses up Oti?

2:56Oti: They're already all the way up.

2:56KT: Your Japanese sub and your English dub. In regards to the cast, we have Sumi Shimamoto who plays Nausicaa. She also played Toki in Princess Mononoke. We also have Sakakibara Yoshiko playing Kushana. For Lord Yupa, we have Naya Goro. And for Asbel, we have Matsuda Yoji, who if you've listened to last week or earlier this week,

3:33KT: plays Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke. He loves a strong lady. And then we have, you know, quite a lot of characters that fill the bill for this film. So let's dive into the themes, Oti. We've covered quite a lot and I think it's quite nice. It's stitched together our viewing experience as well. Yeah. So the first theme that we have is planes slash flying. Again, if this is the first time you're listening to the degustation, Miyazaki's father built parts for planes. So he's quite fond of it and also just the innovation of putting humans in the air.

4:09Oti: And we can see that abundantly in this movie. Flying is pretty much their main mode of transport in this sort of post apocalyptic sort of world. Yeah, so it's quite clear that there's definitely a lot for airplanes in this and it being his first sort of official movie, we see it in droves.

4:35KT: And you also have her on her little glider. This is also based on the manga by Miyazaki and there was talks of having her on like a nimbus sort of cloud like Goku. Oh. Speaking of other animes, I really want to ship Nausicaa and Shino from Naruto because Shino be getting no love in Naruto. No. No, actually. Yeah. Exactly. Like, I feel like Nausicaa is the only one that would ever understand his affinity with bugs.

5:07Oti: Oh, Shino Shino would pretty much rule the entire three kingdoms.

5:13KT: You know know how there's that like rainforest in the Amazons where they talk about like fish swimming up your urethras?

5:17Oti: Okay. I trust that you got this information from a reputable source. Yeah, from kt.org.

5:25KT: Do you think Shino goes there for holidays?

5:28Oti: I see why not, know, a deal formed by bugs.

5:32KT: Wow, you really took it there, didn't you sir? This film is probably for all ages but we are not so make sure you check your explicit tag next time, friends and lovers. No, this film is quite dark. It's not that it's It's one of the darker ones, yes. Yeah, it's definitely not Kiki's Delivery Service or Totoro so. Yeah, well, you know what I mean? Like people are probably just minding their own business thinking they're going to have a quaint time and then For Your Reference just barges all in your holes.

6:05Oti: There's more quainter time. Right?

6:08KT: So there's definitely planes used by good and evil if that's how you wanna verse it but yes that's definitely two ticks. The next theme that we have that is very tangible in Miyazaki films is anti war. Oh, yeah.

6:25Oti: Anti war is definitely covered in this because you could see the two kingdoms that are going at it. Yep. They're all discussing. And the irony is they're all discussing about how they want to fight the sea of decay. Uh-huh. But we don't really get to see that because they're only focused on each other, fighting against each other, and that's Tolmekia and Pejite. And you could see that the third kingdom in Valley of the Wind is more of a sort of grounded in humanity

6:53Oti: sort of pacifist sort of community where

6:53KT: Oh, I don't know about pacifists.

6:53Oti: I'd say that. I'd say that. You have Lord you have Yupa who's super talented and skillful.

7:06KT: Oh, mate. He was the John Wick of the Nausicaa world. He is.

7:10Oti: He is. But even him, he he he stops Nausicaa from going full rage mode when when the father was killed to the extent of even blocking a a sword using his hands. Mhmm. It just shows you, like and he said himself, the violence will only take you so far, and it's not the only way to deal with stuff. So I would say Valley Of The Wind is definitely more leaning towards the pacifism sort of side.

7:35KT: And the interesting sort of fact that you have here is many of the pieces of technology that the Tolmekians use bear a passing visual sort of resemblance to German technology from World War two. So I think that was quite an interesting sort of parallel. You know, we talk about in Miyazaki films, there aren't really times and places that you can pinpoint aside from Porco Rosso. So this was also a little bit of a nod as well. Pacifist is a very interesting

8:07KT: sort of theme to go into because we talked about in the Spirited Away episode how Miyazaki, at least, maybe not all of Japan, but Miyazaki at least has that resonance with being one with nature and, you know, trying not to impact as much as you take. Right? So from that point of view, it's a very it's very different to the Western sort of

8:31KT: approach of this tree is here to build a house for me as opposed to a oneness. So I thought that was quite interesting. And and you pointed out a very good sort of conflict within the humans because even the humans were fighting with each other. Right? And even at some point, you have the Tolmekians and you also have the Pejites. They both wanted to use the giant warrior but I think it was more dangerous that the Pejites felt like they were doing it for a good cause.

9:00KT: It always gets it always gets a bit wiry when people use their sense of justice. Right? And that's why sometimes it's good to not have, you know, that one button that will destroy everything because as much as you have good people that will use it for good, it's it could very easily be a distorted sense of justice.

9:00Oti: Oh, for sure. For sure. Because whoever rules this god warrior pretty much rules the entire kingdoms.

9:00KT: Yeah. And it was very good to see the first pancake Attack on Titan.

9:36Oti: Oh, definitely. There was some close resemblance to those.

