Trivia / The Wind Rises

• Acting for Two: Kayo Horikoshi and Kinu (Nahoko's caretaker) are both voiced by Mae Whitman in the English dub.
• Actor-Shared Background: Like Castorp, his English voice actor Werner Herzog hails from Germany.
• All-Star Cast: Like all of Studio Ghibli's previous films, the English dub certainly has quite a few Celebrity Voice Actors. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, Martin Short, Stanley Tucci, John Krasinski, Elijah Wood, William H. Macy, and more. Even Werner Herzog.
• Creator Couple: In the English dub, Kiro Honjo and Naoko Satomi are played by husband-and-wife John Krasinski and Emily Blunt. In addition, Stanley Tucci, Caproni's English VA, is married to Felicity Blunt, who is Emily's sister.
• In Memoriam: The film is dedicated to Jiro Horikoshi and Tatsuo Hori, who died several years before the film was produced.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • Joseph Gordon-Levitt, a huge fan of Hayao Miyazaki, voices Jiro in the English dub.
  • Ghibli's ex-animator Hideaki Anno voices Jiro in the original dub even if he's more a friend of Miyazaki than a fanboy.
• Real Song Theme Tune: The movie's ending theme Hikoukigumo is an old pop-song from 1973 by Yumi Matsutoya, who also performed the theme songs to Kiki's Delivery Service. When Miyazaki first heard the song, he immediately decided that it simply had to be the movie's theme-song.
• Studio Hop: GKIDS obtained the digital video rights to this film as well as all the other Ghibli films from Disney in December 2019. By June 2020, GKIDS and Shout! Factory also acquired the home media rights from Disney.
• What Could Have Been: According to the 2013 documentary The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, which showcases the development of this film, Miyazaki planned to (symbolically) depict Jiro's death at the end, with Naoko inviting him to join her in the afterlife. He later rewrote the scene and had Naoko encourage him to live instead, which is what we see in the finished product. Producer Toshio Suzuki stated in the documentary that he was quite pleased with the change.