Miyazaki Hayao’s Kaze tachinu (The Wind Rises) as an Homage to Hori Tatsuo

Abstract

This study analyzes Miyazaki Hayao’s movie Kaze tachinu as an homage to the writer Hori Tatsuo’s famous novel Kaze tachinu, and also takes into account Miyazaki’s earlier comic version of Kaze tachinu (by the same title). While both titles are taken from Hori’s famous novel, Miyazaki’s movie, in contrast to his comic, strongly diverges from the book’s plot. Still, in both cases, the narrative centering on the female protagonist and her fatal illness contains conspicuous similarities regarding images and locations, as well as structural parallels concerning for example the omission of major events such as death. These structures, just as the role of the verse “Le vent se lève!…” and the connected motif of wind, both of which exhibit similarities to Hori’s novel, are noticeably incorporated into the seemingly unrelated main plot, focusing on the main protagonist Horikoshi Jirō’s dreams and on his work constructing war-planes. The multilayered identities embodied in him reflect on several real and fictional persons, amongst them Hori Tatsuo himself, underscored by various techniques of authentication and fictionalization. This paper analyzes all three works comparatively to find out if – and how – movie and comic are inspired by and related to Hori’s novel Kaze tachinu, and will in the process show how Miyazaki changes meanings, statements, and motifs in his works.