9:36KT: Did you think we were just some Ghibli pals? We just mentioned three animes within this tight little moment. Oti wants us to become an anime podcast so if you guys are interested, email us because that's where Oti lives, he doesn't live on the Twitter. No, no, no. We talked about it in quite a lot of our Miyazaki reference degustation episodes in regards to the katana sword that was sent to Weinstein's office with no cuts. That was unfortunately, tragically out of the result of them butchering

10:16KT: Nausicaa Valley of the Wind. They renamed it to Warriors of the Wind and they completely just lost the whole meaning of it. It would be interesting to watch what that was. And was it to any sort of effect? And I think it was very early in the time of translating international sort of content for American Western sort audiences. Yeah. So because because I don't get it, because it doesn't resonate with me, I'm just going to cut it.

10:44Oti: You even read the subtitles for this, I think it's it's quite clear how

10:49Oti: passionate he felt. Oh, yes. And you could see that the fact that this was actually his first sort of movie out there. Mhmm. Just how much it meant and it being butchered the way it was. It set a precedence at least a good precedence that Now for any of my bloody work, you won't touch it. Yeah. And and then moving forward from that, they learned very quickly to say, you're not cutting any fucking shit and it's literally just going to be, you know, translated.

11:16KT: The only things like we talked about in Spirited Away to just explain that it's a dragon. Yeah. Yeah. But pretty much keeping the essence of everything alive. I imagine it's a lot of environmental stuff that probably got cut. And as you can see at the start of the film, it actually has the WWF logo.

11:35Oti: Oh, not not not WWE, which used to be WWF.

11:40KT: Yeah. Vince McMahon is not involved.

11:43Oti: Yeah. We're not talking about the World Wrestling Federation.

11:46KT: But I would still like to lay the law in your candy ass.

11:49Oti: Bring it. I'm just holding two cans of beers in my hand and showing KT the finger.

11:49KT: And where are you gonna put that finger?

11:49Oti: Better find out.

11:49KT: In the most pleasurable of places, I hope.

12:00KT: Yeah. So that feeds in quite well to the environment sort of aspect. You know, we talked a lot about it. I really like that we're pairing together Princess Mononoke and also Nausicaa Valley of the Wind because they have quite a lot of parallels to them. I don't think it's a one trick pony. I don't think it's replicating the same sort of story. But more often than not with his other films, these have a lot of parallels together.

12:27KT: And, you know, we can talk about that once we go through the themes. But in regards to the environment, the the the messaging of it, think, was very heavy handed in this film. Not not so much that they had many examples of environmentalism but more so the the vehicle in which it was it was conveyed in I suppose. Yeah. It did feel a bit

12:51Oti: adorable at times and I think it's more to do with the pacing and how he tried to sort of outline all the sort of issues.

13:03Oti: But it did feel a bit heavy handed to me and I think it's good that he moved from that sort of. We could see that from his later movies, his writing is quite massively progressed to from that and we can only be happy that even in his sort of early days, he was able to produce something like Nausicaa which isn't a horrible movie. It's a great first pancake.

13:03KT: Yeah, exactly. That's a Succession reference, go and watch Succession guys.

13:30KT: But yes, very interesting the themes that were introduced. Let's move on to the next theme we have because obviously environment is going to be something we talk throughout this whole discussion. Next theme or tasting note that we have is a female lead kids.

13:46Oti: Oh yeah, we have a lot of kids. Well, we can start with the lead who's Nausicaa who's all amazing.

13:54KT: Well, she's developed in some ways. Yes. Well, she's developing. So I think she's more like young adult as opposed to like a kid.

13:54Oti: She's still a kid.

13:54KT: Well, yeah, don't sexualize her. There were way too many upskirts for this. I think to Tarantino's toes, I I raise you a Miyazaki upskirt. I'm going to get into if we ever get big enough, that is the comment that's going to cancel us, Oti.

14:23Oti: But you could tell like, Nausicaa is strong. She's one with the land and you could tell how much she cares about the environment. Oh, yes. And how she just connects with nature. She's quite different from all the other sort of protagonists in other movies.

14:43KT: You wanna do the Bollywood version?

14:43Oti: No. It's alright. I'll

14:47Oti: spare you this time. Listen to a Mononoke episode if you wanna understand that reference. But I feel like this is one of the first characters I've seen for a Miyazaki movie where she put herself in harm's way.

15:02KT: Yes. Like, she wholly sacrificed herself. She wholly sacrificed herself for the greater good. Because that was not a San would not have done that. Yeah. San. She gave up on the humans.

15:14Oti: I started to be like, piss right off.

15:18KT: But yeah. She'll be like helping them die. How

15:22Oti: how how maturity level and just how pure love for the environment and for her people is so deep. It runs so deep. And the fact that she gave herself up to save everyone just shows the kind of kind of character she is.

15:22KT: Exactly. 100%. And we'll definitely go into more detail about

15:43KT: Nausicaa. But, yeah, female lead, I do feel like she's more in the young adult in regards to the obviously, you have kids like Chihiro. She's a full on kid. And then you have Marco from Porco Rosso and he's an adult. So I think she kind of fits in between the two and so is San and so is Ashitaka. And I think that also reflects the complexity of the themes that get explored as well. Oh, yeah. So that's quite interesting, let's move on to the next theme there's the ambiguity between good and evil.

