How does the Nausicaa film tie into the manga?

[DrCrypt]

Does anyone know if there is any plot connection between the Nausicaa film and the manga? Both are excellent, but I've read volumes 2, 3 and 4 of the Nausicaa Perfect Collection (volumes three and four thanks to Anders, in exchange for a cute Quebecoise girl to be mailed to him in an A4 sized envelope) and while all the characters are the same, there isn't a shred of plot that is shared between the two. A lot of the main characters are there, but even they are different - Yushana, for example, is half robot from some battle wounds or something, yet in the manga, she's completely human. Did Miyazaki just throw away his manga and place the characters in a different plot in the same universe, or is everything that happened in the Nausicaa film in the first volume of the manga?

[MattKeil]

As I recall, the film was made well before the manga was even close to finished, so some of the differences stem from that. I also think Miyazaki was well aware that all the stuff in his manga plans wasn't going to fit into the two-hour movie running time, so better to work up something that was better-suited to the cinema rather than compressing everything or cutting vital elements. A similar tactic was taken with Akira.

[Wholly Schmidt]

There was a whole movie about the guys that stabbed Picard?

[Anders Hallin]

I think it's a lot more common in manga and anime with re-interpretation to fit the medium than book-to-movie, for example. Possibly because they've had that much more experience with it.
I've heard that The Twelve Kingdoms books barely touch on Yoko's friends, while in the anime, Yuka (Sugimoto) is an essential mirror to Yoko's development, and at the end a fascinating character that I wish they'd focus more upon.

And in Utena, the movie is even more visually grandiose than the series, but departs from it wildly, sharing almost only some visual hints, in-jokes and character names and looks with the series, while retaining much the same point as the series. I am, needless to say, very impressed in how Kunihiko Ikuhara pulled that off so well.

I have the Nausicaä movie on my computer, but I've chosen to wait until the dvd arrives, since it sort of feels like it would be worth the wait.

(BTW, crypt, I was at a friend's place, sorry about that, glad it arrived safely)

[Greenie]

The Nausicaa movie roughly follows the first 2/3 or so of Vol. 1. in the Nausicaa perfect collection.

Supposedly even Miyazaki was unhappy with the ending of the movie, feeling that it wrapped everything up too neatly. It would be great if Studio Ghibli would revisit the Nausicaa storyline again someday - I'd love to see that cavalry charge from Vol. 2 animated!

Mike

[DrCrypt]

Miyazaki being unhappy with the Nausicaa ending makes a lot of sense, since basically the only reason I couldn't figure out how to fit the film into the missing chronology of Volume 1 was the way everyone at the end of the film makes like Nausicaa has just fulfilled the prophecy and that's basically that.