It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to regard Hayao Miyazaki as one of—if not thesingle most acclaimed animated film directorsof all time. As the director of eleven different animated features (and in the height of production on his final project,How Do You Live?), Miyazaki’s particular blend of technical precision and imaginative world building has cemented the auteur as one of the most creative visionaries in the history of anime.
While his animated films have entertained audiences across the world for decades, Miyazaki isless known outside of Japanfor his also significant contributions to manga. Now, one of Miyazaki’s often-overlooked graphic novels,Shuna’s Journey, is set to receive its first official English localization in early November of this year.
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First released in Japan in 1983,Shuna’s Journeywill feel stylistically and thematically similar to many of Miyazaki’s most famous animated features. Released after his debut feature filmThe Castle of Cagliostroand shortlybeforeNausicaa of the Valley of the Windfor Topcraft (the Japanese anime studio that would later branch out to become Studio Ghibli). Because a manga is a much more manageable, small-scale endeavor than an entire animated film, the medium served as a perfect canvas for the young creator to experiment on some themes and artistic choices that would immortalize his reputation in future films.
The work utilizes a full watercolor illustration style, going against the grain of common black-and-white manga of the day and reflecting the painterly aesthetic that Miyazaki, Topcraft and Ghibli would soon become famous for.
Shuna’s Journeyis a fantasy story in which Shuna, a young prince, must leave his remote village to help his people survive a famine. Becoming fascinated when a strange visitor provides him the clues to a mysterious new grain, Shuna’s epic travels westwarduntangle in an epic journeythat spans everywhere from helping a young slave girl liberate herself, witnessing the miracles of the natural world, and arriving in the mythical land that may hold the answer to his people’s famine.
Miyazaki’s influences forShuna’s Journeyrange from a Tibetan folktale to the adventure manga he read as a child in 1950s Japan. The story’s themes of distant lands, fantastical adventures, and a headstrong noble protagonist are also resonant withNausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.
The one-volume graphic novel was never properly translated into English, andfor years it remained a lesser-knownyet highly-inspired piece of Miyazaki’s creative oeuvre. After its criminally-long relegation to compressed scans and auto-translations from curious fans, a definitive English-language edition of the work is now available.
Published by First Second Books and translated by anime historian Alex Dudok de Witt, the new edition aims to ground the story within the context ofMiyazaki’s wider creative development. With this new edition releasing sooner rather than later, fans are finally able to take a look at a pivotal creative work from anime’s most storied visionary.
More information and pre-orders on the new edition ofShuna’s Journeycan be found onlineat Macmillan, parent company of First Second Books.
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