I mean the guy made a film about how awesome the guy who created the zero fighter was and how japan should take pride in that despite the fighter being used as a tool of Japanese imperialism. I’m not saying he is a nationalist but like it’s kinda obvious he still has stuff he needs to work on
The entire point of the movie, like, its whole message, was how the guy who created the zero fighter was a misguided artist who ended up causing more harm than good. His entire story follows him repeatedly ignoring signs of poverty and war and death and oppression to follow his dream of designing airplanes. The Wind Rises is not about how awesome this guy was, it’s about how selfish and complicate he was in a war he benefited from, despite his “goodness.” There’s literally a scene where his best friend calls this out. “Poor countries want airplanes. And they pay us a lot to design them. It’s ironic.”
The movie ends with the guy watching his zero fighter—the thing he’s been working on for the entire film—succeed. Everyone’s cheering, but he’s lost looking across the countryside of Japanese because he’s just realized he’s lost everything. His wife, his country, his passion. It’s not a victory, it’s a tragedy. The next scene is the bombing of Hiroshima as he walks amongst a graveyard of warplanes; his legacy. He watches his zero fighters fly away and sadly says, “Not a single one returned.”
Also, Japanese nationalists famously hated this movie.
Say it with me: acknowledging that problematic concepts exist is not the same as endorsing them. Showing uncomfortable scenarios in art is not the same as enjoying them in real life.
Miyazaki literally spends hours at a time saying “war and nationalism are bad” and people are trying to interpret that as “he mentioned war and nationalism, he must think they’re the best things ever”
