When manga and anime get live-action versions, one of the biggest stumbling blocks is the way things look. On the page or animated, a character and their outfit might appear awesome; however, the real-life interpretation could end up looking awkward or silly. That doesn’t seem to be true for Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
Case in point: this reaction of Nausicaä’s Windrider Sea of Corruption outfit. (The photos below were taken by Twitter user Yoshi6054.)
Just check out all the details in the resulting recreation, especially in the flight helmet and the Shohki mask. The jacket is supposed to be made from goat felt, so the real-world recreation looks much more tactile than the manga or anime one. And I love how the scarf is all worn and frayed in parts. This looks like something that actual humans—not simply fictional characters—could have made.
Artist Takayuki Takeya, who is perhaps best known for his Kamen Rider work, brought the duds to life. The outfit was on display at the “Animage and Ghibli” exhibit, which started earlier this year in Tokyo and is currently being held in Osaka. The exhibit recounts the history of Ghibli, tying its birth to the manga Animage, where the Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind manga was serialized and where current Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki used to work as an editor.
Will there ever be a live-action Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind movie? Who knows! In 2019, there was a live-action kabuki play, but there might be less interest in a movie adaption. In a 2020 poll, Nausicaä was one of the anime fans didn’t want turned into a live-action feature.
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According to Toshio Suzuki, Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno has expressed interest in doing a live-action version. That might change some minds about a live-action movie, due to Anno’s hand in creating the anime’s climatic sequence. Even if Anno is interested, a movie adaptation still might not happen.
“For Miyazaki, out of all the various works he’s done, Nausicaä is the most important,” Suzuki previously said in 2019. “There had been various requests to do a live-action version, even from Hollywood. He turned them all down.” But Anno isn’t Hollywood, and if this costume is anything to go on, a live-action Nausicaä could look fantastic.
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All images used with permission.