The below synopses are drawn from Viz Media's 4 volume Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind: Perfect Collection, published from 1995-97. The chapter breaks and titles are entirely my own fabrication and are designed simply as a way to structure such a massive work in more digestible chunks. Although originally published in serial form, many pages were revised for publication in the first book versions, and thus some of the original breaks are less practical.
Summarized Titles
Book 1
- Master Yupa arrives at the Valley of the Wind and is rescued by Nausicaä.
- A Pejitei refugee brig crashes nearby.
- Kushana's Torumekian forces arrive and searches for the Pejitei stone, but leaves empty-handed.
- Kushana is ordered to journey through the Sea of Corruption with a coalition of local forces.
- Asbel attacks the Torumekian convoy, Nausicaä’s ship is forced down into the forest.
- Nausicaä saves Asbel in the forest vault.
- Nausicaä and Asbel are captured by a Dorok Priest
- Nausicaä escapes the Doroks and rejoins her gunship.
- Nausicaä finds the Doroks’ baby Ohmu lure. The Ohmu stampede destroys Kushana’s Torumekian convoy.
- Kushana helps Nausicaä return the baby Ohmu to the herd.
- Nausicaä warns of the Daikaisho (destructive wave) and boards Kushana’s ship.
- Yupa learns that the Doroks are growing Ohmu as weapons.
- Yupa and Asbel escape the Doroks. Dorok commander Miralupa learns of Nausicaä’s existence.
- Kushana emerges from the Sea of Corruption and vows revenge on her scheming father.
- Nausicaä learns that the poisonous miasma has spread into the Dorok villages.
- Kushana’s ship runs into a Dorok fleet.
- Kushana finds survivors from her old army.
- Yupa and Asbel meet the Forest People. Kushana rejoins her army at Sapata, under seige by Miralupa's Dorok forces.
- Nausicaä helps Kushana weaken the Dorok siege forces in a surprise attack.
- Miralupa prepares to use Dorok miasma on Sapata. Charuka begins to have doubts about his people's tactics.
- Yupa and Asbel depart the Forest People and reunite with Mito.
- Kushana tries to obtain refugee ships from her brother, but fails and is stranded in Kubo.
- Nausicaä meets Chikuku. Miralupa seeds his own lands with the spore mold, which goes out of control. Nausicaä saves Charuka’s ship.
- Namulith, the Dorok Emperor takes control from Miralupa.
- Yupa saves Kushana and Kurotowa at Kubo.
- Nausicaä helps the Dorok villagers fleeing from Miralupa’s renegade mold.
- At Sapata, Kushana is captured by the Emperor’s Heedra. Yupa sneaks on board the Emperor’s ship.
- The Emperor tries to form an alliance with Kushana. A self-destructive Nausicaä is protected from the spore by an Ohmu.
- A new forest of corruption sprouts. Nausicaä is rescued by Selm.
- Namulith orders Miralupa’s troops to fall in line with his re-established rule.
- Miralupa finds peace in Nausicaä’s vision. Nausicaä wakes and meets Selm.
- The Torumekian Emperor decides to invade the Dorok capitol, Shuwa.
- Asbel attacks Namulith’s troops. Nausicaä boards the ship carrying the God-Warrior.
- Namulith is defeated. Nausicaä and the God-Warrior head to Shuwa.
- Nausicaä and Ohma (the God-Warrior) meet the Torumekian Princes.
- Yupa sacrifices himself to maintain the peace between Kushana and the Doroks. Nausicaä enters the Garden.
- Nausicaä resists the Garden and follows Ohma towards Shuwa.
- The Torumekian Emperor and Ohma breach the crypt of Shuwa.
- Nausicaä and the Torumekian Emperor meet the Crypt Master.
- Nausicaä and Ohma destroy the Shuwa Crypt.
- Epilogue
Detailed Synopsis
1: Master Yupa arrives.
