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

Religion has affected art for centuries, beca make use of human responses to art and religion involve similar processes imagination and emotional involvement (Beit-Hallami, 1983). It seems natural for religion to advance its influence on popular culture, especially film, because of its wide reach. However, looking at Japan, is it possible for a non- Nipponese religion like Christianity to exert influence its popular culture, and to what extremity?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 meg yen, with about a million viewers. It owes its popularity to the incorporation of universal themes like religion, the environment and industrialisation. It contains so umpteen themes, both Japanese (feudalism, Shinto) and non-Japanese (Greek Mythology, Christianity, European medievalism). It is interesting to n ote that Miyazaki is oft described as a humanist, pursual no particular religion, yet Nausica contains an almost equal amount of references to Shinto and Christianity in the film.There are many English versions of the various terms and names of the characters in the film, partly 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 bighearted themes as well as symbols.Film synopsisThe story in Nausica takes place a thousand years after a global war, the 7 Days of Fire. Great Warriors, biological weapons with nuclear capabilities, destroyed everything. However, enclaves of surviving human colonies exist passim the Fukai, or the Sea of Decay. ,The Fukai is a new ecosystem consisting of a broad hepatotoxic forest of giant fungi and giant insects with the Ohmu as guardians. Th e main protagonist is Princess Nausica, daughter of the ruler of the Valley, a feudal community protected from toxic spores by strong sea winds. She is a nature-loving pacifist with a gift for communicating with insects and animals. Lord Yupa, a wandering mentor, inspires her to find a way to surrender the spread of the Fukai. Nausica often explores the Fukai to obtain plant samples and cultivate them in her secret room.One day, an air enchant carrying a Great Warrior embryo crashes into the Valley. This embryo was first 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 baited to the Valley to destroy it. Nausica sacrifices herself before the Ohmu, thereby calming their rage. They bring her back to life and heal her wounds, and t hen return to the Fukai, leaving life to return to normal in the Valley.Now we will 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 native Japanese religious practices and sentiments. Shinto has four general tenets worshipping and honouring the kami love of nature usance 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 death, good and evil, as inevitable parts of the world we live in, and 2) awe for the bright and pure, in all matter and thought, endeavoring to overcome physical pollution with rites of exorcism and bad thoughts with a pure and bright heart. The weedy link between valet, kami and nature, and the significance of purification and rituals are two themes in Japanese religion that carry on even to Japanese contemporary religions today (Earhart, 1982). For the scope of this essay, I will look at the Shinto themes of capital of New Hampshire 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 good and bad with nature, and tries to make peace 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 have to learn to live with the Fukai or risk destruction by insects. The telepathic Ohmu and other insects can be seen as kami, animist timbers with powers. The Ohmu went blind with rage when Pejites speared a baby Ohmu in order 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 shown 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. present we see the unconditional beauty of nature, be it harmless or poisonous. In a following scene Nausica comes across a shell of an Ohmu. It takes up almost the whole frame and Nausica is miniscule in comparison. She pronounces the shell to be perfect and amazing. Embellished with vivid music, an image of a nature revered for its sacredness and perfection is projected. idolatry for nature also comes fro m 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 afterwards on, the Fukai actually has restorative powers. It is in fact cleansing the Earth of mankinds waste left behind from the Great War. Similarly, the Ohmu possess benevolent telepathic powers (although they can simply communicate with Nausica) as well as the power to destroy humans and civilisation. In another scene, Kushana, commander of the Tolmekian army, announces her plan to burn the Fukai. In response, the Valley volume exclaim in hushed tones, Burn the Toxic Jungle?, Is it possible? showing 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 warring Pejites and Tolmekians, Please, no more killing and I cant bear to hav e anyone else die. rather of killing insects that attack humans, she uses an insect charm to calm them down 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. Being part of nature, both humans and insects are seen as equally important 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 purity and the use of rituals to overcome a state of contamination. In Nausica, the Earth has been polluted by mankind, the worst being the nuclear-like Great Warriors which eventually 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, similar 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 flush 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 tho 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 film Christianity. Although Christianity is not native to Japan, and not very well-received throughout the years, its illusionistic and theistic messa ges do have some universal value and some Japanese can relate to them as they are something different from the animistic elements of Shinto.ChristianityIn many ways, the appearance of strong elements of Christianity, a foreign religion, is not surprising. Miyazakis work is strongly Western-influenced due to his education (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 stool one of many foreign elements that Miyazaki has appropriated into this film. Here we will look at three doctrines of Christianity redemption, original sin, and resurrection.Throughout the film, Nausica repeatedly saves people. When Lord Yupa, the samurai-like wanderer, returns to the Valley, he praises Nausica by verbalize 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, please hear this prayer You must protect the people of the Valley Obaba, the wise 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 scarper the peopleat last to a land of purity. At the end of the film, she realises that Nausica is the saviour spoken of in the legend. The theme of redemption is clearly depicted in the film. However, why does mankind need to be saved?The doctrine of redemption comes hand in hand with the doctrine of the original sin. In the excogitation of the original sin , mankind is born in a state of sinfulness and is doomed 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 search for a saviour.Symbols play an important part in portraying the doctrine of resurrection. Nausica appears twice with her mail 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 fearlessness (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 shot twice, burned by acid and finally dies facing the Ohmu stampe de.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. resultIn 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 prove mankinds relationship with nature while the Christian themes focus on mankinds destiny. Apparently 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 ascribe 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 natur e? 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.