I completely respect your opinion, but wanted to point out that Nausicaa and The Wind Rises are really not good indicators of Miyazaki's works. Interestingly enough, I would never tell someone to watch these from the director first, so it is very curious that you picked these two to watch, especially because overall, they really don't represent his worlds and works that well (even though The Wind Rises is a summary movie of everything, his "previous farewell"). I would probably recommend Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle for the magic of it all (my two favourites), Mononoke Hime for the underlying topics (Nausicaa suits here too), and maybe Totoro for an easier introduction into his worlds.
Shout by SkinnyFilmBuffVIP 8BlockedParent2023-12-22T20:05:34Z— updated 2024-02-20T17:39:38Z
Even though I've only seen two Miyazaki films before this (Nausicaä and The Wind Rises), I still felt like a I had a pretty good idea of what to expect and thought I would enjoy this one. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Way too abstract for my tastes. Didn't feel like a cohesive story and I didn't connect to any of the characters. You can have the cutest, most impressive animation in the world, but if the story and characters aren't working, it just feels empty. Once we enter the tower, all semblance of relatable story-telling is jettisoned and instead we get a random collection of "wouldn't it be cool if..." visual ideas in service of vague thematic elements. Clearly I'm in the minority here, but this one was just not for me.