1000 years after the Seven Days of Fire (a global apocalypse caused by Mankind’s use of terrible weapons over seven days), the Earth is slowly becoming engulfed and overrun by a poisonous forest (the Sea of Corruption), which gives off a poisonous miasma and is inhabited by giant, mutated insects. In the north, Nausicaä, a princess of the the Valley of the Wind, explores the forest and gathers test samples. When she sees an Ohmu chasing a man and his mounts, she leads the man out of the forest and calms the Ohmu with strobe-grenades and a worm flute. Nausicaä recognizes the forest interloper as Master Yupa, her old mentor. After befriending Teto, a squirrel-fox which Yupa had rescued from some giant insects, she tells Yupa that she will soon be going to war for the Vai Emperor of the Torumekian Empire in place of her father the king, who is too ill from the forest’s poison. The Valley of the Wind is mostly protected from the poisonous spores of the adjacent forest (due to a coastal blowing in from the coast), but the villagers gradually become sickened and die. (Pgs. 1-23)
2: A Pejitei refugee brig crashes nearby.
In the evening, Yupa distributes gifts to the people of the Valley of the Wind. The villagers celebrate, although Yupa is saddened to see less people than his last visit. The next day, Nausicaä fits the the Ohmu eyeshell onto the Valley’s gunship to use as a canopy. Her father Jhil tells Yupa that the people of his village only survive due to the gunship’s usefulness to the Torumekian Empire. Nausicaä and Uncle Mito take the gunship on a test flight and sight a brig, mobbed by land grubs. Nausicaä successfully uses the gunship’s cannons to free the brig’s rudders, but it crashes anyway, just beyond the outskirts of the forest. In the wreckage they find Rastel, the princess of Pejitei (a Periphery State bound to Torumekia). She relates that Torumekia has raided Pejitei. Before she dies, she asks that Nausicaä give a stone talisman to her brother. (Pgs. 24-41)
3: Kushana arrives and searches for the Pejitei stone, but leaves empty-handed.
A Torumekian corvette of the Imperial Guard, led by Princess Kushana, searches for the Pejitei brig and the talisman. It eventually lands in the Valley of the Wind but blatantly disregards landing protocols set up to preserve the land from forest spore infection. Nausicaä impulsively attacks the patrol after it disembarks. Kushana’s Wormhandlers use their mutated maggots to search for the Pejitei talisman but Nausicaä uses mental power to repel the maggots. She is then challenged to duel with Kushana’s fiercest soldier. After a brief battle, Master Yupa defuses the situation and the Torumekians return to Pejitei, as Kushana decides the talisman is not worth causing further tension with one of her empire’s Periphery States. Nausicaä learns that the Torumekians’ careless intrusion has caused the infection of one of their most valuable trees. Later, Torumekia declares war on the Dorok Principalities, a nation to the south. (Pgs. 42-65)
4: Kushana is ordered to journey through the Sea of Corruption with local forces.
Kurotowa, a spy for Kushana’s scheming brothers, joins Kushana’s army at Pejitei and gives her an update on her brothers’ progress in the war against the Dorok Principalities in the south. He tells her that the Emperor wants her to form a coalition of Periphery State forces in order to journey through the Sea of Corruption. Her mission is to make an unexpected flank attack on the Dorok. Kushana feels that she is being punished for not retrieving the Pejitei talisman but acquiesces anyways. Kurotowa gets a look at the God Warrior deep in the Pejiteians’ excavated mineshaft. At the Valley of the Wind, Nausicaä shows Yupa her secret lab, where she is able to grow healthy flowers from poisonous forest spores if she feeds them clean water and air. The next day Nausicaä and the older soldiers of the Valley take off in their gunship to rendezvous with Kushana’s forces, pulling behind them a supply barge. (Pgs. 69-81)
5: Asbel attacks the convoy, Nausicaä’s ship is forced down into the forest.
Yupa tells King Jhil about his visit to the center of the forest and that he believes the Sea of Corruption is in some way purifying the poisoned land in its final stages. The warships of the Periphery States follow Kushana’s Imperial forces south into the Sea of Corruption. Soon they are ambushed by Asbel in Pejitei’s remaining gunship. Nausicaä projects a mental image to Asbel asking him to stop the attack. The Valley supply barge breaks loose and Nausicaä has her two ships descend to the forest floor to make repairs. Kurotowa shoots Asbel down and Kushana’s forces continue south into the Sea of Corruption. (Pgs. 82-105)
6: Nausicaä saves Asbel in the forest vault.
