The Ocean Waves

This fragile coming-of-age story about hesitant feelings and first love was created at Studio Ghibli as a groundbreaking project for the young generation of its animators. It does not bear the typical characteristics of the work of the company's founding masters, but is all the more surprising for its unique take on the genre.

Umi ga kikoeru
Japan 1993
  • Czech
73 min.
Přístupný
  • This film is available until 31. 7. 2028 in these territories: Czechia, Slovakia.
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About

Rarely seen outside of Japan, Ocean Waves is a subtle, poignant and wonderfully detailed story of adolescence and teenage isolation. Taku and his best friend Yutaka are headed back to school for what looks like another uneventful year. 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. 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.

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. Full of shots bathed in a palette of pleasingly soft pastel colors and rich in the unexpected visual details typical of Studio Ghibli’s most revered works, Ocean Waves is an accomplished teenage drama and a true discovery.

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Credits
Director: Tomomi Mochizuki
Based on: Saeko Himuro
Screenplay: Keiko Niwa
Cinematography: Atsushi Okui
Music: Shigeru Nagata
Sound: Yasuo Urakami, Hisanori Ôshiro
Editing: Takeshi Seyama
Producer: Seiji Okuda, Toshio Suzuki, Nozomu Takahashi
Cast: Nobuo Tobita, Toshihiko Seki, Yoko Sakamoto, Yuri Amano, Kae Araki, Jun'ichi Kanemaru, Ai Satô, Aya Hisakawa, Tomokazu Seki, Hikaru Midorikawa
Links
  • This film is available until 31. 7. 2028 in these territories: Czechia, Slovakia.