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Miyazaki & Ghibli's The Wind Rises Film Poster Shown

The official Twitter account for Studio Ghibli's international branch posted a second official movie poster for director Hayao Miyazaki's upcoming The Wind Rises (Kaze ga Tachinu) film. The poster featuring the main character Jirō Horikoshi was previously shown on Japanese television.

In February 2009, Miyazaki launched a two-part manga mini-series called "Kaze Tachinu" that focuses on Jirō Horikoshi, the designer of Japan's famed Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter plane of World War II. Author Tatsuo Hori also wrote a novel called Kaze Tachinu, and the film's tagline on the poster references both real-life figures and paraphrases Hori's book: "Show respect for Jiro Horikoshi and Tatsuo Hori. We must try to live." (Hori himself was reportedly quoting Paul Valéry's "Le cimetière marin" or "The Graveyard By The Sea" poem, which read, "Le vent se lève! . . . il faut tenter de vivre!" or "The wind is rising! . . . We must try to live!")

TOHO had planned to release another anime film from Ghibli, Isao Takahata's Kaguya-hime no Monogatari (The Tale of Princess Kaguya), on the same day as The Wind Rises. However, TOHO announced in February that it delayed Takahata's film until this fall.

52-year-old Evangelion director Hideaki Anno will make his feature anime film voice-acting debut as the protagonist Jirō Horikoshi. Singer and songwriter Yumi Matsutoya will perform the song “Hikōki Gumo” (Airplane Cloud) as a theme song for the film. She also composed the song when she was 16 years old.

The Wind Rises will premiere in Japan on July 20.