Nausicaä’s ships land in water where they are greeted by Ohmu. The Ohmu cover her with tentacles and Nausicaä communicates their harmless intentions. As the Valley ships head back into the sky to rejoin the Torumekian convoy, Nausicaä is drawn away by the violence caused by Asbel’s crash near the lower “vaults” of the forest. When Nausicaä arrives and tries to save Asbel from the insects she is knocked out by accident. An Ohmu orders the insects to spare them. Asbel is amazed to find that they can breathe in this sub-region without masks. (Pgs. 106-125)
7: Nausicaä and Asbel are captured by a Dorok Priest
Nausicaä has a flashback to an incident in which she had tried (but failed) to protect an Ohmu larva from being destroyed by her parents. When she wakes, she gives Asbel the Pejitei stone and he repairs her mehve (glider). Nausicaä realizes that the forest is converting the poisoned soil into purified sand. When the mehve is repaired, they try to escape the forest but soon run into a Dorok monitor ship. They are forced to land and Dorok barbarians attack, but a Dorok priest eventually emerges and negotiates a truce. Nausicaä and Asbel board the Dorak ship. (Pgs. 126-141)
8: Nausicaä escapes the Doroks and rejoins her gunship.
At the Torumekian camp on the banks of the Acid Sea (a corrosive oasis in the middle of the Sea of Corruption), Kushana allows Mito go back to search for Nausicaä, while a Torumekian patrol is killed by nearby hidden Doroks. On the Dorok monitor ship, Nausicaä is given a Dorok dress by a sympathetic woman. Nausicaä tries to negotiate a peace with the Dorok priest but soon learns that the Dorok, driven from their homes by the Torumekians, are intending to occupy the Periphery States after defeating the Torumekians. She also learns that they know of Kushana’s invasion force (through one of Kushana’s scheming royal relatives) and are setting a trap for them. When Mito arrives in his gunship, Nausicaä escapes on her mehve to rejoin him, while Asbel elects to remain with the Doroks to continue campaigning for a peaceful resolution. (Pgs. 142-162)
9: Nausicaä finds the Doroks’ baby Ohmu lure. The Ohmu stampede destroys Kushana’s convoy.
Nausicaä sees in the distance that a Dorok flying jar is using a tortured baby Ohmu to lure a herd of stampeding Ohmu towards the Torumekian encampment near the Acid Lake. She tries to shoot out the tow rope, and the Dorok crash their ship in the acid lake. The baby Ohmu (whom she seems to recognize) lands on an island jutting out from the acid lake. A Dorok patrol attacks the Torumekian encampment and tries to draw Kushana and her men away from the Torumekian convoy, so that they will be too late to escape the Ohmu stampede. When the Ohmu stampede arrives, Kushana’s life is saved by Kurotowa on the lone ship that manages to escape in time. The remaining Torumekian convoy ships are destroyed. (Pgs. 163-187)
10: Kushana helps Nausicaä return the baby Ohmu to the herd.
On the island in the Acid Sea, Nausicaä is burned by the acid when she tries to prevent the baby Ohmu from entering the lake to rejoin the Ohmu herd (gathered on the shore). The Ohmu’s blood stains her Dorok dress blue. Nausicaä uses her mehve to reach Kushana’s surviving corvette and convinces Kushana to land her corvette on the island. The Dorok priest arrives in a flying jar and sees Nausicaä unloading the Ohmu from Kushana’s corvette on the shore and returning it to the other Ohmu. The Ohmu heal Nausicaä’s burned foot and hold her aloft. The Dorok priest recognizes a Dorok prophecy. The Ohmu tell Nausicaä to return north, as the Ohmu need to continue south for some mysterious reason. (Pgs. 188-205)
11: Nausicaä warns of the Daikaisho and boards Kushana’s ship.
Nausicaä boards Kushana’s corvette in order to follow the Ohmu south, despite her people’s misgivings. She tells Mito to return to Jhil and tell him of the Daikaisho. At the Valley of the Wind, an old matriarch explains that the Daikaisho is a recurring event in which the Ohmu stampede and overrun the territories of man and, after dying, produce the poison miasma which leads to an expansion of the Sea of Corruption. Learning of the Dorok’s intentions, the leaders of the Peripheral States decide to rebel against the Torumekians and renew their original (non-affiliated) federation of Eftal. Jhil blesses their efforts with his dying breath, but still holds out hope for peace through Nausicaä. (Pgs. 206-221)
12: Yupa learns that the Doroks are growing Ohmu as weapons.
