Has there ever been a film that so completely overshadows its impetus? (Okay, maybe Casablanca and Star Wars, but who's really counting?) Hayao Miyazaki's animated musical, which only follows the accompanying song (by Chage and Aska, a Japanese pop duo) in the timing of certain events and in the multiple endings (one of the lyrics says something to the effect that "I'll keep on trying until I succeed"), is in many ways his best work. Simple, direct, exciting, with all of his usual motifs (environmental concerns, old-fashioned duty, flight sequences, angels (?--see below), pigs, a short-haired girl, and redemption of humans as a species) packed into just over six and a half minutes, there is nothing included that could be cut and nothing that can be overlooked.
There has been much discussion as to whether the girl is really an angel. While it is widely known that Miyazaki is more or less an atheist (he's a humanist, trusting humans to make their own decisions in this world and not worry about (or worse, make decisions based on) what may or may not be in the next world, such as the cult holding the girl), he never treats religious people with any less respect than others he disagrees with (something I wish other filmmakers would practice, since most of them expect the same respect of their own beliefs). Sometimes, in the case of the comic book version of Kaze no Tani no Naushika (Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind), he depicts some of them with reverence. Even so, I don't really feel that the girl is an angel.
In the Nausicaa comic, there is a legend of a winged apostle (a fresco of her on a ceiling looks extraordinarily like the angel from On Your Mark), who the reader latter discovers may have returned to the earth on several occasions throughout history, when the world was in peril. Spoilers: By the end of the series, though, we learn that everything--plants, animals, Ohmu, even humans--have been genetically engineered or altered to survive in a world contaminated by nuclear war. As it turns out, the winged apostle (the new one being Nausicaa) may well have been a genetic trait, timed by scientists to "go off" every few generations to help them with the pre-designed events leading up to the cleansing of the world. I think that maybe the angel in On Your Mark was the first of these--a prototype version that may have passed into legend by Nausicaa's time, making the music video a kind of prequel to Nausicaa.
Anyway, watch the music video, watch the Nausicaa anime, and read the Nausicaa comics. They are likely all related.
There has been much discussion as to whether the girl is really an angel. While it is widely known that Miyazaki is more or less an atheist (he's a humanist, trusting humans to make their own decisions in this world and not worry about (or worse, make decisions based on) what may or may not be in the next world, such as the cult holding the girl), he never treats religious people with any less respect than others he disagrees with (something I wish other filmmakers would practice, since most of them expect the same respect of their own beliefs). Sometimes, in the case of the comic book version of Kaze no Tani no Naushika (Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind), he depicts some of them with reverence. Even so, I don't really feel that the girl is an angel.
In the Nausicaa comic, there is a legend of a winged apostle (a fresco of her on a ceiling looks extraordinarily like the angel from On Your Mark), who the reader latter discovers may have returned to the earth on several occasions throughout history, when the world was in peril. Spoilers: By the end of the series, though, we learn that everything--plants, animals, Ohmu, even humans--have been genetically engineered or altered to survive in a world contaminated by nuclear war. As it turns out, the winged apostle (the new one being Nausicaa) may well have been a genetic trait, timed by scientists to "go off" every few generations to help them with the pre-designed events leading up to the cleansing of the world. I think that maybe the angel in On Your Mark was the first of these--a prototype version that may have passed into legend by Nausicaa's time, making the music video a kind of prequel to Nausicaa.
Anyway, watch the music video, watch the Nausicaa anime, and read the Nausicaa comics. They are likely all related.