Since this film came out, some people have had difficulty pinning down exactly how we should feel about its treatment of its main character, or Imperial Japan. Bafflingly, some people also express uncertainty as to what Hayao Miyazaki wants to say in this film. If you're going to attribute the worldviews expressed in Miyazaki's films to Miyazaki himself, and if you knew anything about Miyazaki's political opinions, why would you be uncertain about this? Miyazaki is not a good person. He is egotistical, narrow-minded, and antisocial. But his political beliefs are not obscure. That said, it's fair to be uncertain of what the film itself carries across, regardless of what Miyazaki or any of the other filmmakers intended. But I don't think it's actually very ambiguous. When Jiro meets Hans Castorp, Castorp tells Jiro how dangerous the Nazis and the intentions of the Japanese government are, and then mentions how he and Jiro have both come to a...
"We are in the world, not against it." - Ursula K. Le Guin