Released in 1984, Nausicaa Of The Valley Of Wind (風の谷のナウシカ) is a seminal manga as well as animated film by Hayao Miyazaki, and although it was technically made before the creation of Ghibli, Nausicaa has since become one of the studio’s most iconic and beloved titles.

4 decades after its release, publisher Iwanami Shoten has launched a new “Hayao Miyazaki Imageboard Series” of art books to showcase the director’s original watercolor concept art in high quality, large format prints, and what better fitting title to kick-start the series than Nausicaa ? This book collects 131 pieces of art work spread across 108 pages, complete with an interview with Ghibli producer Suzuki Toshio found at the end of the book.

The biggest selling point and highlight of the book is the big print size; which allows for much better appreciation of Hayao Miyazaki’s gorgeous watercolor illustrations. I also like that the reproductions are presented close to their pristine look, with no overt color correction or saturation applied, something I noticed in some of Ghibli’s earlier Art Of books.

Publisher book synopsis – Hayao Miyazaki creates hand-drawn illustrations to conceive his ideas for his films and to communicate the concepts to his staff. These are called “image boards”. Hayao Miyazaki Image Board Series is a complete collection of Miyazaki’s “image board” artwork held at Studio Ghibli including unpublished works. In this large book with a trim size of 35.0 x 27.7 cm (12.8 x 10.1 in), portrait, the illustrations are reproduced at or close to their original size, in its true colors and texture of the original drawings realized by high-quality printing. Discover how the fascinating world of Miyazaki’s creation begins.

(above & below) Print size comparisons between the Nausicaa Imageboards art book and The Art Of The Boy And The Heron, the latter been a considerably sized volume itself.

At the time of writing this review, I did not have on hand a copy of The Art of Nausicaa book to do a side-by-side comparison to determine how much overlapping material are in both books, but I do not believe it would have been a factor to stop me from getting this Imageboard book. The fidelity of Hayao Miyazaki’s beautiful watercolor art work and illustrations are clearly improved with the big print size, and that in my opinion is worth the purchase. If you’re a Nausicaa or Hayao Miyazaki fan, don’t miss out on this one.

“Nausicaa Imageboards Art Book 風の谷のナウシカ 宮﨑駿イメージボード全集 1” details :

Dimensions – 1.51 x 25.7 x 36.4 cm
Softcover, 108 pages
Full color, In Japanese language

  
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