The Wind Rises

The Wind Rises follows Jiro Horikoshi, a Japanese boy whose dream of flight is blocked by short-sightedness, which keeps him from becoming a pilot. Inspired by the Italian aircraft designer Giovanni Battista Caproni, he instead devotes himself to designing planes. In 1927 he joins a major engineering firm, where his talent establishes him among the world's leading aeronautical engineers. The story spans decades of Japanese history, including the 1923 Kanto earthquake, the Great Depression and the country's entry into war, while tracing his relationship with Naoko Satomi.

Hayao Miyazaki directed and wrote the film, the fourteenth of the sixteen he has directed and his first feature after Mr. Dough and the Egg Princess. Toshio Suzuki, Naoya Fujimaki and Ryoichi Fukuyama produced it for Studio Ghibli with TOHO and other partners. Hideaki Anno voices Jiro, with Hidetoshi Nishijima, Miori Takimoto, Masahiko Nishimura, Stephen Alpert and Mansai Nomura among the cast. On a budget of about 30 million US dollars, it took roughly 137 million worldwide.

The film holds a rating of 7.8 on IMDb from about 112,000 votes and 7.8 on TMDB from a far smaller pool, while critics scored it 8 out of 10 across 182 reviews. The close agreement between critics and audiences suggests a warmly received film, though the vote counts show the critical sample is much the smaller.