Ksenia Safronova Safronova itibaren 05131 La Hija de Dios, Ávila, Spain itibaren 05131 La Hija de Dios, Ávila, Spain

This review covers the entire 7 volumes of Miyazaki's Nausicaa. Despite the silly and virtually meaningless 'description' of this book appended to the data link above, these 7 volumes are actually one of the most profound works of speculative fiction done in the 20th century. The fact that it is also a wonderful work of visual art is just icing on the cake. The whole story was 13 yrs in the writing/drawing; the film adaptation of the first volume spawned Studio Ghibli and established Miyazaki as a master storyteller and the premier creative artist in Japan. Nausicaa is speculative fiction of the highest order. Don't be tempted to categorize it as 'manga' and set up preconceptions - one might as well categorize Moby Dick as 'fishing stories'. Nausicaa is a literary venture as widely resonant as Melville's, with a huge scope, accomplished in the graphic novel format. It's not quite sci-fi, nor fantasy, nor is it simply a morality play. Like any great artistic act, it reaches beyond form, style and categorizable content. The story is about knowledge, vanity, technology, cowardice, loyalty, aggression, wonder, greed, beauty, skill, integrity, death, perception, biodiversity, hope, despair, aspiration, resignation, and the pending fate of the human race. Everyone should read it.

The shorts that were added to pad out this volume's page count were only average otherwise it would received a high review. The four part Cat in the Cradle story following Thomas Blake, aka Catman is quite good. Blake remains the best developed of the series' characters, but that doesn't mean writer Gail Simone is ignoring the remainder of the cast. Cat is a Blake centric story that includes flashbacks to his childhood, and we see how physically and emotionally violent Blake can get when his infant son is kidnapped.