Studio Ghibli co-founder seems to have had a profound reason for character’s prodigious bust.

Legendary anime director Hayao Miyazaki doesn’t generally make creative choices based on a whim. As an outspoken deep thinker, most of what shows up on the screen has a basis in either observations Miyazaki has made about human behavior or philosophical ideals that he holds tightly to.

So high-minded is Miyazaki that apparently there’s even an artistic reason for the bust size of his original theatrical heroine, Nausicaa, star of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.

https://twitter.com/tendencia_jp/status/822464735027163136

Japanese Twitter user @moumoku_nezumi couldn’t help noticing that while Nausicaa’s most defining characteristics are her noble bearing and compassionate spirit, she’s also pretty buxom. Wondering if he was the only one to pick up on this, he did a bit of poking around on the Internet, and came across an oft-quoted but frequently overlooked comment attributed to Miyazaki in an interview about the production of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.

https://twitter.com/moumoku_nezumi/status/819890179150184448

Said to be found in both the out-of-print Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind Roman Album and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind Guidebook, the exchange is quoted as:

Interviewer: Nausicaa is actually a really attractive girl.

Hayao Miyazaki: She’s got big breasts, hasn’t she?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Miyazaki: They’re not big just so that she’d be able to nurse her children, and she doesn’t have them to attract guys. When the castle guards and old woman die, Nausicaa holds them as they pass away, so that’s why she has them. They have to be big.

Interviewer: Ah, I see…

Miyazaki: You see, when they’re held to her chest, it puts them at ease before death, so I think she had to have breasts that size.”

While the subject matter is eye-opening, it’s still a comment that’s completely in keeping with Miyazaki’s reputation for complex storytelling, even when dealing with an industry trope as commonplace as busty anime girls.

Sources: Jin, Ghibli no Sekai, Rakuten Blog, Note, Twitter/@tendencia_jp