Two Homeric Sequences in Hayao Miyazaki’s Work

Academy Award winner Hayao Miyazaki shows a profound knowledge of Homer. By thoroughly examining the details within two of his animation movies, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) and Spirited Away (2001), we find sturdy and creative references to Odyssey, namely strong correspondences with books V–VI and book X. On the objective side, the Japanese director seems to find similarities between the afthermath of the Trojan War and that of World War II. On the subjective one, he seems to find salvation in the frail things that saved the life of Odysseus himself upon reaching the land of the Phaecians: the water spring and the wind. As his reflection on Homer grows more mature over a span of thirty years, we can identify the intersection points between the work of Miyazaki and the Homeric epic: the epithets of the sea and the air (but also that of Athena), the prophecy, the land of the dead or the oblivion induced by the Lotus-eaters. Of course, the main reference is the princess Nausicaa, but in the somehow post-Homeric quality of Nausicaä of the Valley, as if Miyazaki is trying to complete nowadays a story lacking from the Epic Cycle.