Ocean waves anime5/3/2023 Ocean Waves was the first Studio Ghibli film directed by someone other than studio founders Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, as director Tomomi Mochizuki led a talented staff of younger employees in an adaptation of Saeko Himuro’s best-selling novel. When Taku joins Rikako on a trip to Tokyo, the school erupts with rumors, and the three friends are forced to come to terms with their changing relationships. But they soon find their friendship tested by the arrival of Rikako, a beautiful new transfer student from Tokyo whose attitude vacillates wildly from flirty and flippant to melancholic. Taku and his best friend Yutaka are headed back to school for what looks like another uneventful year. Gkids has announced plans for a home video release in the spring.Rarely seen outside of Japan, Ocean Waves is a subtle, poignant and wonderfully detailed story of adolescence and teenage isolation. However, the handsome watercolor backgrounds bear the stamp of Ghibli’s talented artsits.ĭespite these caveats, anyone interested in the history of Studio Ghibli will want to see Ocean Waves, which screens on January 12th at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles as part of a limited theatrical run. The rather limited animation does little to enhance characters’ personalities. Her imperiousness anticipates Haruhi Suzumiya at her worst, but the script doesn’t give her anyone to provide comic relief, as Haruhi’s friends do. In contrast to Shizuku in Whisper or Umi in Poppy Hill, Rikako is not a likeable character. Taku and Yutaka are standard-issue anime high school boys they fail to emerge as strongly delineated individuals. The story is told with an appealing warmth, but it suffers from a lack of depth. The complicated flashback structure sometimes make its difficult to tell what occurred when, problems a more experienced director might have handled more deftly. Keiko Niwa’s screenplay, based on a book by the popular novelist Saeko Himuro, presents director Tomomi Mochizuki with some awkward challenges. More than a year later, at a class reunion, the two friends bury the hatchet and Taku admits he was always crazy about Rikako. Ultimately, Taku and Yutaka come to blows over her. She remains aloof from her classmates and fights with the girls in her class. She makes fun of the rural Kochi dialect, which she compares to the period speech in a samurai film. He goes with her, tries to make peace and even sleeps in the bathtub at the hotel to ensure her comfort.Īlthough she’s one of the top students in the school, an ace tennis player and very pretty, it’s not clear why Yutaka and Taku are so smitten with her. When she lures her only friend into a plan to sneak off to Tokyo, Taku saves the day. She misses her father and her more sophisticated life in Tokyo. Rikako came to Kochi with her mother when her parents divorced. During the class trip to Hawaii, Rikako loses her spending money and borrows ¥60,000 (about $500 today) from Taku, money he’s earned as a busboy, a job that’s taken a toll on his grades. But when she begins requesting (or demanding) loans and favors, he complies instantly. Taku is less taken with her-or so he thinks. Complications arise when Rikako Muto (Youko Sakamoto) transfers from Tokyo to their school in Kochi, a small city in southern Shikoku.Īs a class officer, Yutaka shows her around the school and immediately falls for her. Although they’re in different classes, Taku Morisaku (voice by Nobuo Tobita) and Yutaka Matsuno (Toshiko Seki) have been best friends for years. Told through a series of interlocking flashbacks, the story centers on an awkward high school romantic triangle. Rarely seen outside of Japan, it was designed to offer the younger staff members a chance to make a smaller film on a more limited budget. A modest work that’s closer in scope and tone to Whisper of the Heart or From Up on Poppy Hill than to the fragile poetry of The Tale of Princess Kaguya or the grand adventures of Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, Ocean Waves was the first Ghibli film not directed by either Hayao Miyazaki or Isao Takahata. Ocean Waves (Umi ga Kikoeru), sometimes translated as “I Can Hear the Sea” (1993), is Studio Ghibli‘s only TV special.
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