16:13Oti: If we were to look at it in terms of that I think yes they covered it a bit in terms of the conflict between the two kingdoms in particular their leader is it the Tolmekians? Tolmekia and so you have Kushana. Yeah. Kushana. She knows her orders of what she has to do on the ground.

16:31Oti: And yeah, she she went straight for it. She she she does go straight for it but she doesn't she has her own mind and instincts not to follow them completely to the ladder because we see some deviations in what she was ordered to do and what she does on the ground. Mhmm. She stops the car away from firing when she sees the plane landing and she goes to see the warning. She makes this sort of decisions where your typical sort of bad person wouldn't make. She

17:01Oti: spares Nausicaa and instead of just killing her when they captured the village, she was like, no, we'll take a prisoner because she saw something else in her or something different. So I'd say she represents the sort of there's no clear distinction between good and bad where she's sort of leaning towards each side, but she has her own mind. And at the end of it, I think it's one of the decisions that she makes that makes it possible for Nausicaa to even rescue everyone at the end.

17:32KT: I see that you have this attraction for women that appear to have ulterior motives, but deep down, they're really good inside.

17:32Oti: Yeah. Along with you, mate.

17:32KT: I was actually talking about Lady Eboshi, but you're most welcome, Oti. Lady Eboshi is great. The banner. You are holding the Eboshi banner. Yeah. Because You're like one of the lepers. You're just, like, holding the banner.

17:54KT: And don't think that's not one of our role plays on a Friday night. Yeah. But you could tell you could actually compare Lady Eboshi and Kushana right now. Oh, yeah. Definitely. There's definitely parallels. And I know we'll continue to do that in the episode, and there's nothing wrong with that as well. Yeah. I do think there wasn't as much ambiguity in regards to Nausicaa compared to his other sort of films. Like, if you have like Yubaba, for example,

18:22KT: she was very mustache twirling, but then you also had Zeniba, the sister. And she, you know, she appeared evil, first of all, and then she became very nurturing and very loving. I think this film was not so much heavy handed but it didn't have as much nuance in regards to it was quite clear on these people are evil and anyone that's using animals or nature for their benefit is evil. Again, probably certifying with the WWF logo but I think it's quite interesting because, you know, there's I guess, you know, to your point with Kushana,

19:01KT: there's always a point of return, you know, even if we skip to just later on in the film, you have the two men that are carrying that poor little baby around and he's like, it's too late. Everything's already in motion. Let's just keep going. You know what I mean? And one of the key messages at least that I found was it's never too late. Like, there's a lot of damage that's been done, but it's never too late. So I think that was done quite well.

19:27KT: Not as well as the other films, but again, like I said in Porco Rosso, never ask me to rank these films. I will not, but it's not as good as the others, but I will not. The next theme that we have that sadly I'm not even sure if we saw it was

19:45KT: Miyazaki has an affinity for pigs and he's even known to illustrate himself as a pig. Did we get that in this film? No, we did not but the Ohmu could look like a pig if he squinted long and hard enough. Would you wanna have like own belly? Like pork belly?

20:04Oti: Yeah, they look quite crispy.

20:06KT: Yeah, because they came crispy out of the box, no batteries included. Oh, feel I'm really sad now. Yeah. I feel like a pig has been in all of them. Yeah. Actually, yeah. A pig has been in every movie we've covered. So let's move on to the last theme, which is whimsical slash fantasy.

20:26Oti: Oh, I would say pass. This felt a lot grounded in reality than most of his movies. A lot more grounded than his other films. Yes. Yeah. There's nothing I watched this thinking this is all a bit too fantastical or anything like that which is no credit because it's I think it's more geared towards the problems that we face currently with environmental issues and climate change and stuff like that. So yeah, I'd say it's a pass for that theme. Yeah.

20:59KT: In some ways, I guess it depends on how we wanna define whimsical slash fantasy and it's our fucking podcast. So if we wanna change the definition, you damn as hell well, yes, we're going to. Right? Would you categorize as whimsical? Well, what I would introduce to you, professor Oti, is we have lots of symbols in this film because we don't have all of these Ohmu that are, you know, following us around, at least I hope not, at least we're in for like a hentai sort of situation but that was used as a vehicle

21:35KT: for mother nature at least I understand it to be that way. So in that sense, it is kind of fantasy.

21:42Oti: But the Ohmu are there only because of what has been happened to the environment to the skin They're care like guardians.

21:42KT: Yeah. But that's what I mean. Like, that's not life.

21:42Oti: Well, they're thinking more I was thinking more they were there initially as some sort of human manipulative or testing and shit like that.

21:42KT: They were like cane toads?

21:42Oti: Yeah. And then later on, think it's just more to balance out the sort of sea of decay and to keep the environment healthier and cleaner.

22:09KT: But that's what I mean. I feel like those were vehicles to explain that so they're not necessarily in reality. No, they're not in reality. There was a grounded message but the vehicles in order to explain that weren't necessarily real. True,

22:26Oti: there's nothing like an old creature existing out there but if that's the stretch of whimsical, I'd say no.

22:32KT: No. Oh yeah. Because there's definitely films that do it way more. Yeah. So

22:38Oti: it's just an imaginative creature which does not categorize whimsical or fanciful.

