Shuna no Tabi
Shuna's Journey

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Absolutely loved this, it was basically one of his films made for a book medium expertly well. I wonder what this would have been like as a movie (definitely would have been a more complete cohesive story than the Nausicaa movie was), but it honestly stands on it's own and plays to the medium's strength so well that I'm not upset. The watercolor artwork is so beautiful and being able to slow down and take in a finished work of his at your own pace is really nice. This is another good example of how "show don't tell" isn't always a way to go. I ... really liked the narration, you usually get a sentance or 2 for each panel and that not always Shuna's inner monologue. There are novel-like descriptions of things that could be shown by the paper, but I think the small bit of text in the corner helps set a nice tone and allows the story to be a bit more dynamic.

I would consider this just as essential to the work of Miyazaki as his other pre-Totoro films, more people should know about it.

Well, to begin with, the main motive I decided to make this review is because I personally think the other reviews provided exaggerated scores, it’s a very good manga but it’s not a masterpiece and not much remarkable either, however I know that be a masterpiece was not the objective, it was only made to be a beautiful and uncomplicated story and that I can say it was a accomplished objective. Also I am not a experienced manga reader but I’ve seen most of Miyazaki works so I think I am in condition to do this review, explained that let’s get to it. ...
Shuna no tabi is a small and beautiful manga, it is one of the most unknown works of Miyazaki and it was done during the beginning of his career.
The story is like a folktale and actually is inspired in one (a Tibetan tale). The protagonist (Shuna, as the title of the manga may imply, is his name) is a prince of a small and poor country. He discovers about magical seeds that may perhaps exist in a distant land in the west, these seeds could save his homeland so Shuna decides to go in a journey to find them. In this adventure he passes for different and diverse places, deals with dangers, makes friendships, found a great and cruel city, and also explore a fantastic place, therefore it is an interesting and well paced adventure story, and a simple one, although it has some darker and deeper moments
This was made by Miyazaki so as expected the art and atmosphere are both great, the setting of this imaginative world is surprisingly good considering the small extension of the story, actually the creation of magical worlds is the better part of most Miyazaki works and this one is no exception. Shuna no tabi is an unusual manga, sometimes looks more like an illustrated book given that the storytelling is done mainly by narration and images with few dialogues, and also the manga is even fully colored what is untypical.
Shuna no tabi is a typical Miyazaki work and it’s possible to recognize elements of his future films in this manga, mainly princess mononoke and nausicaä, so I highly recommend it to Miyazaki fans, however even for people who don’t are his fans this may be worth of reading, after all it’s interesting, beautiful and short.
(Parts of this text contain stuff already mentioned in other reviews here but I decided to maintain all the information I consider important)

Hayao Miyazaki fans, especially from watching "Princess Mononoke" and/or watching/reading "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind", should check this out. It's a very short and good manga by Miyazaki featuring a lot of familiar designs and storylines that fans will recognize from those stories, if not simply enjoy on their own. This also predates most of his work people are most familiar with, and he wrote it while writing the "Nausicaa" manga in the 80s.

The main plot is similar to "Princess Mononoke" in that the primary protagonist, Prince Shuna, leaves his homeland in search of something - a special kind of wheat that grows ... in a starving world - and does not return to that homeland within the story. This felt a little off-putting, since this is based on a Tibetan folktale where the prince's redemption by returning to his homeland is important. But the story was enjoyable and helped alleviate that weirdness. You might read this with a vague understanding of what's going on most of the time (where the slaves go/what happens to them is never explained and is actually a lot darker than usual, even for Miyazaki) but it's a fast read anyway.

The art is typical Studio Ghibli, but a lot of the characters and objects used here were used later for "Princess Mononoke" and "Tales From Earthsea". Shuna looks a lot like Ashitaka and even owns an elk named Yakkul and Thea looks a lot like Nausicaa. Shuna rescues a prince who looks a lot like one of the old men in Nausicaa (which makes sense, as Miyazaki was writing this at the time he was writing the Nausicaa manga). The slave cart Shuna rescues Thea from looks exactly like the one Ged rescues Eren from in "Earthsea". The references for "Earthsea" are there because this book was what Miyazaki wanted to use as a template for that film, and Goro followed through with that when the time came to make the film. The point is that the art is gorgeous, as usual for Studio Ghibli.

There are a lot of neat characters in this story. Shuna is much like Ashitaka and it's enjoyable to read his story. His adventure is a long, difficult road. Thea is also a very neat character who shines when Shuna's story wanes for a time. She's a hard worker and a decent person and it was nice that she got to hold protagonist status for a bit. Otherwise this story is pretty much a sausage fest. There's an old woman who bosses Thea around (and even attempts to force her into marriage so that she'll have another worker to boss around) and Thea has a sister and there's a wise woman who councils Shuna near the beginning, but all the royalty is male, the slavers and soldiers are male, most of the townsfolk we see are male and the elders from Shuna's village are male. We get so many great heroines from Miyazaki films that people forget that he tends to fill his casts with men and it's typically they who do the fighting and the politics. He switches things up sometimes - "Porco Rosso", "Spirited Away" and "Princess Mononoke" are prime examples - but this is his early stuff.

I liked this graphic novel a lot. At the time I wrote this, there was no non-Japanese print version, but an official English translation by First Second (translated by Alex Dudok De Wit) was released in 2022 and it's gorgeous! It's also very enjoyable if you've watched his other films and go back to this and see where a lot of stuff came from, design-wise. At least half of "Tales From Earthsea" in here, along with a good third of "Princess Mononoke" and half of "Nausicaa". Hope you enjoy it too!