SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
A short and sweet sleeper hit, Ocean Waves delights in finding charm in the mundanity of high school life, even if it may be too humdrum for some to enjoy.
Of the 22 Studio Ghibli films made over the course of nearly three decades, Ocean Waves is the one most steeped in obscurity. Supposedly the passion project of the studio’s junior staff, who took the opportunity to make something of their own on the cheap, it became a direct-to-television movie first broadcast in 1993. That it wasn’t made by the studio’s veterans is obvious, as it lacks the narrative and technical complexity of many of Ghibli’s better-known films. However, there’s something still undoubtedly familiar about this film. On the surface, a high school drama doesn’t sound particularly interesting, but Ocean Waves is somehow more than the sum of its parts. It has considerable acuity and charm, both saving graces for a film that would be entirely tedious otherwise. It likely won’t become your favourite, but it’s still well worth a watch.
We start, as many a movie does, on the platforms of a train station. Main character Taku spots a familiar-looking woman on the opposite platform as he journeys back to his hometown of Kochi for a high school reunion. As he boards his flight, he begins narrating the story of how the woman, Rikako, first came into his life. Ocean Waves is told largely through a flashback to Taku’s days in high school, when Rikako first moved to Kochi from Tokyo and the big city to join his class.
High school is a popular setting for television and movies, likely buoyed by the recent upswell in dramas starring awkward teenagers. The attraction to my generation is clear: having recently moved in and out of college, any series that offers a retrospective look at school is bound to be at least watchable. We’re a known demographic, and there’s a certain morbid fascination with watching others suffer through it. Alone however, that sort of casual interest is not what these companies are looking for, and it’s certainly not enough to sustain an entire series’ worth of streamed media. So other things, usually science fiction or magic or funnies, are bolted on so we stay fixated. It’s a formula tried and tested, and judging by output, yet to be perfected. But Ocean Waves was released in 1993, and it doesn’t feature either superpowers or witches or gags about sex, so how exactly does it sustain itself?
Well, the answer is…it doesn’t really bother to. At 72 minutes, it’s the shortest feature ever produced by the studio, so it doesn’t face many of the same challenges as ten hours of Netflix programming does. Its plot is fairly simple; the only complexities we have to deal with are the whims of its pleasingly complex teenage characters who are realistically capricious and deeply immersed in the minor drama of shifting friendships and first love. It’s authentically mundane and it’s easy to settle back in your chair and just let it play. There’s no big message, no grand reveal. It just is. If like me you don’t speak a word of Japanese, you’ll have to pay some attention to the subtitles as Ocean Waves is the only Ghibli film that’s yet to receive an English dub. There’s almost as much action in reading that kind of tangentially useful trivia about the film as there is in the film itself.
To my surprise, I was more than fine about that. We review a lot of movies, but only rarely does one present an opportunity to just sit back and relax. It’s minor drama and little else, and exactly the sort of film that wouldn’t work half as well as live action. As anime however, it brings plenty of Ghibli charm with it. It’s more about character than grandiosity, but while there isn’t anything comparable to the colourful spectacle of Spirited Away, there’s still plenty to be admired about the understated art design and animation and the soft jazz that accompanies it. The film features a richly detailed recreation of the real world, but ever so slightly different, in beautiful softer tones of colour and light.
It’s also to be praised for avoiding cliché. Its teenagers act and talk like teenagers without going overboard with stereotypes. Rikako is a fully well-rounded character in herself rather than a one-dimensional object of desire, and one that we together with Taku, come to try and understand. There’s very little pretence. It’s authentically funny, sad, joyful and nostalgic, a gentle exploration of everyone’s transition to adulthood, and one that never feels like it’s trying too hard to get at the moments that all of us – to some extent – have experienced.
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