Paper Topic

Since we watched Spirited Away, I have rented a few of Miyazaki's other films. From watching and reading about them, I have discovered that there are a several recurrent themes in a lot of his work; enviromentalism, coming-of-age through a quest, unsterotypical antagonists, magic of course, and so on. For my paper I want to focus specifically on the common motifs in Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind. I thought of using Howl's Moving Castle instead of Nausicaa, but I know it was orignially a book by Diana Wynne. Since I haven't read it so I don't really know how much of the film is Miyazaki's own invention and how much is Wynne's. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas please let me know.