In the northwest, Yupa visits the outlaw town of Semo, which survives through trading scavenged materials from a wrecked spaceship. When Wormhandlers appear, Yupa secretly boards their ship to investigate their intentions. The Wormhandler ship arrives at their underground camp where Yupa spies a Dorok Mina priest (the one who had seen Nausicaä save the baby Ohmu) trying to dissuade representatives of the Dorok Holy Emperor from using the Ohmu as a weapon. Yupa then discovers that the Dorok and Wormhandlers are raising Ohmu larva in a lab. (Pgs. 222-240)
13: Yupa and Asbel escape the Doroks. Miralupa learns of Nausicaä’s existence.
When the Wormhandlers try to capture Yupa, one of the armored warriors reveals himself to be Asbel in disguise. With his help, they escape to the surface, joined by the Mina priest and his assistant Ketcha. Unfortunately they are captured by the Holy Emperor’s brother, Miralupa. The Mina priest describes his vision of Nausicaä in order to try to change Miralupa’s mind, but instead he ends up betraying Nausicaä’s existence to him. The Mina priest sacrifices his life to allow Yupa, Asbel and Ketcha to escape in a ship. In Kushana’s ship, Nausicaä receives a mental farewell message from the Mina priest, but is also psychically attacked by Miralupa. Nausicaä escapes his attack, but Miralupa resolves to track her down, fearing that she may disrupt his theocratic rule. (Pgs. 241-261)
14: Kushana emerges from the Sea of Corruption and vows revenge on her scheming father.
After escaping the Wormhandler enclave, Asbel tells Yupa about Pejitei’s discovery of the God Warrior in one of its mining shafts. Yupa tells him that knowledge of the old sciences is stored at Shuwa, the religious capitol of the Doroks. Suddenly, a Dorok ship attacks their craft. In the south, Kushana’s lone ship emerges from the Sea of Corruption. She learns from Kurotowa that her father had sent her into the south hoping for her destruction. Kushana plans to reunite with the Torumekian 3rd Army, her old command. (Pgs. 8-23)
15: Nausicaä learns that miasma has spread into the Dorok villages.
Kushana’s ship arrives above a burning Dorok village under attack from two Torumekian bombers. As Kurotowa destroys ships from his own army, Nausicaä descends to the village to discover that its occupants have all died from poison miasma. However, she is able to save two infants and has them brought to Kushana’s ship. In another area while exploring a well, an insect attacks and tries to eat Nausicaä, but the Ohmu blood on her dress calms it. (Pgs. 24-44)
16: Kushana’s ship runs into a Dorok fleet.
Back on Kushana’s ship, Nausicaä saves the life of an injured soldier. The Torumekians sight a Dorok fleet and try to follow by flying low. However Nausicaä sees that a poison forest has grown below them and the ship must ascend above the miasma. Unfortunately the ship emerges in the middle of the Dorok fleet. Kushana’s ship descends again and encounters a Dorok army below them. (Pgs. 45-64)
17: Kushana finds survivors from her old army.
The Dorok infantry destroy a city held by Kushana’s old comrades, the 3rd Army. Kushana promises to avenge their deaths and the misuse of her troops. Kushana learns from survivors of her old army that her brothers are using her troops to cover their retreat from a non-natural miasma which the Doroks are using as a weapon. Nausicaä tries to find a family to adopt the infants she had saved earlier, but the villagers are too poor too help. (Pgs. 65-79)
18: Yupa and Asbel meet the Forest People. Kushana rejoins her army at Sapata, under seige by Miralupa.
In the north, Wormhandlers discover the unconscious bodies of Yupa, Asbel and Ketcha in some wreckage, but are driven off by the mysterious Forest People. When Asbel and his friends wake, they are cared for by the Forest People who use only forest materials for their survival. In the south, Miralupa arrives at the siege of Sapata, where the Torumekian Princes are being held down by Dorok forces. Miralupa tells his priests to look for a blue-clad girl which he fears will sow fear amongst the Doroks. Kushana’s ship soon arrives and crashlands in the Torumekian army’s perimeter in Sapata. Kushana’s troops are happy to see her but Nausicaä is knocked out in the crash. (Pgs. 80-102)
19: Nausicaä helps Kushana weaken the Dorok siege forces in a surprise attack.
