The Wind Rises

The Wind Rises (風立ちぬ, Kaze Tachinu) is a 2013 Japanese anime written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It was released on 20 July 2013 in Japan and on 21 February 2014 in America.

Synopsis
The Wind Rises is a movie based on a real historical figure in Japanese history, Jirō Horikoshi, who was responsible for creating the infamous "Zero" fighter during the first years of World War II.

Story
In the movie, Jirō starts out as a young boy living in a provincial town in Japan, who dreams of a day when he could design and possibly fly airplanes. However, much to his dismay, his eye-sight deteriorates rapidly, preventing Jiro from ever piloting an aircraft. His hopeless longing even leads to dreams where he would fall from an airplane he was piloting, as his eyes could not withstand the pressure of high altitudes. Desperate to find a way to overcome his weakness and follow his goal, he seeks help and guidance from Giovanni Caproni, a famous Italian aircraft designer who appears to Jiro in his dreams. Caproni encourages Jiro to become an areonautical engineer, as he could then follow his desire to design airplanes without actually having to fly one.

Determined to become an aeronautical engineer one day, Jiro studies the principles of aviation throughout his academic years, continuously seeking guidance and encouragement from Caproni along the way. By the time he is an adult, he is able to enter the University of Tokyo to study aeronautics. Boarding a train, he makes his way to the Kanto region of Japan. During the journey, he meets Naoko, a young girl traveling with her maid, for the first time. An unprecedented, deadly earthquake suddenly hits the Kanto region, leaving the city in devastation and fire. The passengers inside the train flee from the train, as the damaged boiler threatens to explode. As Jiro starts to leave, he notices that Naoko's maid had broken her leg during the commotion caused by the earthquake. Strapping his slide-ruler to the side of her leg, Jiro leads both Naoko and her maid to safety. Jiro's actions win affection and gratefulness from Naoko and her maid, but they can not express their thankfulness to him, as Jiro leaves without telling them who he is.

Years later, Jiro works as an aircraft manufacturer and designer for a company in Nagoya, Japan. His first assignment to build a fighter with a design team ends in failure, and the company is forced to give up its contract to a rival company. Redirecting its attention to the designing of a heavy bomber, the company sends Jiro to Germany to study the technical advances of the German Junker aircraft designs. Jiro, with difficulty, succeeds in procuring the necessary designs from the grudging Germans and returns to Japan. Some years later, Jiro is reassigned to a fighter project funded by the Imperial Japanese Navy as the design team's chief designer. This project also ends in failure, causing Jiro to fall into a state of severe disappointment. The company, anxious to have their chief designer back in form, sends Jiro away to a summer resort to recover. There, he meets Naoko once again, now grown into a beautiful young woman. The two soon fall in love, sharing a passionate romance. However, when Jiro proposes to Naoko, she refuses, saying that she was inflicted with tuberculosis. She earnestly entreats Jiro to wait for their marriage until she is cured, which Jiro gently accepts.

Jiro returns to the company after his vacation time expires. He is then assigned to another fighter project sponsored by the Navy as the chief aircraft designer. In order to avoid the attention of the Japanese secret police, the company sets Jiro's lodgings at one of his supervisor's residences. With the help of his design ream, Jiro plans the construction of Japan's future naval fighter, regarding it as a revolutionary step in aeronautics.

Meanwhile, Naoko's health deteriorates rapidly, eventually causing her to have a lung hemorrhage, much to Jiro's dismay. To receive treatment, she journeys to a sanatorium in the mountains where she stays for a long period of time. However, Naoko can not bear to be apart from Jiro. Furthermore, she senses that her end is near. Thus, she journeys to Nagoya to see Jiro one last time. The couple requests a traditional marriage from Jiro's host, and they spend a brief, yet happy time together despite the dire warnings given by Jiro's sister about Naoko's possibly horrific impending death.

Jiro eventually completes his fighter design, building the Mitsubishi A5M. Before he leaves to spend the next few nights at the site of the test flight, he and Naoko share their last moment together. While he is at the site, Naoko leaves Nagoya, intending to go back to the sanatorium. She knows that she is going to die, and does not wish Jiro to witness the last terrible moments of her life as she succumbs to the disease.

