One of the most important settings in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is the vast toxic forest known as the Sea of Corruption, also commonly called the Toxic Jungle in English.
The plants growing there release deadly miasma, making the forest an extremely dangerous place for humans. Without protective masks, people cannot survive its poisonous air for long.
But the forest has another purpose.
It is actually cleansing the earth that was polluted by the industrial civilization that existed before the Seven Days of Fire.
The poison released by the forest is part of that enormous purification process.
Hayao Miyazaki’s original Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind manga goes much further than the 1984 animated film.
In the manga, Nausicaä is eventually shown something that movie viewers never see:
the place where the Sea of Corruption has already come to an end.
Beyond it lies a world of clean water, pure soil, plants and living creatures — a place sometimes described as the “Blue Pure Land.”
But where exactly is this place?
The manga includes a map of Nausicaä’s world.
So in this article, we will open that map and examine what the manga actually tells us about the location of the end of the Sea of Corruption.
Conclusion
Although the manga includes a map of its world, the exact location of the end of the Sea of Corruption — the “Blue Pure Land” — is never revealed.
However, the manga does tell us several important things about this mysterious place:
・It is presented as a real place.
・It is where the oldest Sea of Corruption first appeared.
・The purification of the earth there has already been completed.
・The Forest People knew of its existence.
・Several Forest People were sent there in the past, but none ever returned.
In other words, this is not simply a mythical paradise whose existence is uncertain.
We know that the place exists. What we do not know is where it is — or how far away it lies.
- First, Let’s Look at the Map in the Original Manga
- Could the Manga Map Show Only the World Known to Its People?
- The Forest People Know the Deepest Parts of the Sea of Corruption
- What Nausicaä Sees at the End of the Sea of Corruption
- The Oldest Sea of Corruption Had Already Finished Purifying the Earth
- So Where Is the “Blue Pure Land”?
- How Far Away Is the End of the Sea of Corruption?
- The Forest People Had Sent Others to the End of the Sea of Corruption
- Nausicaä and Her People Cannot Survive in Completely Pure Air
- Perhaps It Is Not Surprising That the Blue Pure Land Is Missing From the Map
- The End of the Sea of Corruption Exists — But We Don’t Know Where
First, Let’s Look at the Map in the Original Manga
Map from ANIMAGE COMICS Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Vol. 3. © Hayao Miyazaki / Tokuma Shoten
The labels on this map are in Japanese because this is the map published in the original Japanese manga. It shows the Valley of the Wind, Torumekia, the Dorok Principalities and the Sea of Corruption — but no location is marked as the “Blue Pure Land.”
Map from ANIMAGE COMICS Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Vol. 3
The manga version of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind contains a map showing the region where much of the story takes place.
It allows us to see the geographical relationships between the Valley of the Wind, Torumekia, the Dorok Principalities and the vast Sea of Corruption.
Note: The Acid Lake shown on the map is the location of the climax of the animated film.
But there is something missing.
No matter how carefully we look at the map, there is no location marked as “the end of the Sea of Corruption” or the “Blue Pure Land.”
Readers of the manga know that this place exists.
Yet we cannot locate it on the map.
This raises an interesting question:
Is this really a complete map of Nausicaä’s entire world?
Could the Manga Map Show Only the World Known to Its People?
The map shows the countries and regions that are central to the story, along with enormous areas covered by the Sea of Corruption.
But it seems natural to assume that the world continues beyond the edges of this map.
By Nausicaä’s time, roughly 1,000 years have passed since the Seven Days of Fire destroyed the giant industrial civilization.
Human civilization has dramatically declined, while large parts of the world have been consumed by the Sea of Corruption.
The forest is filled with toxic miasma. Humans cannot remain inside it for long without protective masks.
It is also inhabited by enormous insects.
For ordinary people, traveling deep into the Sea of Corruption to survey unknown territory and create accurate maps would therefore be extremely difficult.
This suggests another possible way to interpret the map.
Perhaps the map represents the limits of the world that people of this era are actually able to know and chart.
The manga never explicitly states that this is the case.
So this should be treated as an interpretation rather than established fact.
Still, in a world where ordinary humans cannot freely travel through the deepest parts of the Sea of Corruption, it would hardly be surprising if lands existed beyond the regions shown on their maps.
The Forest People Know the Deepest Parts of the Sea of Corruption
There are, however, people who understand the forest far better than ordinary humans.
They are the Forest People, including Selm.
The Forest People live deep within the Sea of Corruption and coexist with the forest in ways that outsiders do not.
They also know that there is a place where the Sea of Corruption comes to an end.
In the manga, Selm eventually guides Nausicaä there.
(ANIMAGE COMICS, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Vol. 6, p. 87)
Importantly, Nausicaä does not physically travel there in the ordinary sense.
She is in a deep sleep, and Selm guides her in a state resembling a journey of the spirit.
What Nausicaä Sees at the End of the Sea of Corruption
What Nausicaä sees is completely different from the polluted world she has always known.
There is clean water, pure soil, vegetation and living creatures.
The poisonous miasma of the Sea of Corruption is gone.
This is the place sometimes referred to as the “Blue Pure Land.”
