Advanced Japanese Book Club // Reading 虐殺器官 - Genocidal Organ

Belthazar · July 5, 2020, 1:02am

風の谷のナウシカ

Author : 宮崎駿

Summary

Japanese

「火の七日間」と呼ばれる戦争によって巨大産業文明が崩壊してから千年。
荒れ果てた大地には「腐海」と呼ばれる有毒の瘴気を発する菌類の森が広がり、
衰退した人間の生存を脅かしていた。酸の海のほとりに、海から吹く風によって
腐海の毒から守られた「風の谷」という辺境の王国があった。そこでは、王女のナウシカを中心に人々は自然を尊び平和に暮らしていたが、大国トルメキア軍の侵略に遭い…。

English

The story is set in the future at the closing of the ceramic era, 1,000 years after the Seven Days of Fire, a cataclysmic global war, in which industrial civilization self-destructed. Although humanity survived, the land surface of the Earth is still heavily polluted and the seas have become poisonous. Most of the world is covered by the Sea of Corruption, a toxic forest of fungal life and plants which is steadily encroaching on the remaining open land. It is protected by large mutant insects, including the massive Ohmu. Humanity clings to survival in the polluted lands beyond the forest, periodically engaging in bouts of internecine fighting for the scarce resources that remain.

Nausicaä, a young princess, has an empathic bond with the giant Ohmu insects and animals of every creed. She fights to create tolerance, understanding and patience among empires that are fighting over the world’s remaining precious natural resources.

Length : 128 pages ¹
Category : Fairly slim, but with potential to continue

¹ For volume 1, at least. Amazon says it’s 136 pages, and while the last page is certainly numbered 136, the first page is inexplicably numbered 9 - and it’s literally the first leaf in the book.

Availability

Amazon: Volume 1 only - Seven-volume set.
Can’t find an e-book.

Personal Opinion

Well, it’s one of the classics of our era, ya know? Plus, we can finally put to work one of the kanji that WaniKani teaches but has no vocab for (by which I mean 駿).