Jiro is a boy who dreams of flying and of beautiful airplanes capable of outpacing the wind. But he can’t become a pilot—he’s been nearsighted since birth. Yet Jiro never gives up on his dream of the sky; he begins to design the perfect airplane and eventually becomes one of the world’s greatest aircraft designers. On his path to success, he not only meets many interesting people, survives the Great Tokyo Earthquake and brutal wars, but also finds the love of his life—the beautiful Naoko.

Hayao Miyazaki, the legend and undisputed king of Japanese animation, has always leaned more toward a melancholic tone than an optimistic view of the world. But The Wind Rises is his most tragic work, largely because it contains neither fairy-tale characters nor inventive metaphors—only the harsh truth about human destiny against a backdrop of upheaval. Here, on the one hand, the wind inspires the protagonist, an engineer, to create airplanes that outpace the elements. The quotation from Paul Valéry’s poem, which forms the basis of the title, becomes the central life principle that gives meaning to the journey: “The wind rises!… We must try to leave.” On the other hand, the strengthening wind signifies the impossibility of controlling external circumstances—the approaching war, for which the engineer’s creations are being used.