宮崎駿のアニメ映画『風の谷のナウシカ』に関する一考察 - 時代․腐海․ナウシカのキャラクターを中心に -

Abstract

Hayao Miyazaki’s animated film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Windwas created in the early 1980s. During this era, the two superpowers, the United States and the former Soviet Union, were heavily in conflict, and the era was characterized as ‘The New Cold War’. Also, Japan confronted the continuing environmental crisis caused by industrialization. The animated film was a science fiction created in these chaotic times, with Hayao Miyazaki’s imagination and his original story. Fukai ‘the decayed sea’, which sets out the stage of the story with important meaning, is viewed as a natural system that purifies the soil and water contaminated by humans. The toxic air released from there is nonetheless poisonous enough to kill humans. In this respect, it seems to indicate that the only solution is that humans, whose behaviors are the main reason for contamination, change their ways. As the story proceeds, the character of Nausicaä, the protagonist of the film, notably changes from her tendencies to resolve conflicts between nations (or ethnic groups) violently to her attitude that does not resort to violence. Her non-violent attitude can also be seen in the ways how she faces nature; she consistently tries to co-exist with it, rather than dominating it with the power of weapons and technology. Such Copernican shift in the ways humans are, I argue, related to their attempt to overcome their own negative emotions such as ‘anger’, ‘fear’, and ‘animosity’.