Flah wrote:

Plus the manga doesn't have nearly enough Wakaba.

Nothing has enough Wakaba.

I beg to disagree. Movie manga Akio is as perverse as any, younger than any, and his character design is probably the best of the four Utena versions; he's the only Akio with something of a human soul and actually a bit pitiful. Most of the manga's flaws are shared with the film but many of the film's silly indulgences are also left out. The angry outspoken Anthy has some of the best lines in the entire Utena canon. Juri and Miki have little to do, they barely have a reason to be there. So also Wakaba. If anything it is Utena who is made more boring, she is almost more a more passive mess than Anthy and even more of a psychological basket case than in the movie. Frankly, I find Touga slightly boring in all four version, but that's me. The final scene with Utena and Anthy is more tasteful than in the movie and unambiguous.

Let's not drift off topic   The OP was about where to find the movie manga.  If we want to go in depth on the movie manga and/or compare it to the movie, that belongs in a new thread.

Try amazon. I'm in the UK not the US but I've seen it going on there.

brian wrote:

There's an OP?

OP = original poster.

I must be the only person in the world who actually liked the manga and who thinks that it contributes to and compliments the SKU universe.

brian wrote:

This is not an example of Nausicaa vs. Warriors of the Wind.

Ohohoho! Let me tell you all a story. I beg the mods' indulgence, for this is a tale near and dear to my heart.

When I was a child, in the late 80's, it was customary for me to spend Friday nights over at my grandmother's house. (I didn't figure out why this was until many years later. ) It was also customary for my grandmother and I to go to the video store and rent several movies for the event. One day, I happened to pick up something called, yes, "Warriors of the Wind".

For those who don't know, this was an extremely heavily edited - butchered into pieces, really - version of Miyazaki's first (and IMHO still his greatest, though my bias should be plain) masterpiece, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Most of the non-action scenes were cut out, and what was left was a dumbed down kid-version of itself.

The VHS box art is a story all its own, depicting a number of characters that outright do not exist in the movie (the robot, pegasus rider, and Generic Male Hero), certain others which are depicted completely outside of their proper context, and the actual (female) main character almost an afterthought in the background.

Miyazaki was so mortified with the treatment his movie received that he has disavowed even the existence of that release ever since. There's even a story (possibly apocryphal), that when, many many years later, it came time for Disney to rerelease Studio Ghibli's movies for the American market, the studio sent the Disney executives a katana with a message enclosed: "No cuts."

....and yet, even with all they had done to it, it left a deep and profound impression on me after I watched it as a child. The beauty and poignancy of its story and world, and the strength, compassion, and nobility of its heroine struck me deeply, and has stayed with me ever since. Years later, I purchased that same VHS copy from the video store, and I own it still to this day. (Of course, I'm now also privileged to own the proper Nausicaä DVD release.)

I didn't even know at the time that that was the beginning of my relationship with anime. The advent of Sailor Moon, in my freshman year in high school, is what would begin that in earnest - and that's a whole other story all to itself - but I now look back fondly on Warriors of the Wind as, if you will, my "fateful first encounter" with the medium that would become one of my life's passions.

You're right, this is not at all the same situation as with the Utena manga vis-à-vis the movie - but even if it was, I'd be the very last person to belittle its potential impact on that score. In fact, I'd probably be more kindly disposed to the manga if that was the situation, but it isn't. I haven't denied that it has some worthwhile elements. It does. But characterizing a dislike of it as a "narrowing of horizons" is itself narrow-minded.

Last edited by Aelanie (09-28-2013 10:50:43 PM)

I keep meaning to write a brief essay on the different incarnations of Akio over the course of the series, movie and various mangas, but I keep getting distract- ooh, shiny!

Well, yeah, but to be fair, DD, you don't demand that anything at all make sense in a work of art, as long as it is presented with flair.  So of course discontinuities don't bother you.

Sometimes Miki sleeps with Touga and sometimes just just have sex and go to sleep separately. It's all good.

Aelenie... Aside from the grandmother thing, that exactly describes my childhood memory. Next time you rummage through my mind, I would like some advance notice. There are a few things that I'd like to keep away from prying eyes.