22:42KT: Not in our household? No. Not in our household indeed. While we're talking about the Ohm, so Ohmu means king of insects in Japanese and it's short for Ohmushi, which means big slash great insect. On my Ohmu. Once again. Crack out that vintage wine and talk about Miyazaki and there's going to be singing, my loves. Oh, yeah. We we watched the skit with A Black Lady Sketch Show. A Black Lady Sketch Show. Thank you. Get some exposure, motherfuckers.

23:21KT: Thank you. That was great. That was great. Let's take some time here. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you being Studio Ghibli consumers. Miyazaki masterpiece consumers. We do you think we'll ever cover Black Lady Sketch Show or like after a few seasons?

23:41Oti: Oh, it'll be interesting to do like a wrap up of A Black Lady Sketch Show and the Netflix Astronomy Club. But I I I wanna definitely do Key and Peele first. Yeah. Key and Peele would stand on its own. I'm just meaning rolling up Astronomy Club and A Black Lady Sketch Show because I feel like there's a lot of parallel sort of things we could cover with that rather than fully focusing on one which would probably make a twenty minute episode, we could roll it all up and just go with it.

23:41KT: Why? Why do they only get twenty minutes?

24:07KT: You know why. Hey, man. I'm not tackling that. We have enough complexity in this menu today. But the only thing I wanted to say is when it comes to sketch shows, it's like how I feel about sketch shows is it can be hit and miss. So even if I don't necessarily love it, it doesn't mean it's not a great show.

24:30Oti: Sketches are obviously much shorter than a movie like we're supposed to be talking about. So the buy in needs to be there from the off. Yeah. There needs to be a band. Like, and Peele did an amazing job Oh, yes. For their five, six seasons, whatever they had. Mhmm. But, yeah, it's they set a really high bar, especially after things like the Chappelle's Show. Did you put the pussy on the chain wax?

24:57KT: Bitch. Let's get back to the show, Oti. But, you know, wherever we can recommend or, you know, make you guys aware of things that you could be watching, it is most welcome in the For Your Reference household. But that was a very interesting sort of theme. So I guess according to professor Oti, it does not qualify. Oh, it doesn't. Whimsical slash fantasy just because relative to the rest of the films, not just the ones we're covering, but even others, it doesn't really compare. Yeah. Which is fine. So let's talk about the cinematography

25:35KT: and let's talk about the music.

25:37Oti: The music made me feel like I was in a disco in the eighties.

25:42KT: I felt like I've got the frizzy hair. I just needed to add some shoulder pads. Mhmm. And I'll meet you at the discotheque, Oti.

25:42Oti: Oh yeah, discotheque indeed.

25:42KT: Do you think With some hot pants. Warning, Black Mirror reference pending. Do you think if we were in San Junipero and we met through different decades that we would still find each other?

25:42Oti: Yeah. Because time is nonlinear and we'd find each other anywhere.

25:42KT: But I'm just saying if I was Nausicaa, I would not be looking for dick.

25:42Oti: Why? She has dick in Asbel.

26:12KT: Yeah. But I used my winger. It was very blue. Yeah? It was very blue. If you can if you contrast it with, you know, other Miyazaki sort of movies, it was very one tone in regards to the coloring. And in fact, the lack of color fidelity used in certain versions gave many people the impression that she did have an upskirt every time.

26:37Oti: Oh, yeah. Yeah. It it it was a bit too but, like, certain angles, you could see they made clear they made they made sure that they had a crease so that you could tell it's pants. So get your buffeted band out of the gutter. Hey.

26:54KT: Saw Asbel's upskirt, but it didn't stir me, sir.

27:00Oti: Maybe it was so blue because it's a blue movie. What does that mean? It's a bow chicky wow wow movie.

27:07KT: I don't understand what you're talking about.

27:10Oti: Mate, it's a porn. Blue movie is a porn. Where do you which decade did you grow up, mate?

27:18KT: Coo, poo. Really? Not red it's not red sort of movies?

27:26Oti: No. You're cooking. Like a red light special sort of thing? No. Blue movies. The days where you used to go and get, no. Let me rephrase that. The days where you'd hear people say they're going to rent a blue movie. So or buy a blue movie.

27:44KT: And you see see friends and lovers, everyone thinks I'm the deviant of this podcast, but Oti has got Oti has got some blue skeletons in the closet apparently. Do you wanna talk a bit about the well, do you how did you feel about the music with the film?

28:04Oti: I think this is one of the movies where I didn't really like the score that much. Uh-huh. Or I didn't feel like it portrayed or showed the emotion that they're trying to pass at the time. Yeah. It was just contemporary to the time. Yeah. I felt I felt I felt like they'd be popping out a discotheque jam and when we're trying to be somber or trying to elicit an emotional sort of empathy or sympathy,

28:34Oti: but I was just getting that. But aren't you an A It made quite upbeat in certain situations where I'd be like trying to bop my head around while people are sad and crying.

28:44KT: Yeah. I definitely agree with the disjointed. Like the music was in the scene, but it didn't translate the scene. Like it didn't move on into the film. And especially watching it in 2020, it did feel very jarring. It was very shoulder pad, frizzy haired, meet you at the discotheque sort of thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I fully agree. And but, you know, at the same time, it has been quite a luxurious adventure to go through Miyazaki's filmography because you start to see, you know, Spirited Away for all intents and purposes,

29:22KT: even for me to go to sleep as well as Howl's Moving Castle, I listen to the soundtracks because it is great and it makes you feel, especially with Spirited Away, you know, this this this deep sense of longing and it is truly personal to the characters. Even talking about Princess Mononoke which we covered earlier this week, Miyazaki actually wrote short poems for each of the characters so that Joe Hisaishi would have a frame of reference, if you'll pardon the reference, on how to score each particular character.

