Rating: 
Summary: Personal and Epic. Miyazaki-sensei has perfected his craft.
Review: So powerful and thought provoking is this story that the reader must often put it down and, like the cartoon dog, stretch upwards and float back down to earth in absolute pleasure.
Intricate and detailed, Miyazaki actually created the story as he wrote and illustrated it. Viz's translation is wonderful; even the size and weight of their Perfect Collection volume enhances the reading experience. Simply not to be missed, every copy of this story that is not closely guarded by its owner is shared with as many willing readers as possible.
Very likely, the most important, enjoyable and thoughtful piece of fiction you'll ever read.
For more information on Hayao Miyazaki's career, why not visit the Hayao Miyazaki Web at:
http://www.tcp.com/~miyazaki/
or Miyazaki's studio, Studio Ghibli, at:
http://www.ntv.co.jp/ghibli/
And please, return to Amazon.Com and buy the book.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Manga I've Read in YEARS!! Too good to pass up!
Review: I've been a Miyaki fan for years! Of all of his movies and books, Nausicaa is definitely the best one! Miyaki creates a beautifully vivid world and characters that will you will most certainly NEVER forget! This is one manga series (and the movie as well) that I've never gotten tired of. Every anime fan should have Nausicaa in their collection! You won't regret it!!!
Rating:
Summary: More Than A Children's Book
Review: Just like LOTR, children love it, but until they grow well into their adulthood, they will not be able to fully comprehend the essence of the story.
Children, both boys and girls, will love the major characters in "Nausicaa", because children can find all they wish to be in these characters, but most of them would be puzzled (or troubled!) by the development of the story. An exceptionally smart kid may be able to guess some of Miyazaki's plan of the story before he/she reaches Vol. 7, but I dare to bet, he/she will not accept that plan until he/she reaches 30.
This is a great gift to children. They will thank you many, many years later.
Rating: 
Summary: The (second) translator's perspective
Review: I translated the last 3/7 of this series, and in nine years of translating about 5000 pages of manga, this was the best and most important title I worked on. If you go way back to the earliest reviews here (1998), you'll find some very nice comments by Toren Smith about my translation, but I must say Toren and Dana's was a hard act to follow. They did an excellent job on the first 4/7, and my biggest challenge was to maintain both their tone and their level of quality. I give it four stars here only because I'm a bit disturbed by the way fans treat this work as a sacred text, flawless and beyond criticism. It is a great work, but, no, it is not the Lord of the Rings. Tolkein spent his entire life creating the world of Middle Earth (and not doing much else, itseems, other than teaching linguistics). For Miyazaki, the Nausicaa manga was a side project he worked on in between his many brilliant animated films. There were often long breaks, and many fans feared he would never finish it. As a result, yes, there is some inconsistency in tone and even theme. But the story only gets better and better as Miyazaki matures and his thinking becomes more nuanced and complex. The Nausicaa we see here in the later volumes is not the two-dimensional messiah figure of Miyazaki's (excellent) 1983 animated film of the same name. She is wracked by doubts, is sometimes ready to give up, and even experiences what might be a nervous breakdown. But what I want to talk about here is the experience of translating Nausicaa and the almost religious devotion of non-Japanese fans to this work. I never got so much e-mail about anything else I ever translated. For example, one time I had to translate an episode while I was on the road, and I didn't have the previous translations with me. A character appeared who hadn't appeared since the first volume, and I couldn't remember how Toren and Dana had transliterated her name, so I took my best shot and asked the editor to check for consistency. The editor didn't check, and as it turned out I had transliterated it differently (I think they had named her "Ketcha" and I had named her "Kecha," or something like that.) Wow! When the episode was published, fans went ballistic! What was more surreal, though, was the fact that fans were relying to a great extent on a so-called "fan translation" of the animated movie for reference. This unauthorized "translation" is laughably bad, and was done by a person who, although prolific, is utterly unqualified to translate Japanese. But this self-appointed translator has (or at least had) an almost god-like status among fans, and I would get letters complaining that I had "mistranslated" a line, because my translation differed from that of the unauthorized translation. In other words, the gross mistranslations of the "fan-subber" had become canonical, even where they completely reversed the meaning of the original! Today I am an associate professor in Japan's first and only Department of Comic Art, at Kyoto Seika University. I teach about the history and sociocultural aspects of manga and comics from around the world to some of the most talented aspiring manga artists in Japan. (Every year, about 400 applicants vie for 40 openings in our program.) You could say that I have dedicated my life to preaching the gospel of sequential art, and I mean that only half-jokingly. So I think I'm qualified to say this. Take a deep breath now. Step back, and look at things in perspective. This is a great manga. No, it's a great comic, or graphic novel, or whatever you want to call it. But it is not the Bible. It is not the Koran. It is not the Talmud, or the Lotus Sutra. It's the side project of a man who considers himself foremost an animator, and who creates comics almost as a hobby. There are actually many manga that are arguably better than this (though this may be the best ever translated into English). Uncritical worship will only make prospective readers skeptical. Four stars is probably good enough, and four stars is nothing to sneeze at.
Rating:
Summary: Nausicaa cries out to become an anime series.
Review: Hayao Miyazaki lent his drawing talent, and extraordinary eye for detail and storytelling to this epic. A cautionary tale of an all too possible future, focuses on what ignorance, neglect, and exploitation of the environment may cause. The scope of this tale could easily translate into a season or two, of quality anime in Japan. It would be hard to turn down such a Miyazaki backed project, given his track record. Unfortunately, his production company specialized in movies, and not anime series. A movie of Nausicaa was made, and the Japanese version is considered a classic. The film however, condensed too much of the story that existed, and other parts had not even been completed as yet in the manga. It would be nice one day to present the entire epic in anime form. Like many long epics, this story follows the classic line of what is called, the "Hero's Journey". Nausicaa a young girl with a kind, determined heart, and a sense of destiny, is the hero. Like most tales of such scope, the hero's call to action, must be precipitated by dire events. The hero is not usually someone who sees him or herself in that role. Like Nausacaa's character, they possess extraordinary characteristics, which are brought to the surface by need or tragedy. Along the way, (Journey) the hero, (heroine in this case) is changed by his/her accomplishments. This graphic novel set is unlike any other that I own. I can read through a 200-page Ranma 1/2 book in an hour. Many others, whether humor or action, rarely take more that an hour and a half. They are entertaining for sure, but I rarely feel like I've read any real literature. Nausicaa is different, I found that to follow, and enjoy the story, reading 20-30 pages at a sitting was quite fulfilling. The depth of story, detail of the art, inspired my imagination, and I wanted to take a break to digest what I'd read. It took me six months, of off and on reading to complete the four volumes, "Perfect Collection". I think the author of the graphic novels forward was correct in saying, this is considered to be the greatest graphic novel ever written. This is definitely not for the casual comic book reader. If you want to see big booms, and bangs on every page, pass these books on by. Better yet check out the free pages Amazon.com has posted and determine if you like what you see. You'll rarely find a better value than this, in compiled manga collections.
Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking...
Review: I don't normally read manga that involves war, but this was an exception. I read the summary and thought that I would like it. Well, I was right. I didn't just like it, I LOVED it! This story was captivating. I loved the art and I didn't even mind the gory parts. This series is about a Princess named Nausicaa. She goes off to try to find out what is happening to the Sea of Corruption. She meets many people along the way that either help her, want to destroy her; or wanted to destroy her but when they finally meet her, gets captivated by her. I think she is everything a Princess should be. This storyline might be a little hard to follow for some people. It's a good idea to read the books one after another, so you don't forget anything that's happened. There are many twists in the plot. I am looking forward to the movie.
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