The Wind Rises (2013)
Based on the 1937 novel The Wind Has Risen by Tatsuo Hori and a serialized manga The Wind Rises by Hayao Miyazaki.
Intro (“A Journey (Dream of Flight)”). In 1916, a young Jiro Horikoshi longs to become a pilot, but his nearsightedness prevents it. One night, he dreams of his idol, the Italian aircraft designer Giovanni Battista Caproni, who tells him that he has never flown a plane in his life, and that building planes is better than flying them. Seven years later after World War I ended, Jiro is traveling by train to study aeronautical engineering at Tokyo Imperial University and meets a young girl, Nahoko Satomi, traveling with her maid. When the Great Kantō earthquake hits, Nahoko's maid's leg is broken and Jiro helps Nahoko carry her to Nahoko's family home, leaving without giving his name.
In 1925, Jiro graduates with his friend Kiro Honjo and both are employed at aircraft manufacturer Mitsubishi, assigned to design a fighter plane, the Mitsubishi 1MF9, for the Imperial Army. During a test, it breaks apart in midair and is rejected. Dispirited about what he perceives as the backwardness of Japanese aircraft technology, Jiro is sent with Honjo to the Weimar Republic in 1929 to carry out technical research and obtain a production license for a Junkers G.38 aircraft. Jiro dreams again of Caproni, who tells him that the world is better for the beauty of planes, even if humankind might put them to terrible purposes.
In early 1932, Jiro is promoted to chief designer for a fighter plane competition sponsored by the Imperial Navy, but his design, the Mitsubishi 1MF10, fails testing in 1933 and is rejected. Disappointed, he goes to a summer resort in Karuizawa to rest, where he meets Nahoko again. Hans Castorp, a German visitor privately critical of the Nazi regime, tells Jiro, who intends to visit Dessau, that Hugo Junkers is in trouble for fighting Nazism and that Germany will go to war again and must be stopped.
Later, Jiro asks Nahoko's father for his blessing to marry her, and the two are engaged. However, Nahoko has tuberculosis and wants to wait until she recovers to marry. Castorp assists in the romance before fleeing arrest by the Japanese secret police. Wanted in connection with Castorp, Jiro hides at his supervisor's home while he works on a new fighter aircraft project for the Imperial Navy. Following a lung hemorrhage, Nahoko recovers in a mountain sanatorium but cannot bear being apart from Jiro and returns to marry him. Jiro's sister Kayo, a doctor, warns Jiro that his marriage to Nahoko will end tragically as tuberculosis is incurable. Though Nahoko's health deteriorates, she and Jiro enjoy their time together.
Jiro leaves for the test flight of his new prototype aircraft, the Mitsubishi A5M. Knowing that she will die soon, Nahoko returns to the sanatorium, leaving letters for Jiro, her family, and friends. At the test site, Jiro is distracted from his success by a gust of wind, suggesting Nahoko's passing. In the summer of 1945, after Japan lost World War II, Jiro dreams of Caproni again, regretting that his aircraft was used for war. Caproni comforts him, saying that Jiro's dream of building beautiful aircraft was nonetheless realized. Nahoko appears, encouraging her husband to live his life to the fullest. Jiro and Caproni walk together into their shared kingdom of dreams.