When Nausicaä wakes she is unable to move. A shadow form of Miralupa blindly searches for her but a charm gifted by the Mani priest before his death protects Nausicaä from detection. Later, Nausicaä reluctantly agrees to fight alongside Kushana’s forces in order to have the civilian Dorok prisoners freed. Kushana creates a smoke screen with her artillery. This allows her to surreptitiously blast a hole (sally port) in the side of her own castle wall to allow her cavalry to charge the Dorok’s siege engines. When Miralupa’s high priest Charuka sees the blue of Nausicaä’s uniform (warned of by Miralupa) he orders his men to concentrate fire on her. When the Dorok Imperial Guard surround Kushana’s force, Nausicaä uses siren shells to confuse their mounts, allowing Kushana’s force to escape as Nausicaä holds off the Doroks. A band of Kushana’s Torumekians volunteer to join Nausicaä to shield her from the Imperial Guard’s volleys, but are eventually all killed. Nausicaä is briefly surrounded when her horseclaw Kai is injured and falls, but Kai somehow rallies and they escape. Back at the castle, Korotowa congratulates Kushana on the successful destruction of the Dorok siege engines, just before Nausicaä returns alone on Kai, who finally expires from his wounds. (Pgs. 103-153)
20: Miralupa prepares to use Dorok miasma on Sapata. Charuka begins to have doubts.
Miralupa tells Charuka that he plans to use the forest miasma on Sapata to rout the Torumekians. Kushana releases the Dorok civilians to the amazement of the Doroks. Charuka tells the civilians to flee the area in order to evade the coming miasma. One of the female civilians gives Charuka Nausicaä’s earrings, which were given to her children (the rescued infants) on their departure. The Dorok scientists prepare artificial spore bombs to be used as bio-weapons on the Torumekians. Unbeknownst to the Doroks, the spores in the cannisters start to grow earlier than planned. (Pgs. 154-170)
21: Yupa and Asbel depart the Forest People and reunite with Mito.
Northeast of the Valley of the Wind, Mito and his companions find Yupa’s horseclaw mount Kui, who has laid an egg (prompted by the passing of Kai). Later, they spot a Dorok fleet transporting a God-Warrior towards Shuwa. They attack the God-Warrior but it has no real effect and are themselves shot down. In the forest, Selm (one of the Forest People) tells Yupa that the forest will eventually purify the poisoned lands. He tells Yupa that the Forest People are descended from the survivors of Eftal, originally led into the forest by the “blue-clad one” during the previous Daikaisho. Yupa, Asbel and Ketcha are given a boat to ride out of the forest. They eventually reunite with Mito, who has crashlanded but is unharmed. (Pgs. 171-196)
22: Kushana tries to obtain refugee ships from her brother, but fails and is stranded in Kubo.
Kushana decides that they need to find ships to fly her men out of Sapata and escape the Dorok siege (implied). Kushana and Kurotowa’s renegade 3rd Army forces attack a Torumekian Prince’s caravan at Kubo in an attempt to capture his cargo ships. Unfortunately, Kushana’s ship is rammed and Kushana captured by her brother. However, the approach of a swarm of insects forces the Prince to immediately take off. The Prince’s corvette is promptly destroyed by the insects in mid-air. The insects attack the Torumekian Kubo base while Kushana and a seriously injured Kurotowa try to hide. Kushana remembers that her mother had gone mad after drinking poison meant for Kushana. (Pgs. 197-231)
23: Nausicaä meets Chikuku. Miralupa seeds his own lands with the spore mold, which goes out of control. Nausicaä saves Charuka’s ship.
