OK, so I saw 'Spirited Away' and I liked it, but as with many things in life, to discover that one of my favourite director's Hayao Miyazaki was now world renowned kind of took the sheen out of the whole experience.

Now that I actually live in Japan, catching up with my Japanese Cinema is possibly harder than it was in the UK, mainly because the cinemas out here are oozing full of Hollywood detritus, but also because I am an illiterate foreign simpleton in a land that speaks far too fast. So after many weeks of avoiding the promotional material I finally got to see the newest Miyazaki offering, 'Howl's Moving castle’, and I have to say I fell straight in love with Miyazaki all over again. Simply astounding story telling.

Now, to avoid losing my cooler than cool outer membrane here I’m going to tell you all to forget the last 20 years of Miyazaki, wipe out all the anime you’ve ever seen and get a load of the real juicy stuff:
Loooong before Spirited Away was even a glint in Miyazaki's shimmering silver mane there was...

'Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind'! How that title makes me moister than a trout in spawning season. This 1984 classic of ANY medium of cinema has just hit the shelves in the US (on DVD from Disney of course) and now all the born again anime fans can get their greasy hands on what is, in my opinion, one of the single greatest movies of all time.

The standard Miyazaki themes are there. The young, strong female lead; a deeply rooted environmental awareness; the forces of ying and yang in perpetual motion as the movie casts its delicious fable over the audience. Plus - It's got bloody enormously-gigantuan insects!
Where a Hollywood blockbuster would never dare to tread Nausicaä casually races by with the all encompassing world Miyazaki seamlessly moulds into your brain. The epic nature of this movie is almost as great as the devastating breadth of people out there who simply have never even heard of it. I dare anyone to watch Nausicaä and not fondle the REPEAT button endlessly throughout as your body and soul tremble in the pulsation of visual and mental coital stimulation that is in the process of corrupting your very being...

Get your hands on this classic right now, but don’t fall into the Anime geek trap of developing a thing for old Nausicaä herself. She might well be the sexiest bit of cartoon crumpet you’ve ever slid into your DVD slot, but she’s mine, all mine, get it?

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