"Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind": It Formed Me, Defined My Concept of a Saviour, Made Me a Feminist Before I Knew What Feminine Means, Defined My Ideal Romantic Partner, and I Believed I'd Dreamt It Until I Was 32. (Detailed Synopsis Included.)
A Nagging Forgetfulne ss In 1985, I was six years old. Children's television at the time in South Africa wasn't anything to write songs about, but it was good enough. We had a few locally-produced TV series such as a sweet little Afrikaans language puppet show called "Liewe Heksie", a delightful peek into the world of a sweet little witch - broomstick, black cat and the various little friends that made up her community, we had a Southern Sotho dub of that era's animated "Spider-Man" which we could watch receive the English language dialogue for via simulcast through our radios, we had the inimitable "Robotech", an anime staple of the 1980s for just about any child, as well as "He-Man" and his female counterpoint "She-Ra". That being said, our family had a VHS machine, and renting cartoons to watch after school was always a treat. I have a plethora of memories of the various go-to's my brother and I had - old Dis...