#Studio ghibli ocean waves movie#

Taku, thinking first of Yutaka, obliges, believing he is helping his best friend’s girlfriend. Things only get worse for Taku, when on a class trip to Hawaii, Rikako asks him for a loan, claiming she has lost all of her money. Yutaka develops a crush on her, but Taku finds himself caught in the limbo of friendship and desire. Rikako is athletic and academic and utterly beguiling to the two boys. Years earlier, while still in high school, Taku and his best friend Yutaka ( Toshihiko Seki ) were looking to the future when their lives were turned upside down by the arrival Rikako ( Yoko Sakamoto ), a beautiful transfer student from Tokyo. The story, what little of it there is, follows Taku ( Nobuo Tobita ), who has just finished his first year of university and spotted a familiar face in the crowd at the train station on his way home to Kochi that sparks off rush of memories. For every odd, uneven beat in the story, the film more than makes up for it with its vivid detail, creamy color palette, and delicate texture. In fact, it’s hard to understate just how splendid “Ocean Waves” is to look at. Visually, however, the film lives up to the lush animation that the studio is rightfully known for.

” And while “Ocean Waves” never really comes close to reaching the glorious highs that the studio is known for (“ Spirited Away ,” “ Castle In The Sky ,” etc.), it is nonetheless a gorgeously realized and deep emotional film of quiet elegance and the fierce longing of youth, and certainly one worth catching again at your local arthouse.īased on a novel of the same name by Saeko Himuro and directed by Tomomi Mochizuki, who worked on the film with the studio’s younger staff members, “Ocean Waves,” on the surface, is a great departure from the regular and delightfully magical work of Miyazaki and Takahata.

#Studio ghibli ocean waves movie#

Now, following not far behind, we have the theatrical rerelease of a long overlooked effort from the studio (and the first not directed by Isao Takahata or Miyazaki), the 1993 TV movie “ Ocean Waves. For all the awful and rot the final act of 2016 has brought us, one small glimmer of cinematic hope was revealed last month with the news that Hayao Miyazaki was coming out of retirement and working on another film for Studio Ghibli.