We cannot overstate the importance of Hayao Miyazaki’s anime, especially after the recent release of The Boy and The Heron (after his fourth retirement). His name is enshrined in animation history.

But outside of Japan, his manga has received little fanfare. While Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind did receive a US release—eventually—much of his other comics work has only been available in fan translations. With Shuna’s Journey, however, we have our second glimpse of some of his early work finally surfacing in English officially. 

Shuna is a prince in an isolated village. The village’s meager harvests keeps them fed. But when Shuma finds an old man, a dying prince from far off, who tells him of golden wheat that will ensure his village is prosperous, Shuma can’t not risk the journey. Against the wishes of his parents and elders, he journeys west. During this quest, he encounters the world as it is now: crumbling, desolate, and clinging to its ancient evils. At a dilapidated city, he’s offered slaves—two girls from another kingdom, Thea and her little sister—for his rifle. After freeing them, Shuma discovers the valley of the gods and steals their golden wheat. But, as a result, his memory and name are lost to him. 

Shuna’s Journey features vast watercolor landscapes that unfold over many pages with mostly captions providing the textual story work that isn’t conveyed in the images and has more in common with, as translator Alex Dudok de Wit points out, an emonogatari—a kind of illustrated story popular during Miyzaki’s youth. This genre allows for a more gradual build in plot and character as we see Shuna and Thea develop over large swaths of time to match the vast, sweeping pages. The reverence for nature and the ills of a society dependent on endless streams of enslaved people to ensure a comfortable existence for a select few play massive roles, but so does the simplicity of human connection and compassion that these characters show for those in need. 

From Shuna’s Journey we can see the seedlings for much of Miyazaki’s future work—from Castle in the Sky to Princess Mononoke and even work like The Wind Rises. It’s one thing to tell many tales; it’s another to tell so many with such a clear throughline over decades and have them all turn out as well as this. 

Get excited. Get journeying. 

Drew Barth (Episode 331, 485, & 510) resides in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida.