Review of Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Wind Rises” Note: This is a slightly edited version of an assignment I wrote for a college argumentative writing class. Hayao Miyazaki has always had a fascination with planes. They are a common icon throughout his filmography, and he even named his own Studio Ghibli after the Arabic name for the “Med iterranean Wind,” which also serves as an homage to the Italian war plane Caproni Ca.309, nicknamed Ghibli. It’s fitting then, that The Wind Rises, initially said to be Miyazaki’s final film before retirement (though he has since come back to work on another film), focuses entirely on planes and stars a main character who dreams of Giovanni Caproni himself. The Wind Rises is a biopic of Jiro Horikoshi, a real life plane designer known for designing the infamous Mitsubishi A6M Zero, also known as the “Zero” fighter plane, known for its use in devastating Kamikaze attacks towards the end of World War II, including the attack on Pearl Harbor. T...