29:57KT: So, you know, you just go from strength to strength, you know, just with our lovely sumptuous podcast with our handful of listeners, we fucking love you guys, you know, you just need to start and then you keep building on it and you keep improving. Yeah. And that's that's that's definitely clear from the filmography. In regards to this podcast, who knows? Who knows indeed but it is a great film just as a point of reference really.

30:28Oti: Oh, yeah. Yeah it really is and I think how he's covered it in terms of you know you have all the three kingdoms and how different they are to each other it's it elicits so much thinking especially when you're trying to tapestry it over what you know now of society. Uh-huh. And if there's been any sort of progress from what he was trying to depict back then to now, which Oh, yes. Definitely. Pretty much has been nothing. So it's a sad state of affairs, but it's one that needs telling.

31:03Oti: And it's a movie that I think goes down well in terms of it trying to establish itself in that regard, especially that early on. Makes sense, makes sense.

31:17KT: Definitely. But I think overall it had all of the Miyazakiisms if I can be so derogatory and it really made you feel in all the ways you needed to feel. Let's get into some characters Oti.

31:33Oti: Yeah. I'd just like to say that Teto reminded me so much of Momo and I couldn't stop thinking about Aang and Avatar and just the whole universe.

31:45KT: I think you mean Aang and Appa.

31:45Oti: No. I mean Aang, mate.

31:45KT: No. I am no. You will recognize M. Night Shyamalan in the For Your Reference household. How dare you? There's only one avatar in our household.

32:02Oti: Bloody hell, man. That I don't know who know who greenlit that, especially if they were fans of The Last Airbender and just thought, this movie makes sense. Let's give it to M. Shyamalan, and they still greenlit it for release. Especially because

32:18Oti: Avatar: The Last Airbender

32:22Oti: has a jovial sort of tone. Yeah. This this they're trying to make this into a DC sort of movie. I was like, no. Especially because DC don't even know what they're doing. Unless

32:33KT: Birds of Prey. The Emancipation of Oti. Just while you're on that, in regards to James Cameron sort of Avatar, I I felt there was some parallels in regards to that as well. Oh, really? Even in regards to, like, the hentai, like, tentacles. Oh, yeah. The tentacles. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That come out and heal her. But but yeah. I forgot about those tentacles. But I did like not just the tentacle shit but also the environmentalism themes that were in James Cameron's Avatar. Yeah. I like I haven't looked into it but I wouldn't be surprised if,

33:12KT: you know, those got from that. Yeah. Like, because some of the things were like, you know, humans are bad, Jake Sully.

33:21Oti: Jake Sully. He's not Australian, isn't he? Not the character.

33:25KT: What was that motherfucker's name? Worthington. Worthington. Because I'm like, it's not Edgerton. He's got like more of like a moon face. Like a a chiseled moon, but still a moon. Yeah. Those strong

33:37Oti: cheekbones. Not cheekbones, what are the jaws? Reference.

33:43KT: Do you think we'll ever cover Jaws? Yeah. If you watch it. Damn, dog. I do say in the For Your Reference household, we don't film Shane, but Oti, he loves it. And, you know, in the right setting with the right candlelight, with the right Barry White, I love it too. With the right lighter as well. You look better in the dark. You look better in the blue. Yeah. Now that you think of it, there are, like, other films out there that tackle environmentalism.

34:11KT: And I feel like Avatar was just as preachy as Nausicaa. Yeah.

34:16Oti: But for WWF to put their branding and logo and weight behind this. You just have to know that the the sort of message they're trying to send Oh, yes. And was quite headstrong.

34:26KT: It was a very long advertisement. Yes. Like, you know, in South Park, it was like, would you like to donate a dollar to charity today?

34:34Oti: Oh, or you say, you know, for the intercom Yeah. And they're like, oh, what's that? You don't want to donate a dollar for a charity? You wanna let the skedad?

34:42KT: But there's a lot that is covered in this film. I don't think we even did first impression so I will quickly mention I have only watched Nausicaa maybe twice in my life and then I've watched all the all the other films that we're covering more than 10 times. So,

35:03KT: you know, it's I guess it's a nice sort of reference point. Right? Because this degustation menu was going to be four and then it turned into five. And Nausicaa was the extra addition because I was like, oh, let's add this in because it was the first film. It was actually before Studio Ghibli was established because it was established in 1985 but it's still a Miyazaki joint.

35:26Oti: Yep.

35:28KT: So to say. So how did how did you feel just generally about the film?

35:34Oti: I liked it in terms of what they're trying to pass on as a message. You could see You could definitely see the potential and what was laid out yeah. Yes and I appreciated the fact that he had so much things going on that I could think about and analyze for myself which is good because you know he made sure that those a lot of characters with different sort of levels and layers

35:58Oti: and that's important in especially when you're trying to tell them tell a story like this. Yeah. So it was a ritual in terms of trying to explain the sort of environment

36:10Oti: and how it got to this state what the cause and effect is. Yeah. And especially when it comes to trying to remedy it and at the end of it of course we come to like a resolution the solution where everybody is happy with the environment and the Ohmu all calmed and I think from then on you could kind of tell that everyone from the three kingdoms is pretty much content

36:30Oti: and they would probably go ahead and try and live better and leave the insects alone for them to do their thing and just be better with the environment. But I liked it it's just that I had a bit of a hard time watching it till the end without taking a bit of breaks here and there.

36:49KT: Yeah and I think if we had watched this before you watched Princess Mononoke I think it would have been a different experience.

36:58Oti: Yeah because this was my first time watching Nausicaa. Yes I've heard of it before but I never really bothered watching it up until now but I wouldn't say I'm disappointed it did show me at least it did give me a reference point as to what Miyazaki has done up until now and it just goes to show how much of a catalog he has and how much he's improved as a writer and I'm all for that. Oh yeah, definitely.

37:22KT: It was interesting. It was interesting to watch it again in the sequence that we're releasing these episodes as well. I wanna stay in that. I wanna stay in the environment a bit before we talk about Nausicaa and some of the other characters as well. The way we understand it is the sea of decay is as a result or as a byproduct of the humans. Most likely the most tangible sort of theme is like pollution. Right? Deforestation, taking advantage of the environment and not necessarily

37:57KT: planting another tree so to say. Right? And then we also have where she falls into this very pure sort of environment. Like I mentioned Underneath the sea of decay above everything else. Underneath the sea of decay. Yes. So in the manga, Nausicaa later on found out that the air is actually clean. It's toxic to them because of their generation had already adapted this toxic environment. So, you know, there's also discoveries about the plants serving as a natural sort of filters to their world. Yeah. Right? And the or the were

38:35KT: just trying to protect their land. Yeah. And trying to take back whatever they had. So they were trying to repair nature and the humans were trying to kill them. Yep. Which again is very similar to Mononoke but they didn't have the cute apes throwing rocks at you.

38:53Oti: We eat home, home make us better.

38:56KT: Right? Yep. Thank you for using your real voice finally. Oh, you're welcome. But it was interesting. It was interesting to hear about the environments and, you know, there was so much sort of vehicles like I mentioned before. There was so much symbolism in regards to humans are bad, environment is bad and like we mentioned, there's a crescendo at the end where she literally sacrifices herself Yep. To which the Ohmushi

39:23KT: revive her back to life. But why would you revive her if you already know she's pure? Okay. So she had this was our second attempt to try and calm the the Ohmu. Yeah. Like early in the movie, she's just gonna calm them down and she throws bombs at them.

39:36Oti: No. I'm also I'm not even speaking about that. She rescues the baby Ohmu and they just divert and continue going straight for the village.

39:41KT: Mhmm. Because they were so blinded by rage. Yeah. That's a very tangible theme as well. Like, just like the boars in Princess Mononoke, they were they were just so blinded by rage and that's what becomes the curse of your spell because you just have so much hatred in your heart. Yeah. And even even the funnier thing is when

40:04Oti: Kushana wakes up the sleeping giant passe Yeah. The god warrior. The god warrior because it's supposed to be able to take care of everything. But even when she does do that, they don't do shit to the Ohmu. Yeah. Like, the explosion is just like, mate, our rage trumps your your bloody fire. Yeah.

40:23KT: Like that was a little blip. Didn't really do much. But there's many examples that we see where Nausicaa genuinely cares and she really wants to restore nature and the impacts of humans as much as she can. We see, I think maybe halfway through the film, she reveals her lab where she actually collects those poisonous spores and she tries to find a way to distill its natural sort of entities.

40:51Oti: Yeah. Which she successfully does by the way. Which she successfully

40:55KT: does and, you know, early on in the film, you see her in a valley, not of the wind, but you see her in a valley and she's got the mushy sort of shell around her and she looks at the poisonous spores and she's saying, these are so pretty, it's weird, like, it's crazy that I could die from these. So that was quite an interesting sort of theme that was introduced as well.

41:20Oti: Yeah, is and I think just seeing how she sort of navigates this journey and how she interacts with people. She's very lovable. People love her a lot. Yeah. And even when people were being told to

41:37KT: join us and jump ship and you'll you'll With do Kushana. Yeah. They're like, nah. We we love our princess. She's like, yeah. I think one of the old daddies said,

41:47Oti: you're a princess, but you're not like our princess. You know, like, you could tell you would be loyal to your fault for someone like that, especially man with the ogre hands.

41:57KT: And Nausicaa said that he has beautiful hands for a hard worker. Yeah.

41:57Oti: Those were fucking boils, mate. That

42:04Oti: was some Job shit going on with his hands. Yeah. But, you know, she makes everyone feel good about themselves. She makes everyone happy and and, you know, be proud of being part of the community.

42:04KT: You mean in an innocent way, not a blue movie sort of way?

42:04Oti: Yeah. And in in so much so that you could compare to Lady Eboshi in that regard.

42:26KT: Okay, I get the message. I'm going to order a cosplay of Eboshi. Thank you. Of Eboshi and Kushana, don't worry. Post Valentine gift, thank you so much. That's how you keep the love alive friends and lovers.

