Nausicaä, the princess of a small nation, lives in a world devastated by a holocaust called the "Seven Days of Fire". She tries to stop other warring nations from destroying themselves and from destroying the only means by which their world can be saved from the spread of polluted wastelands.

Around the mid 1980s, a severely-edited version of this film was released in video under the title Warriors of the Wind. The editing was done without the knowledge of Miyazaki or Studio Ghibli. They were unhappy when they learned about it and want those who have seen it "to dismiss it from [their] minds." (more in our Nausicaä FAQ)