Abstract
Japan as a colonial power at the beginning of the twentieth century fell outside of the Eurocentric empires of the West. However, the country found itself preoccupied with ways of elevating its status in the hope of being equal to and, eventually, surpassing the West. The Wind Rises (2013), an anime film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, tells the story of Jiro Horikoshi, an aeronautical engineer who created the Mitsubishi A6M Zero used by the Japanese Empire during World War II. The animation and the sound design of the film are two formal elements that paint Jiro as a pacifist with a desire to create airplanes. It is a portrayal of an individual aspiring to be disparate from a colonial power, but the narrative suggests that it is, perhaps, impossible to completely align oneself outside of the imperial force of the Japanese Empire. The article explores how The Wind Rises, through the formal elements of anime and its sound design, carefully navigates Japan’s historical and colonial tensions.
Highlights
As Jiro Horikoshi (Hideaki Anno) dreams upon a patch of grass in Japan, he visualizes Italian planes and the man who made them, Giovanni Battista Caproni (Nomura Mansai)
The Wind Rises (2013), an anime film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, depicts Jiro as an aeronautical engineer who creates the Mitsubishi A6M Zero used by the Japanese Empire during World War II
Jiro, whose dreams of engineering never engaged with that colonial machine, becomes part of the system itself, an eventuality which Homi Bhabha, in his musings on the connections between narrative and state, would term in the following way: “Quite the difference of space returns as the Sameness of time, turning Territory into Tradition, turning the People into One” (300)
Summary
As Jiro Horikoshi (Hideaki Anno) dreams upon a patch of grass in Japan, he visualizes Italian planes and the man who made them, Giovanni Battista Caproni (Nomura Mansai). The Wind Rises (2013), an anime film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, depicts Jiro as an aeronautical engineer who creates the Mitsubishi A6M Zero used by the Japanese Empire during World War II.
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