42:41Oti: Keep it

42:48KT: Speaking of other languages, I'm not sure if you guys knew, but Nausicaa is the name of a princess in Homer's Odyssey. Oh. Yeah. So look at Homer getting another reference. Listen to our 300 episode. And it means burner of ships. Oh. So if Helen was the face to launch a thousand ships, Nausicaa was that messed up in the face that she burnt them. Nausicaa, butter face of the wind. I'm going to get in trouble. I need to stop. Oh, yeah. Well, finally, we can agree on something. Damn, dog. If you go to the Ghibli

43:24KT: Museum in Mitaka, they actually sell Kazenotani, which translates to Valley Of The Wind. Yeah. So that's quite nice.

43:34KT: I'm still waiting on our romantic whimsical trip to Japan, Oti.

43:34Oti: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And the first thing we'll be doing is going to the Naruto theme park.

43:41KT: Oh, yes. And there's a probably we'll wait till like twenty twenty two when they actually have the theme park for Studio Ghibli. That will be a magical place. Oh, yes.

43:41Oti: A magical place is wherever you are, my love.

43:54Oti: Look at me, such a sweet talker.

43:54KT: Yeah. But anything else about Nausicaa? I

44:00KT: I appreciated the flashback of her as a child. I think it helped frame her as a person and her values. Yeah. Because she was young, but she was old enough to know that they were going to kill that bug. So she's not naive? She's not naive, but she's also the sort of person she doesn't just tweet about how bad the world is, she actually gets off her fucking ass and does something about it. Yeah.

44:27KT: Yeah. Most of us would do with half a Nausicaa in our lives. Right? Yeah. But she she was such a pure character and like you said everyone loved her. If we're going to put our critical monocle up, so give me some time to put that on, she was too perfect. She didn't really have any sort of faults to her. She didn't really have any sort of inner conflict. All of the conflict she has was external. So again, don't ask me to rank these films. This isn't as good as the others.

44:58KT: But she really didn't have that sense of struggle within herself. So not that characters need to have that, but that really valors my ghoulies, so to say. Oh.

45:11Oti: Maybe I could counter that with the fact that when the father died, she experienced an anger she never felt before and didn't know exactly how to deal with that. So San is her final form. Yeah. But, you know, if if if Lord Yupa didn't step in, then San would have gone down a trajectory where she would be run by rage rather than anything. So I think you Oh, yeah. There were times where she was tempted. Yeah. But and and it gets too short. She didn't go completely unscratched

45:42Oti: in in terms of in a conflict. Like, she she was struggling inside, but she kept the fact that her people needed her more now. Okay. And it just goes to show her strength and her resilience in pushing down her angst and her feelings to try and be someone who the people can follow and who would be proud for for for her to be the princess?

46:06KT: I guess so. But I I felt like she didn't have as much struggle than other characters. Like, Kushana, she would be a very interesting sort of backstory to have. Yeah. She seems like she's been through the ringer. Because if we wanna be very on the nose about it, she had a lot of mechanical parts to her. So I guess you could, you know, deduce from that that perhaps her humanity has also suffered as a fact of that. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? Like, she wasn't fully in the humanitarian

46:40KT: sort of world. She everything was fed by self interest and she had these mechanical parts to her. And in saying that, those the people that were keeping her prisoner, once they saw she had an attachable arm, wouldn't they not leave her alone? Don't you think that perhaps the rest of her is detachable as well? You never know.

47:02KT: And I did say, do you think she Not has everyone is like Katya in Archer. So Well, that's what I was saying. I I was like, do you think she has a detachable pussy? And then the next line that she had was, my husband would have a very hard lesson to learn once he's with me. Wow. Hashtag all android lives matter. True.

47:26Oti: True. They all do.

47:28KT: But she no. But you could see that she's been through some shit. Yeah. I want my characters to have been through some shit. And I feel like maybe it's because she's a princess, but I feel like Nausicaa didn't have the same depth of pain and hurt.

47:45Oti: Or even the same depth of pain as Asbel did because Asbel just lost the twin sister.

47:45KT: He is a useless motherfucker.

47:53KT: And I don't know if he's like Ashitaka where he like literally risked it all to be with the horse

47:53Oti: He's not useless. How is he useless?

47:53KT: He was only really there at times. He wasn't always there. Like, when when the Pejite fellas admitted that they were raiding and they were going to raid the Valley Of The Wind,

48:16KT: that he just fucking stood there like a little kid with his hands in his pants. He was these are his people. And then he tried to shoot a bullet and he got knocked in the back of the head.

48:16Oti: Well, was threatening them to say release Nausicaa or else I'll shoot you guys.

48:16KT: Yeah. And then he got knocked down. I don't need you, sir.

48:16Oti: But then he also tells the mother and they

48:35Oti: come up with this plan to make his escape. He ran to mommy. He told the people that he because you wouldn't expect the mother to go and rescue the girl, would you? But I don't know. With Asbel,

48:47Oti: I I think like him because without Asbel,

48:50Oti: Nausicaa doesn't achieve what she did at the end, period.

48:54KT: Wow. Are you saying she needed a man in order to succeed?

48:57Oti: It just happens that Asbel is a man, but in this case, yes, because

49:01KT: He is not a man. He is barely a boy.

49:05Oti: Come on now. I'm not a man.

