Daughter of Kami: Shinto and Christian themes in ‘Nausica of the Valley of the Wind’

Religion has affected artistry for centuries, beca workout human responses to art and righteousness involve similar processes imagination and randy involvement (Beit-H entirelyami, 1983). It inferms ingrained for religion to continue its influence on general culture, especially film, because of its wide r separately. However, timbering at Japan, is it possible for a non-Japanese religion like Christianity to exert influence its popular culture, and to what extent?To answer this question, we look at the 1984 animated film of Hayao Miyazaki, Nausica of the vale of the Wind (Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa). Nausica is said to be the quintessential Miyazaki film (Osmond, 1998) and it earned 740 million yen, with near a million viewers. It owes its popularity to the incorporation of universal themes like religion, the environment and industrialisation. It contains so many themes, both Japanese (feudalism, Shintoisticististicist) and non-Japanese (Greek Mythology, Christianity, Europ ean me becomevalism). It is interesting to note that Miyazaki is oft described as a humanist, following no particular religion, in so far Nausica contains an almost equal amount of annexs to Shinto and Christianity in the film.There are many English versions of the various terms and names of the characters in the film, partially because there is a more complex manga of the same name. For ease of reference to the film, I use names and terms as they appear in the English-dubbed version of Nausica released in 2005, to convey the Shinto and Christian elements found in the film, looking at broad themes as well as symbols. conduct synopsisThe story in Nausica takes place a thousand historic period after(prenominal) a global war, the Seven Days of Fire. huge Warriors, biological weapons with nuclear capabilities, destroyed everything. However, enclaves of surviving human colonies exist throughout the Fukai, or the Sea of Decay. ,The Fukai is a new ecosystem consisting of a vast tox icant forest of giant fungi and giant worms with the Ohmu as guardians. The main protagonist is Princess Nausica, girl of the ruler of the Valley, a feudal community protected from toxic spores by strong sea winds. She is a personality-loving pacifist with a gift for communication with insects and animals. Lord Yupa, a wandering mentor, inspires her to find a way to force out the spread of the Fukai. Nausica often explores the Fukai to obtain plant samples and cultivate them in her enigma room.One day, an airship carrying a Great Warrior embryo crashes into the Valley. This embryo was firstly unearthed by the Pejites, but it was stolen by the imperialistic Tolmekians. These two states intend to use the Great Warrior to destroy the Fukai and the insects. In the struggle for the Great Warrior, Tolmekia invades the Valley. The Fukai and the insects are assaulted in this struggle, and the Ohmu are badgered to the Valley to destroy it. Nausica sacrifices herself before the Ohmu, thereby calming their rage. They work on her back to life-time and heal her wounds, and then re flip to the Fukai, leaving life to return to normal in the Valley.Now we pull up stakes look at two religions that are referred to extensively in the film Shinto and Christianity.ShintoTraditional Japanese religiosity is a mixture of Shinto, Buddhism, Confucianism and folk religions. Shinto, meaning the way of the kami, refers to the ancient aborigine Japanese religious practices and sentiments. Shinto has four general tenets worshipping and honouring the kami love of record tradition and the family and cleanliness (Picken, 1994, as cited in Wright, 2004). Muraoka Tsunetsugu (1964) distinguishes philosophical and ethical distinctive characteristics of Shinto 1) accepting life and demise, genuine and evil, as inevitable parts of the world we live in, and 2) reverence for the chic and pure, in all matter and thought, endeavoring to overcome physical contaminant with rites of exorci sm and bad thoughts with a pure and bright heart. The soaked link between military personnel, kami and nature, and the signifi poopce of subtlety and rites are two themes in Japanese religion that carry on even to Japanese coeval religions today (Earhart, 1982). For the scope of this essay, I will look at the Shinto themes of harmony with nature, reverence for nature and life, and instance of purification and rituals found in Nausica.Wa, or harmony with nature is seen to be of utmost importance. One accepts the healthy and bad with nature, and tries to make ataraxis with it. Miyazaki explains that Nausica is based on a Phoenician princess in Homers Odyssey and a Japanese heroine, a princess who loved insects1. Nausica believes that humans and the Fukai can live together in peace. She embodies the relational resonance with humanity and the natural world suggested by Tucker (1999). At any rate, the surviving humans discombobulate to learn to live with the Fukai or risk destruc tion by insects. The telepathic Ohmu and other insects can be seen as kami, animistic spirits with powers. The Ohmu went blind with rage when Pejites speared a baby Ohmu in crop to bait the Ohmu towards the Valley and destroy the Tolmekians. Disharmony with nature is seen to have damaging consequences.In Japan, nature is still venerated and exalted, even though the actual state of nature may be the opposite. Shinto is associated with reverence for nature and all forms of life. In the first few minutes of the film, Nausica is introducen flying on her aircraft into the Fukai. The toxic jungle is rendered beautifully, with glittering poisonous plants, translucent flying insects and serene music in the background. Here we see the unconditional beauty of nature, be it harmless or poisonous. In a following scene Nausica comes across a denture of an Ohmu. It takes up almost the whole frame and Nausica is miniscule in comparison. She pronounces the puzzle to be perfect and amazing. Emb ellished with vivid music, an image of a nature revered for its sacredness and perfection is projected.Reverence for nature also comes from seeing it as sacred, and from knowing its power. In the film, humans fear the lethal spores of the Fukai, and its constant spread. At the same time, as the viewer discovers later on, the Fukai actually has restorative powers. It is in fact cleansing the Earth of worlds waste left behind from the Great War. Similarly, the Ohmu possess benevolent telepathic powers (although they can only communicate with Nausica) as well as the power to destroy humans and civilisation. In