So there’s no questioning his dedication to Ocean Waves nor to the technical brilliance of the film. But he found the responsibility of leading his merry band in younger animators something of an ordeal, later complaining that the experience had given him a peptic ulcer. Though Ghibli wouldn’t try the experiment of letting younger, less experienced film-makers lose on a film again they would return to the sort of teen-oriented film in Yoshifumi Kondo’s Mimi o Sumaseba/Whisper of the Heart (1995) and Goro Miyazaki’s Kokuriko-zaka Kara/From Up on Poppy Hill (2011), the former featuring more fantastical elements, the latter not.ĭirector Tomomi Mochizuki was no newcomer to directing – he’d started in the industry as a storyboarder but had graduated to direction with the likes of television series Urusei Yatsura (1981-1986), Mahô no star magical Emi/Magic Star Magical Emi (1985-1986), Ranma ½ (1989-1989), Dirty Pair Flash (1995-1996) and many others. Ocean Waves would do little to persuade resistant audiences that this kind of animated story-telling was worth their time and although the film was fairly well received by western critics it remains one of Ghibli’s less well known and less remarked upon films. Cultural details are glossed over leaving non-Japanese viewers somewhat non-plussed and it’s relative obscurity may be down t a combination of the two factors.Īdult-oriented, non-fantastical animation has long been a healthy strand in anime but it’s rarely made the transition to the west where such films have been rare until recent years. It took a long time to find its way to the west and though some have argued that this was due to western audiences not wanting the more “real world” based anime like Ocean Waves it may also be down to the fact that the film is far more Japanese than any of the company’s other films. It’s as beautifully made as ever, with all the gorgeous attention to detail that we’ve come to expect from Ghibli, but it’s slow moving and really not terribly interesting. Ocean Waves is a coming of age melodrama with a young love triangle, a slice of life drama that fails to charm the way that the similarly down to earth Only Yesterday had done. The story revolves entirely around the interactions between these three characters (“the whole thing was staring to feel like a bad soap opera” Taku quips) and if you don’t warm t them you’ll find little here to engage with, though the final shot featuring a more mature Rikako and Taku is strangely affecting, suggesting that they’ve both overcome their difficulties and become better people as a result. Taku is a gullible naïf while Yutaka is cold and aloof. Rikako is damaged by the experience of her parents’ divorce but that doesn’t excuse her often appalling behaviour and it’s often hard to see what it is that Taku and Yutaka see in her – certainly it’s hard to see how she could have come between their friendship. How much you’ll get from the film depends entirely on how much you invest in the characters but as written by Kaori Nakamura (based on the 1990 novel by Saeko Himuro) they’re a hard lot to warm to. It’s not terribly by any stretch of the imagination, just a bit ordinary and that’s not something we expect from Ghibli. Ocean Waves is one of Studio Ghibli’s least remarkable films. Though Rikako is often manipulative and self-absorbed, the boys find their friendship put to the test as they vie for her affections. She was a transfer student from Tokyo, arrived in mysterious circumstances (it’s later revealed that her parents have gone through a divorce which has brought shame on the family) and his attraction to her was shared by his best friend Yutaka Matsuno (Toshihiko Seki). On a subsequent flight to Kochi Prefecture to attend a university reunion, he reminisces about how he first met her at school. At Kichijoji Station in Tokyo, Taku Morisaki (Nobuo Tobita) spots an old friend Rikako Muto (Yoko Sakamoto) on the opposite platform. The plot has some echoes of Takahata’s much better Only Yesterday (1991) in that it’s a story about memories and love told entirely in flashback. It’s an experiment that has never been repeated since. Intended for television (it was broadcast on Nippon TV on ) it was an experiment that nearly backfired when production ran over time and over budget. Instead production was turned over to the company’s younger personnel, headed by director Tomomi Mochizuki, as an experiment to see if Ghibli could make good quality films cheaply and quickly. It features none of the charming fantasy of Hayao Miyazaki’s works or the emotional heft of Isao Takahata’s and indeed was the first of the company’s films not to have been directed by either of its founders. Ocean Waves is an oddity in the Studio Ghibli filmography for several reasons. Original title: Umi ga Kikoeru, aka I Can Hear the Sea
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