Taking off from Sapata on her mehve, Nausicaä lands in an oasis of unspoiled forestry and discovers a hidden temple. There, she meets blind priests who have been waiting for a “blue angel”. When a swarm of migrating insects begins destroying the area, Nausicaä saves their small, telepathic companion Chikuku and they depart on mehve above the miasma. They sight Miralupa’s Dorok ship which is seeding synthetic spores (and causing the insects to swarm). When Nausicaä lands on the Dorok ship, Miralupa tries to attack her in his shadow form but is driven off with Chikuku’s help. When the ship’s onboard mold begins growing out of control, Miralupa escapes in a launch. Nausicaä and Charuka initiate the ship’s self-destruct in order to try to save the Dorok territory below from the spores, but the spores survive the explosion and begin to grow into a semi-intelligent mold on the surface. After eventually transferring to a second Dorok monitor ship, Charuka learns that other synthetic molds have enveloped and destroyed different parts of the Dorok front. Some of the ship’s spore samples - kept in cryogenic suspension - go out of control and Nausicaä saves the ship by throwing the mold out the hatch. (Pgs. 232-87)
24: The Emperor takes control of Dorok from Miralupa.
A severely-weakened Miralupa returns to Shuwa and his regeneration tank. His brother, the Emperor, uses this opportunity to awaken monstrous Heedra slaves in order to use them as his soldiers. He visits Miralupa’s regeneration tank and poisons him, as well as his priest allies. (Pgs. 6-16)
25: Yupa saves Kushana and Kurotowa at Kubo.
In the northeast, Mito sees the Torumekian occupying forces pulling out from the Periphery States, although they ravage the land as they do so. When Ketcha attacks a Torumekian soldier in the city, Yupa, Mito and their friends are forced to immediately take to the skies. Yupa leads his group southwest towards Kubo, keeping ahead of a Periphery State refugee convoy driven from their villages by the insect migrations and the plundering Torumekians. After fighting off a Torumekian corvette, they eventually come across Kushana’s crashed ship at Kubo and rescue her and her remaining men. Asbel and Ketcha want to kill the enemy princess, but are restrained by Yupa. (Pgs. 17-52)
26: Nausicaä helps the Dorok villagers fleeing from Miralupa’s renegade mold.
The Doroks try to destroy the molds with bombs but they have no effect. With Chikuku’s help, Nausicaä flies over Dorok villages warning people of the mold and the miasma and tells them to gather on high ground (implied but not shown). On Charuka’s ship, Nausicaä predicts that the separate mold fields created by the Doroks will combine and then explode, spreading spores. In a dream she is attacked by an evil presence. Refugees are found who have gathered due to a vision of Nausicaä calling to them. Nausicaä makes mental contact with an Ohmu and the mold itself, and realizes that it is afraid, and the the forest insects are trying to calm it. She resolves to wait for the Ohmu herd to arrive and, overcome by the destruction, is willing to die with the mold. (Pgs. 53-84)
27: At Sapata, Kushana is captured by the Emperor’s Heedra. Yupa sneaks on board the Emperor’s ship.
Back at Sapata, Yupa and Kushana discover everyone has been killed by Heedra. A survivor tells Yupa that Nausicaä had earlier appeared and advised the main force to escape east ahead of the miasma. A group of Heedra appear and capture Kushana. Mito’s gunship is also surrounded but the Ohmu herd arrives and helps it escape. In order to evade the Ohmu stampede the Heedra are called back to the Emperor’s ship and they take off, with Yupa leaping on it at the last moment. The Emperor tells Yupa that Kushana will be his wife. (Pgs. 85-110)
28: The Emperor tries to form an alliance with Kushana. A self-destructive Nausicaä is protected from the spore by an Ohmu.
Nausicaä meets a girl of the forest who repairs her mask. Nausicaä takes off on mehve to follow the Ohmu herd. On the Dorok Emperor’s ship, Kushana wakes up and fights her way to the bridge. There, the Emperor shows her that her 3rd army (having fled from Sapata) still survives and that he will save them from the miasma and Ohmu if Kushana marries him and they form a Dorok-Torumekian alliance. Nausicaä lands on an Ohmu and tries to be absorbed by the mold spores with the Ohmu. The Ohmu instead picks her up and swallows her whole. (Pgs. 111-153)
29: A new forest of corruption sprouts. Nausicaä is rescued by Selm.