other scene, Kushana, commander of the Tolmekian army, announces her plan to burn the Fukai. In response, the Valley people bellow in hushed t anes, Burn the Toxic Jungle?, Is it possible? present that they consider the Fukai indestructible. These powers of the Fukai and the Ohmu cause humans to fear and respect nature at the same time.Nausica reveres the life of both humans and insects. She implores countless times to the struggle Pejites and Tolmekians, Please, no more killing and I cant bear to have anyone else die. Instead of killing insects that attack humans, she uses an insect charm to calm them down(p) and coax them back to the jungle. This was the case with an Ohmu who was chasing Lord Yupa, and a giant insect that caused the crash of a Tolmekian airship. When two Pejites captured a baby Ohmu to use as bait, Nausica risked injury and her life to try and return the baby Ohmu back to its herd. organism part of nature, both humans and insects are seen as equally authorised and worthy of preservation. Hence, we can see the importance of harmony with nature, because of its sanctity, power, and its inclusion of all forms of life.Another main theme in Shinto is the importance of faithfulness and the use of rituals to overcome a state of contamination. In Nausica, the Earth has been pollute by mankind, the worst being the nuclear-like Great Warrio rs which ultimately resulted in the Earths destruction. Nausicaa realises the toxic Fukai is actually purifying the world wastes are absorbed by the trees, which turn into stone, crystallizing the poison into harmless sand. The Fukai symbolises a purifying ritual, comparable to how a bright heart would continuously purify itself by ridding itself of bad thoughts, or wastes.Nausica is an example of a pure and bright heart (Tsunetsugu, 1964) who in her charge for peace, tries to purify the hearts of humans from their lust for war and bloodshed against each other and the Fukai. However, she does not have any clear rituals that she uses to achieve this purification except perhaps, her repeated self-sacrifice. In comparison, Kushana also has a purification ritual of her own. She wants to clear Earth of the Fukai by burning it and destroying it completely in order to build a world of prosperity.This idea of sacrifice brings us to the other religion alluded to repeatedly throughout the fi lm Christianity. Although Christianity is not native to Japan, and not very well-received throughout the years, its prophetic and theistic messages do have some universal value and some Japanese can tint to them as they are something different from the animistic elements of Shinto.ChristianityIn many ways, the behavior of strong elements of Christianity, a foreign religion, is not surprising. Miyazakis work is strongly Western-influenced due to his direction (Osmond, 1998). Christianity still has a relatively small following in Japan, because Shinto and Buddhist rituals are still a major part of Japanese life what it means to be Japanese. The Christian themes in Nausica constitute one of many foreign elements that Miyazaki has appropriated into this film. Here we will look at trine doctrines of Christianity redemption, authentic sin, and resurrection.Throughout the film, Nausica repeatedly saves people. When Lord Yupa, the samurai-like wanderer, returns to the Valley, he praise s Nausica by expression Who else would rescue me when Im in trouble? In another scene, the barge carrying Valley hostages comes loose and is about to crash into the Fukai. Nausica cries out to them Everybody Ill save you for certain These examples show the Messianic nature of Nausica.To further cement her image as a prophet-like being, in another scene Nausica is speeding back to the Valley after escaping from a Tolmekian ship and in desperation she implores Please dear God, enliven hear this prayer You must protect the people of the Valley Obaba, the insolent old woman of the valley, realises this explicitly for the benefit of viewers. At the beginning of the film, Obaba, or Grandmother, recounts the ancient legend of the saviour clad in blue who will come to save mankind and guide the peopleat finale to a land of purity. At the end of the film, she realises that Nausica is the saviour talk of in the legend. The theme of redemption is clearly portrayed in the film. However, why does mankind need to be saved?The doctrine of redemption comes founder in hand with the doctrine of the original sin. In the concept of the original sin, mankind is born in a state of sinfulness and is blessed to hell unless he is saved by accepting Christian beliefs. Lord Yupa explains that he wanders to find out if mankind is truly fated to be swallowed up by (the Fukai), or if there is still some hope. Obaba teases him, claiming that he is in fact looking for the blue-clad Saviour. The film addresses mankinds inevitable doom and the chase for a saviour.Symbols play an important part in portraying the doctrine of resurrection. Nausica appears twice with her arms outstretched reminiscent of Jesus being crucified on the cross when trying to stop Asbel and the Pejites from shooting. Here we see that Nausica adopted much(prenominal) a gesture as a symbol of righteous bravery (she was determined to stop the killing that she felt was wrong) and surrender (she put herself at the Pejites mercy). In trying to save her people from an attack by the Ohmus, Nausica is shooting twice, burned by acid and finally dies facing the Ohmu stampede.The Ohmus, however, revived Nausica. Her death and resurrection mirrors that of Jesus after his death and burial. At the end of the film, a chiko plant grows in the pure sand in the Fukai, symbolising the resurrection of nature at last. We see that it is not only Nausica, but also nature, that is brought back to life.ConclusionIn this essay, we have seen that Christianity can indeed influence a Japanese anime, however, the Shinto elements in Nausica are far more extensive. The Shinto themes mainly adjudicate mankinds relationship with nature while the Christian themes focus on mankinds destiny. obviously Miyazaki did not intend to have such religious overtones in Nausica. However, in the spirit of symbolic interactionism, these religious themes nevertheless have meaning for those who portion meanings to them. Viewers (like me) interpret the images and scenes in the film and make sense of them in different frameworks, such as religion.Did Nausica manage to truly unite mankind with nature? Perhaps through the medium of popular cultures, she serves as a female Japanese prophet to remind us to strive towards peace and harmony with nature and mankind.