8/10
This is growing on me. Phantasy settings are not my favourite, but this manga is really promising.
In this volume, Miyazaki weaves a credible world-building...and war-building! Different factions - all depicted with a certain variety of social norms, habits and faiths - develop their petty political and military intrigues, while a catastrophe worst than war seems to appear on the horizon.
Nausicaä is this telepathic saint super warrior and a child of prophecy. The latter is a literary trope that should be punishable with a week of jail. Anyhow, the protagonist remains quite lovable, so I can stand her. She truly is the main driving force of the narration.
I do not need to comment on how impressive Miyazaki's artistic and storytelling abilities are. A lot of great dogfight scenes. (By the way, why are plane fights called dogfights in English? How do dogs fit into the equation?)
We should also be out of scenes used in the 1984 movie, so from now on my feeling of dejà-vu should go away.
(I have updated to the box set, rather than searching the out of print single volumes, hence spare a ton of money. But I must say, the seppia inking of the single volumes actually added more fascination to the book.)