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The Wind Rises (Kaze tachinu)
In 1918, a young Jiro Horikoshi longs to become a pilot, but his nearsightedness prevents it. Inspired by a magazine, he begins having recurring dreams of flying with his idol, Italian aircraft designer Giovanni Battista Caproni, aboard Caproni's aircraft. Caproni tells him that he has never flown a plane in his life, and that building planes is better than flying them. Five years later, following the failure of the Caproni Ca.60, Jiro is an aeronautical engineering student at Tokyo Imperial University. While travelling home from a visit with family, he meets a young girl, Nahoko Satomi, travelling with her maid Kinu. The Great Kantō earthquake suddenly hits, and Kinu's leg is broken. Jiro helps Nahoko carry her to Nahoko's family home, leaving without exchanging names.
In 1925, Jiro graduates with his friend Kiro Honjo, and both are employed at aeroplane manufacturer Mitsubishi amidst the Great Depression. They are assigned to perfect a fighter plane, the Mitsubishi 1MF9, for the Imperial Army. During a test, it breaks apart in midair while attempting to pass 200 knots and is rejected. Pivoting their plans, Mitsubishi sends Jiro and Honjo to the Weimar Republic in 1929 to obtain a production licence for a Junkers G.38, intending to build a bomber. Although Hugo Junkers welcomes them, the two men are blocked from obtaining complete plans by the Sicherheitspolizei. With them and their coworkers discouraged by how far back Japan's aeronautics technology is from the rest of the world, Jiro returns to Japan, while Honjo stays and eventually develops the Mitsubishi G4M.
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 takes a vacation at a summer resort in Karuizawa. There he reunites with an adult Nahoko, who has been searching for him since they first met. The two quickly develop a romance, assisted by a German tourist he calls Castorp. Critical of Nazi Germany, Castorp privately tells Jiro that Adolf Hitler has apprehended Junkers for resisting Nazism, and that Germany must be stopped from declaring another world war, this time allied with Japan. He then flees arrest from the Special Higher Police.
Later, Nahoko is diagnosed with tuberculosis, so Jiro asks Nahoko's father for his blessing to marry her, and the two are engaged. However, Nahoko wishes to wait until she recovers to marry, and moves back in with her family. Wanted in connection with Castorp, Jiro hides at his supervisor Kurokawa's home while he works on a new fighter project for the Imperial Navy. Jiro briefly leaves when Nahoko suffers from a pulmonary haemorrhage. After Jiro briefly tends to her, Nahoko decides to check into a mountain sanatorium to recover, but cannot bear being apart from Jiro and returns to be with him. Kurokawa and his wife marry the two and allow the couple to stay in their home with Nahoko's father's permission. 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 fleeting time together.
Jiro leaves for the test flight of his new prototype aeroplane, the Mitsubishi Ka-14. Knowing that she will die soon, Nahoko leaves farewell letters for Jiro, her family, and friends and discreetly leaves the house in a vain attempt to return to the sanatorium. At the test site, Jiro is distracted from his success by a gust of wind, suggesting Nahoko's passing.
In 1945, after Japan has lost World War II, Jiro dreams of Caproni again, regretting that his plane was used for war. Caproni comforts him, saying that Jiro's dream of building beautiful aeroplanes was nonetheless realised, in the form of his masterpiece—the A6M 'Zero' fighter. Nahoko's spirit also appears, encouraging her husband to live on. After her spirit departs, Jiro and Caproni walk together into their shared kingdom of dreams.