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Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises Film Ads Aired

A 15-second television commercial began airing for director Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises (Kaze ga Tachinu) film in Japan. Singer and songwriter Yumi Matsutōya contributed the song “Hikōki Gumo” (Airplane Cloud) as a theme song for the film. She composed the song when she was 16 years old.

Two more ads also began streaming in collaboration with Japanese phone service provider au. In one ad, Evangelion director Hideaki Anno acts as his character Horikoshi in front of the mic, and in the other, he receives a text message. Both ads say, "au supports The Wind Rises" and "au loves Ghibli."

The previous half-minute teaser trailer is running in theaters:

Anno is playing the main character Horikoshi alongside the other cast members:
Former idol Miori Takimoto as Naoko Satōmi
Hidetoshi Nishijima as Honjō
Masahiko Nishimura as Kurokawa
Steve Alpert as Kastrup
Morio Kazama as Satomi
Keiko Takeshita as Jirō's Mother
Mirai Jita as Kayo Horikoshi
Jun Kunimura as Hattori
Shinobu Ōtake as Kurokawa's Wife
Mansai Nomura as Caproni

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.

The Wind Rises will open in Japan on July 20.

Via: Minna no Evangelion

Image © 2013 Nibariki, GNDHDDTK