49:08KT: We do not get paid for this, guys. If you think if you think we should, please let us know. Okay, Oti Spears. Oh, you're welcome. No. I didn't care for Asbel. You know who I cared for? Daddy Yupa.

49:30Oti: He's strong, man. He's

49:33KT: He was like a double sword wielding motherfucker. Like, he did not need anybody.

49:38Oti: Well, he needed he needed Nausicaa to lead the people.

49:42KT: That's a really wafty thing to say.

49:42Oti: It's not a wafty thing. It's a if it's a truth.

49:42KT: Oh, come on. You know he was packing under those clothes. True. You know he could dick down the whole village. Yeah but then Including old baba.

49:59Oti: But then again you could see that he's he's taken the role of like a senior sort of adviser to Nausicaa and the fact that they discuss everything and he tries to lead Nausicaa into some sort of you know especially after the father died yeah that's his role he's even before that he'd already left he was going to he's not a one he he doesn't stay at one place so long because he wants to explore the land.

50:24KT: And they even asked even the dad asked him to stay, and he was like, no. I'm not because that's not me. That's not who I am. I love Lord Yupa but do you think you know, in a lot of our episodes we talk about, you know, characters serving as plot devices. Do you think Lord Yupa was that? Because every time the story moved along, he wasn't far from the crime or the scene of the crime.

50:46Oti: He wasn't used that much though. Yeah. But he was used that most opportune time, sir. Mhmm. That's why you use us to be that's why you write because you need such characters to move the story along. Otherwise, Nausicaa would just still be trapped in a plane. Nausicaa's on a plane? Nausicaa's on a plane.

51:07KT: Okay. There's a character that we haven't really touched on at all, and it's Kurotowa. And he is the two IC for Kushana. In the manga, he serves as like a double agent. Oh. I don't think that's really outlined the No. Film at all. But he he ends up being a double agent and then he's enamored by Kushana's sense of style and he just chooses to dutifully serve her

51:38KT: but what did you think of him as a character and how he felt in the tapestry of this film?

51:38Oti: He's he's an interesting character because he was quite content being the two IC but once

51:49Oti: he thought that Kushana wasn't going to come back he just calmly slipped into that sort of leadership role. Oh, yeah. Just casually.

51:57KT: It's like like super casually like Didn't even need to poison anyone. Oh, I guess

52:02Oti: I guess we're gonna be the leader now. Yeah. You know? Yeah. He's he's he's quite interesting because he would follow the commands by the book. He would not be what Kushana was to the people at least. Yeah. I found him sort of like, you better watch your back around him. I think he was that like dormant sort of volcano

52:22KT: because all throughout the movie if you wanna have a drinking game he would always mention oh I'm a tired I'm a tired soldier if I was a young whippersnapper actually that would probably be the English that would the English dub But you know what I mean? Like, he talks about his burden of experience

52:41KT: and that sort of thing. So it was interesting to, like you say, see him slip into that leadership sort of role. But even when Kushana came back, he was like, oh, you're back. And like, okay, cool. Let's move on. Yeah. Like, he's

52:54Oti: I don't think he was power hungry. He's not power hungry. He's he's he's I think it was just a matter of opportunity arising then. Yeah. And I think survival was more important to him

53:07KT: as opposed to Kushana where she fed her own self interest and sometimes that wasn't the interest of the army. Yeah. It it was quite admirable for Kurotowa to, you know, just just stay in the battle because everyone was abandoning ship and he's like, where else are you going to go? Stay here motherfuckers.

53:28Oti: Yeah. You need your two ICs to be like that though. Yeah. And

53:32KT: sometimes it's always best when you have a strong leader with a clear vision. You need to have a two IC that is ever so dedicated but also knows their place. I might be looking at him right now. Why is our boy the two IC? Well, I see you have a dagger for me but it is most welcome.

53:58Oti: It's pointing in my direction Oh, for the last that's Lord Yupa's dagger so.

54:03KT: Have you got two like him? Mhmm.

54:05Oti: One in the front and one in the back? Yep. I'm I'm I'm I'm a byproduct of the environment. Oh

54:15KT: god. What have we done? Yep. I think we've done more damage to the environment than any of the characters in Nausicaa. Fucking hell. Are you most welcome, Oti? Oh, for sure. Well, thank you guys so much for listening to our episode this week that obviously builds off on the Miyazaki menu Reference Degustation that we have.

54:42KT: What a great time it's been. It is ending soon, Oti.

54:42Oti: It is. We only have one more to go and wow. It's been a pleasure. It's been an honor just rewatching most of these movies and appreciating what Miyazaki has done for the industry in terms of his movies and bloody hell, like it's just a must watch. Just sploosh mountains all around. Yeah.

55:09KT: Usually this is where we end up in For Your Reference. Everything that we would be referencing as a part of this Reference Degustation. So make sure to check out our other episodes if you haven't already. And, you know, this is the time in the night of the course when you know you're already full, but you're a fat ass and you want some dessert. So stay tuned next week for Howl's Moving Castle, one of the most dreamiest and creamiest courses that we have to offer. Yep.

55:44Oti: On Twitter and Instagram, you can find us on For Your Ref Pod. And you can write us an email at hello@fyrpodcast.com.

55:52KT: And we'll see you guys next week. See you. Bye.