Selm then tells Nausicaä something extremely important about the location.
This is where the oldest Sea of Corruption first appeared.
The Oldest Sea of Corruption Had Already Finished Purifying the Earth
The Sea of Corruption is not a forest that will exist forever.
It absorbs pollution from the contaminated earth and gradually purifies it over an immense period of time.
At the place where the oldest Sea of Corruption had first appeared, the forest had already completed its role.
The forest itself had disappeared, revealing clean land beneath it.
The manga explains that the purification process takes roughly 1,000 years, although conditions can vary depending on the level of contamination.
There is an important distinction here.
This does not mean that the land became clean exactly 1,000 years before Nausicaä saw it.
The manga does not tell us exactly when purification was completed there.
Nor do we know how long the Blue Pure Land had already existed by the time Nausicaä saw it.
So Where Is the “Blue Pure Land”?
This brings us back to the central question.
If this is the location where the oldest Sea of Corruption first appeared and where purification has already been completed, where is it on the manga’s map?
Unfortunately, the manga does not give us an answer.
The map shows vast regions of the Sea of Corruption, but it never identifies a particular area as the oldest part of the forest.
Selm does not tell Nausicaä its direction or distance from the Valley of the Wind, Torumekia or the Dorok lands.
Nausicaä also does not reach the place by flying there or traveling overland.
Because Selm guides her there in an extraordinary state, we cannot reconstruct her route and use it to estimate the location.
How Far Away Is the End of the Sea of Corruption?
If we cannot determine its location, another question naturally follows.
How far away is it?
Is it several hundred kilometers from the lands where most of the story takes place?
Could it be 1,000 or 2,000 kilometers away?
Or is it much farther?
Again, the manga provides no specific distance.
We do not know where the end of the Sea of Corruption is, and we do not even know how far away it is.
However, there is one fascinating detail that gives us more to think about.
The Forest People Had Sent Others to the End of the Sea of Corruption
For the Forest People, the end of the Sea of Corruption was not an entirely unknown place.
Near the end of the manga, we learn that they had sent several people there in the past.
But none of those who entered the land ever returned.
(ANIMAGE COMICS, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Vol. 7, p. 128)
Once the manga reveals the deeper truth about Nausicaä’s world, the likely reason becomes clear.
The danger was not the poison of the Sea of Corruption.
It was the purity of the land itself.
Nausicaä and Her People Cannot Survive in Completely Pure Air
Near the end of the manga, we learn a shocking truth about the humans living in Nausicaä’s era.
Their bodies have been adapted to survive in a polluted world.
As a result, the completely unpolluted air of the purified world is too pure for their bodies to endure.
The manga describes the air of the clean world as extraordinarily pure and powerful.
Nausicaä and the people of her era have changed so much in order to survive the polluted environment that they cannot simply move into the restored world and live there.
(ANIMAGE COMICS, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Vol. 7, p. 129)
This also explains why the Forest People who had entered the end of the Sea of Corruption never returned: they are believed to have died after entering its completely purified environment.
(ANIMAGE COMICS, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Vol. 7, p. 128)
Even for the Forest People, then, the end of the Sea of Corruption was not a place that could easily be explored and mapped.
Perhaps It Is Not Surprising That the Blue Pure Land Is Missing From the Map
Now let’s return to the map.
The manga never explains why the Blue Pure Land is not shown.
But when we put the pieces together, its absence becomes interesting.
Ordinary people cannot freely explore the deepest regions of the Sea of Corruption.
Even the Forest People, who understand the forest better than anyone else, were unable to bring back the people they sent to its end.
And Nausicaä herself did not reach the place through an ordinary physical journey.
It therefore seems entirely possible that the people of Nausicaä’s era simply lacked accurate geographical knowledge of what lay beyond the deepest regions of the Sea of Corruption.
Is the Blue Pure Land somewhere beyond the edges of the map?
Or is it hidden somewhere within the enormous Sea of Corruption already shown on it?
The manga does not give us enough information to choose between these possibilities.
The End of the Sea of Corruption Exists — But We Don’t Know Where
The end of the Sea of Corruption in Miyazaki’s original Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind manga is not simply a legend or a symbolic paradise.
Nausicaä is shown the place by Selm.
It is the location where the oldest Sea of Corruption first appeared and where the long process of purifying the earth has already been completed.
Yet its location is not marked on the manga’s map.
We are given no direction.
We are given no distance.
We do not even know exactly when the purification of that particular region was completed.
At first, opening the manga’s map makes us want to search for the place.
But the longer we look at it, the more another possibility emerges:
Perhaps the area shown on the map represents the limits of the world that people in Nausicaä’s era were able to know.
In the animated film, Nausicaä discovers clean water and pure sand beneath the Toxic Jungle.
The manga goes much further.
It shows us a future in which the Sea of Corruption itself has disappeared after completing its work.
And in one of the story’s cruelest ironies, that beautiful purified world is also a world in which Nausicaä and the humans of her era cannot survive as they are.
This article is also available in Japanese:
Where Is the End of the Sea of Corruption in Nausicaä? — Japanese Version
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