Years later, Jiro gets a job, as does his friend Honjo (voice of HIDETOSHI NISHIJIMA/JOHN KRASINSKI), working as an aeronautical engineer for Mitsubishi in the development of military aircraft under the supervision of their short-tempered boss, Kurokawa (voice of MASAHIKO NISHIMURA/MARTIN SHORT).

When that project fails, Jiro and Honjo are sent to Germany to learn of that country's advanced aircraft designs and manufacturing process, both of which they begin to implement and modify in their designs. All throughout this and the years that follow, Jiro has recurring dreams where he interacts with Caproni about their mutual love for airplanes.

Jiro also comes to love Naoko after accidentally running into her once again, but she's suffering from tuberculosis, a condition that puts their future time together in doubt. Undeterred, Jiro continues his work on designing a better fighter plane for his country, fully aware of but seemingly not that much concerned with how it will likely ultimately be used by the military for purposes of war.

That, of course, would be WWII where rocket technology first came about and lead to sending man and machine to the moon and beyond. For as horrible a thing that it is, overall war has brought about advances in not just that, but also medicine, a new energy source and, ironically enough, a transportation mode that would make the world a smaller place.

Of course, the Wright Brothers were the first at lifting off in a heavier than air, powered craft, but the need for faster and bigger planes in wartime eventually resulted in global air travel that nearly everyone takes for granted nowadays. Yet, back when Dr. Jiro Horikoshi graduated from the University of Tokyo's newly established Aviation Laboratory, the exploits of Orville and Wilbur weren't even a quarter century old and there was still plenty of refinements to be made regarding "those daring young men in their flying machines."

His tale, of which I was not intimately familiar, now comes to the big screen in the fictionalized "The Wind Rises," the latest (and reportedly last full-length) feature from acclaimed Japanese anime filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki ("Ponyo," "Spirited Away," "Princess Mononoke"). Beautiful to behold with its watercolor fashioned backgrounds, the pic has not arrived without controversy. Some are singling out the smoking that takes place throughout, saying it has no place in an animated film (even if it's historically accurate for the temporal setting and despite this not being targeted at kids).

For others, it's the fact that Miyazaki -- who also wrote the screenplay based on his own manga, "Kaze Tachinu," that itself was inspired by Tatsuo Horihort's story "The Wind Has Risen" -- isn't as condemning of Horikoshi's body of work as they'd like to see. They do have a point as he was the chief engineer of various Japanese fighter designs of World War II, including the Mitsubishi A6M, a.k.a the Zero fighter, that was one of the most notorious Axis aircraft around, especially when used at Pearl Harbor and later for kamikaze purposes against American forces.

The filmmaker, a self-proclaimed pacifist, somewhat misses the golden opportunity of not more fully (or forcefully) showing the perils of innovation resulting in more advanced modes of death and destruction, or the irony of his central character creating killing machines while his new bride is dying from tuberculosis. Instead of being heavy-handed in such an approach, Miyazaki seems more intent on telling the tell of an obsessed man whose only outlet for his talent at that time was in creating such aircraft, along with the burden of trying to balance work and family life.

Even so, I would have preferred a bit more attention to what should have been the protagonist's inner conflict beyond his various dream interactions with a famed Italian aeronautical engineer who reminds him that planes aren't for making war or money. Yes, on the outside and due to his culture's rigid nationalism, he'd have to be a patriotic team player, but once alone you'd think there'd be some self-doubt or reservations about what he was doing. Instead, and to borrow another war metaphor, the character's through point is more of a "damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead" approach to following his dream and honing his craft.

All of that said and notwithstanding what isn't or should have been said and touched upon regarding the thematic elements, the film is more often than not hypnotically mesmerizing. Some of that's from the visuals that are going for a surrealism-dabbed vibe that's far from the photo-realism or at least sharpness of most of today's computer-animated flicks, yet somehow seems more realistic. The rest comes from the filmmaker's directorial eye in creating shots more commonly scene in artsy live-action pics.

And, as in the best animated films, it doesn't take long to forget that you're watching artificially created characters and thus be drawn fully into their story. That certainly happened for yours truly, something I wished occurred more often in all films. If this indeed is Miyazaki's last feature film, he's certainly flying out on a high note. "The Wind Rises" rates as a 7 out of 10.