Miyazaki Hayao, the world famous animation film director, has suddenly announced his early, or from our point of view premature, retirement. But before doing so, he left one more to us and the world which, though centred around the life of a designer of a fighter plane, contains a strong appeal for peace.
The designer, the hero of the story, is Horikoshi Jiro(1903-82). He is a legendary figure who after years of painstaking effort succeeded in designing a fighter plane for the then Japanese navy, known as "Zero". It excelled all the other main fighter planes in the world at the time, round about 1940. In order to retain the maneuverability and speed while carrying a still inferior engine made in Japan, he and his team tried everything to curtail even one extra gram from the plane's weight. In the movie Horikoshi was saying, 'Shall we then dismount the machine guns?'. Of course it was a joke, and they finally met all the requirements the navy had put to them, and even more.
But Horikoshi is not described as a war-like man here. He is not even a military man. He is wholeheartedly interested in making a beautiful plane, a dream put into his head in his childhood by an Italian plane maniac in a real dream.
One thing I would particularly appreciate is that there are no scenes of battle in the movie, let alone no scenes of 'Zero' fighters winning a victory over the enemies. Most of the 2 hour 10 minute movie is devoted to how Horikoshi and his team worked, and some related and beautiful episodes such as his love and marriage. Toward the end, when the team succeeded in producing a required prototype, the test pilot came to him and thanked him for giving them such a wonderful plane. The age for the 'Zero' plane had come, and the war-time Japan produced as many as 10,000 of them. However, the war had been over by the next scene, where Horikoshi says, 'Not a single plane has come back'.
The designer, the hero of the story, is Horikoshi Jiro(1903-82). He is a legendary figure who after years of painstaking effort succeeded in designing a fighter plane for the then Japanese navy, known as "Zero". It excelled all the other main fighter planes in the world at the time, round about 1940. In order to retain the maneuverability and speed while carrying a still inferior engine made in Japan, he and his team tried everything to curtail even one extra gram from the plane's weight. In the movie Horikoshi was saying, 'Shall we then dismount the machine guns?'. Of course it was a joke, and they finally met all the requirements the navy had put to them, and even more.
But Horikoshi is not described as a war-like man here. He is not even a military man. He is wholeheartedly interested in making a beautiful plane, a dream put into his head in his childhood by an Italian plane maniac in a real dream.
One thing I would particularly appreciate is that there are no scenes of battle in the movie, let alone no scenes of 'Zero' fighters winning a victory over the enemies. Most of the 2 hour 10 minute movie is devoted to how Horikoshi and his team worked, and some related and beautiful episodes such as his love and marriage. Toward the end, when the team succeeded in producing a required prototype, the test pilot came to him and thanked him for giving them such a wonderful plane. The age for the 'Zero' plane had come, and the war-time Japan produced as many as 10,000 of them. However, the war had been over by the next scene, where Horikoshi says, 'Not a single plane has come back'.
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