The test flight goes well. Jiro and his superiors watch as a naval pilot flies the new aircraft to astonishing speeds of 240 knots, a groundbreaking record in flight speeds during that time. As Jiro proudly watches his creation touch down onto the ground, he feels a strong gust of wind from the distant mountains. As he stands against the wind, he senses Naoko's death, leaving him in stunned, anxious silence.

After World War 2 is over, Jiro revisits his dreams as he did several times in his life, to meet Caproni for, possibly, the last time. Jiro expresses his regret and sorrow of the destruction and devastation his "Zero" fighter had caused during the war. Caproni comforts him, saying that "his dream was nonetheless realized" and that airplanes "are beautiful, cursed dreams". Caproni then directs Jiro's attention beyond the grassy hill they were standing on. Jiro, stunned with joy, sees Naoko coming towards him, holding a parasol in her hand. Waving to Jiro, she calls to him, "you must live, darling...you must live!" Jiro, barely able to speak, nods his head. Her last message complete, she rises with the wind, vanishing from sight. Continuing his walk with Caproni, Jiro looks to the sky and the wind, taking his wife's words deeply to heart.

Additional English Voices

 * Matt Adler, Moosie Drier, Richard Steven Horvitz

Release

 * 20 July 2013 - Movie theater in Japan
 * 21 October 2013 - DVD release in Japan
 * 21 February 2014 - English dub by Disney
 * Summer 2014 - DVD release

Development
"Le vent se lève!... Il faut tenter de vivre! ("The wind rises!... We must try to live!")" — Paul Valéry, "Le Cimetière Marin" (The Graveyard By The Sea)."

The Wind Rises was directed by Hayao Miyazaki, whose previous films include My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away. It was the first film that Miyazaki solely directed since Ponyo in 2008.

Miyazaki began to conceive a story to illustrate the life of Jiro Horikoshi in 2008. He published the story as a manga series in the monthly magazine Model Graphix from April 2009 to January 2010, with the title borrowed from Tatsuo Hori’s novel The Wind Has Risen The story in the manga follows the historical account of Horikoshi's aircraft development up to 1935 (the year of the Mitsubishi A5M maiden flight), and intertwines with fictional encounters with Caproni and Naoko Satomi. The scenes with Nahoko in the manga were adopted from the novel The Wind Has Risen, in which Tatsuo Hori wrote about his life experience with his fiancée, Ayako Yano, before she died from tuberculosis. The name Naoko Satomi was borrowed from the female protagonist of another novel by Tatsuo Hori, Nahoko Characters frequently discuss Thomas Mann's novel The Magic Mountain, and, in a letter to Nahoko, Jiro names his fleeing German friend "Mr. Castorp" after its protagonist. The character himself is a caricature of former Ghibli employee Stephen Alpert who returned to Japan to voice the character.

After the release of Ponyo, Miyazaki wanted his next film to be a sequel, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea II, but producer Toshio Suzuki proposed to adopt the manga The Wind Has Risen instead. At first, Miyazaki rejected the proposal because he created the manga as a hobby and considered its subjects not suitable for children, the traditional audience of the feature animations from Studio Ghibli. However, Miyazaki changed his objection after a staff member suggested that "children should be allowed to be exposed to subjects they are not familiar with".

Miyazaki was inspired to make the film after reading a quote from Horikoshi: "All I wanted to do was to make something beautiful".

Music
The film's score was composed and conducted by Joe Hisaishi, and performed by the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra.

The film also includes singer-songwriter Yumi Matsutoya's 1973 song "Hikōki-gumo"(ひこうき雲). Matsutoya has collaborated with Studio Ghibli before in the production for Kiki's Delivery Service, which features her songs Rouge no Dengon(ルージュの伝言) and Yasashisa ni Tsutsumaretanara(やさしさに包まれたなら). Producer Suzuki recommended "Hikōki-gumo" to Miyazaki in December 2012, feeling the lyrics resembled the story of The Wind Rises.

The Wind Rises soundtrack was released in Japan on July 17, 2013, by Tokuma Japan Communications. f>

Das gibt's nur einmal (English: It only happens once) is the German song Hans Castorp sings while playing the piano at Hotel Kusakaru in the film. Jiro Horikoshi and Nahoko's father later join the singing. This song is composed by Werner Richard Heymann for the German movie Der Kongreß tanzt.