Charuka and Chikuka encounter Wormhandlers who have gathered to celebrate the arrival of a new forest of corruption. The forest boy Selm arrives and shows Charuka that the Ohmu have been consumed by the mold and that the mold will now be food for a new forest to grow. They locate Nausicaä within the spore and rescue her, just as a brand new forest is hit with sunlight and spontaneously sprouts. The Wormhandlers try to keep Nausicaä for themselves but Selm drives them away and they take to the air. (Pgs. 154-184)
30: Namulith orders Miralupa’s troops to fall in line with his new rule.
While evading Dorok guards, Yupa causes a brief Heedra revolt. Miralupa’s shadow form rises before the Emperor, but when Charuka’s flying jar is sighted (carrying a just-rescued Nausicaä) he tries to attack the still-catatonic Nausicaä. Selm and Chikuku protect Nausicaä. At the same time the Emperor opens fire on Charuka’s convoy (controlled by soldiers and priests serving Miralupa). The Emperor, Namulith, orders Miralupa’s remaining ships to follow his new rule or be destroyed. Charuka leaves Selm, Chikuku and Nausicaä on the ground and heads towards the Namulith’s ship. (Pgs. 185-201)
31: Miralupa finds peace in Nausicaä’s vision. Nausicaä wakes and meets Selm.
Selm takes Nausicaä on a dream journey through the forest of her own heart and shows her a vision of the future where the land has regenerated and birds are seen in the air. Nausicaä allows the dark shadow of Miralupa join them on this journey, and he eventually finds happiness, and disappears into a vision of the purified land. When Nausicaä wakes up, she is greeted by Selm, Chikuku, Mito and Kurotowa, and finds that the Wormhandlers have elected warriors to guard her. (Pgs. 202-244)
32: The Torumekian Emperor decides to invade Shuwa.
The Torumekian Princes return to the capitol, Tolas. The Torumekian emperor punishes their failure by sending them to the border, and raises an army himself in order to mount an attack on the Dorok capitol of Shuwa. In the Valley of the Wind, Tepa learns how to ride the wind. The people spot Dorok refugees and welcome them, forming a new alliance. (Pgs. 245-261)
33: Asbel attacks Namulith’s troops. Nausicaä boards the ship carrying the God-Warrior.
Namulith has Charuka and the other priests of Miralupa tortured. Nausicaä and Chikuku land and free Charuka. Chikuku reveals that he is of the Dorok royal line before the Emperor had taken over. Nausicaä has Chikuku broadcast a psychic message of peace to the Dorok people but Chikuku faints from exhaustion. Namulith’s God-Warrior is flown overhead. Namulith’s Heedra attack Nausicaä and the wavering crowd, but Asbel and Ketcha arrive with the Dorok Mani tribe and join the battle (Asbel and Yupa have come from Kubo after rescuing Kushana). After Asbel gives Nausicaä the God-Warrior control stone, Nausicaä lands on the Dorok ship transporting the God-Warrior. (Pgs. 4-35)
34: Namulith is defeated. Nausicaä and the God-Warrior head to Shuwa.
Nausicaä duels with Namulith until the Heedra attack and get hold of Nausicaä. Yupa arrives and fights off some of the Heedra. The God-Warrior wakes and, believing Nausicaä to be its mother, protects her from the Heedra. After Namulith is killed by the God-Warrior, Nausicaä and her “son” take off towards Shuwa to destroy the crypt containing the old sciences. Kushana tells Nausicaä that she will meet her at Shuwa. (Pgs. 36-63)
35: Nausicaä and Ohma meet the Torumekian Princes.
On the way to Shuwa, Nausicaä suffers radiation-sickness from the God-Warrior’s “light”. Additionally, the God-Warrior itself is rotting away. Nonetheless, she names it Ohma and they eventually come across two Torumekian Princes (on their way to rendezvous with the Torumekian King at Shuwa). The Princes tell the God-Warrior that Nausicaä must travel with them to protect her from its radiation. Ohma distrusts them but agrees to their request and flies alongside their Torumekian convoy. Mito and Asbel allow the Wormhandlers to join them as they head for Shuwa as well. (Pgs. 64-105)
36: Yupa sacrifices himself to maintain the peace between Kushana and the Doroks. Nausicaä enters the Garden.
