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Those of you who freaked on the cartoon masterpieces Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, rejoice. The last few holes in the Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli filmography are finally being filled. Three titles have just been released by Disney on DVD. Pigs do indeed fly in Porco Rosso, the anime auteur's ode to aviation, espionage and Europhilia that screened this past summer at Fantasia. The Cat Returns, meanwhile, is a fun, feline fairy tale produced by Miyazaki but directed by Hiroyuki Morita. Check it out for the Secret Service kitties alone. The real prize, though, is the long-awaited reissue of 1988's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Last seen years ago on VHS, hacked to bits and retitled Warriors of the Wind, this gem establishes many of the recurrent themes and elements of Miyazaki's distinctive voice - the young heroine, the flying machines, the green philosophy and moral nuance. It's a future-tense fable of ecological conflict that doesn't reduce the struggle between human beings and their environment to a zero-sum game, and moreover is gorgeous and exciting the whole way through. » RUPERT BOTTENBERG
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