The story of "Valley of the Wind" is pretty much like all his stories, which is the films strongest feature. Miyazaki knows how to tell a story. He creates these worlds, that he has complete control over, he can do whatever he wants too with these characters, creatures his heart desires. He could make them epics like Peter Jackson with the LOTR trilogy. But that's not how Miyazaki in visions these places. His fascination with airplanes and the world of the sky plays the biggest part in how he presents his films. I mean, it pretty much says it in the title, "Valley of the Wind" so you know it will have something to do with the sky and it does.
This film is almost like a model for his later films like "Howel's Moving Castle" and "Porco Rosso" that you have awesome air battles and cool looking air ships of all different kinds. Miyazaki's love of nature is also the prototype for this story and may be his best take on keeping our world clean. the "Toxic Forrest" represents what humans have done to the planet. Not only killing most of the wildlife with the exception of insects, but also set the world back a hundred years in terms of technology. This film is set in the far future, but people use swords as main weapons. So not only is it a solid and entertainingly beautiful anime, but its also dark and at times a bloody take on what humans will do to each other and the world around them in order to gain power.
For me, what lies at the heart of this film, just like in all Miyazaki films, is that melancholy urge for adventure. This is represented through travel through sky, something that all his characters in later films would use as their main transportation. It's a world I can get lost in for days, and this was the beginning of the beautiful collaboration, between Miyazaki and the love of flying.