Still in Dorok territory, tensions between Kushana’s forces (the rescued 3rd Army) and the Dorok locals rise. After preventing a suicide attack by the Doroks, Yupa is killed while protecting Kushana from a second Dorok attack. Nausicaä senses Yupa’s death. Teto dies from Ohma’s radiation. Ohma takes Nausicaä and the two Torumekian Princes from their convoy and forces the Torumekian fleet to turn back home. While burying Teto, Nausicaä meets a strange telepathic goatherder who takes her back to his garden so that she can regain her strength. Mito and Asbel sight Ohma waiting for Nausicaä outside the garden. When Ohma continues on to Shuwa, Mito and Asbel follow it in the gunship. (Pgs. 106-49)
37: Nausicaä resists the Garden and pursues Ohma towards Shuwa.
The goat herder turns out to be a shapeshifter who lures travelers into his garden in order to prevent them from reaching the secret crypts of Shuwa. The Torumekian Princes are completely taken in. Namulith had once visited there as an idealistic youth and then departed with four Heedra. However after 20 years, his disappointment with the peasants had turned him bitter and immoral. Nausicaä has difficulty escaping but Selm’s spirit arrives and helps Nausicaä confront the guardian. The guardian tells Nausicaä and Selm that mankind has evolved to a point where the unpoisoned air is no longer breathable by the current form of man. Nausicaä counters that this evolution must have been man-made in itself. She also realizes that the poisonous forest and insects were created artificially to purify the radioactive wasteland left behind by the Seven Days of Fire. The garden she is in is actually a seeding storehouse which will be used to repopulate the world after its purification. Nausicaä decides to leave the garden to find out why the crypts of Shuwa have also preserved the dangerous technology of the past. After emerging from the garden gate she reunites with one of her uncles and departs after Ohma with her Wormhandler followers, continuing on to Shuwa. (Pgs. 150-189)
38: The Torumekian Emperor and Ohma breach the crypt of Shuwa.
The Torumekian Vai Emperor and his army attack Shuwa and reach the crypt, but are repelled by its advanced defenses. Ohma arrives and attacks the crypt as well, eventually creating an open chasm on its face. The Torumekians all flee or are destroyed from Ohma’s blasts, leaving only the Vai Emperor and his “fool” alive. A severely damaged Ohma falls into the moat surrounding the crypt. Mito and Asbel land their gunship on the crypt roof, as Nausicaä and her Wormhandlers arrive. (Pgs. 190-224)
39: Nausicaä and the Vai Emperor meet the Crypt Master.
The keepers of the crypt emerge and escort the Vai Emperor inside to meet the Crypt Master, to see if he is worthy of becoming the new Dorok Emperor. Asbel enters the crypt through the gaping chasm caused by Ohma’s blast. Nausicaä arrives and enters the crypt as well. She descends into the depths of the crypt and joins the Vai Emperor as they confront the monolith known as the Crypt Master. The Crypt Master explains that it is saving all of the old technology of the world so that it can be used to help repopulate and restore the reborn world. Nausicaä maintains that the people must live to naturally forge a life from the world, and refuses to have it replaced by a culture from the past. She also believes that the existing people will be used as slaves to help the old world reassume control. (Pgs. 225-250)
40: Nausicaä and Ohma destroy the crypt.
The Crypt Master attacks Nausicaä and the Vai Emperor with mental blasts. On the roof, Mito uses a gunship shell to set off an explosion. With the Crypt Master’s attack momentarily distracted, Selm’s spirit tells Nausicaä to call on Ohma for help. Ohma uses his last remaining power to kill the Crypt Master and destroy its eggs (the planned future inheritors of the purified world). Kushana, Charuka, Kurotowa and Chikuku arrive and rescue Mito from the crypt roof. Asbel rescues Nausicaä and the Vai Emperor from the crypt, just before it collapses. Charuka notes that the blood of the crypt is the same color as the blood of the Ohmu (and realizes that the Ohmu were created by mankind). The Vai Emperor, dying from wounds gained from protecting Nausicaä, gives Kushana power over the Torumekians with his last breath. Nausicaä is pleased to see Asbel and Ketcha reunite. (Pgs. 251-271)
41: Epilogue
For a time, Nausicaä remains in the Dorok lands, but eventually joins Selm in the forest. Kushana restores Torumekia as a great nation. (Pg 271)
