#ocean waves 1993

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

Have you seen Ocean Waves (1993)?

Yes

No

Haven’t even heard of this movie

Voting ended onMay 15, 2024

[james-stark-the-writer]

it sparks joy, idk what to tell you! wild how the best Ghibli movie so far is barely a Ghibli movie, it's so strange to me that this is a TV-movie and did not get a worldwide theatrical release bc this deserved to be seen by fucking everybody. i don't even mind the terrible gender politics and casual misogyny of this that much because there's arguments to be made for accuracy to real life and the movie seems to understand them as a function of teenage years and naivete but my god, it just has so much of my heart. this is the first non-Indian movie i can recall that depicts a school experience that feels even remotely close to mine and that already gets it more points from me but the rest of the movie also fucking rules. my one substantive critique beyond the gender politics is that it's not nearly gay enough. this is like if Only Yesterday was an actually good movie. the timing of me watching this after (500) Days of Summer is just incredibly funny because this feels a lot like proto-(500) Days of Summer, thematically. somehow one of the best movies about being a teenager and their myopic worldview i've seen???

it's okay if nobody else loves this movie as much as me or gets it like i do, but this really is so special to me.

My ★★★★★ review of Ocean Waves (1993) on @letterboxd:

A ★★★★★ review of Ocean Waves (1993)

This review may contain spoilers. Visit the page to bypass this warning and read the review.

[hellothereandimsosorry]

I'm so obsessed w this movie u don't understand,,,

[cloudtinn]

Ocean Waves (1993), dir. Tomomi Mochizuki.

[mostlygibberish]

A ★★★ review of Ocean Waves (1993)

I liked the part with the Sprite.

Ocean Waves is a difficult movie to place. I suppose it was a love story, or at least it was the story of how a romance began, but at times it felt so aimless that I honestly just had no idea what it was going for. A lot of what happened was typically unfocused for a slice of life, but lacked the charm that usually lends weight to that type of storytelling.

Half of Taku's interactions with Rikako were them being kind of shitty to each other, and despite her being the romantic interest he seemed more in love with his friend Yutaka. Shimizu killed it at the reunion, with her short hair and dangly earrings look.

There were a lot of odd choices, like the frequently strange score, unusual scene transitions with white borders so thick they blanked out most of the screen, and a frankly bizarre montage of earlier, mundane dialogue, spoken over a still shot of a castle for some reason. If the castle signified anything, I sure didn't catch it.

The whole thing was just sort of flat, or at least the emotional impact was either diminished by cultural barriers or lost on me in translation. Whatever the cause, it was a movie that often made me feel like I was missing something.

Speaking of, parts of this made me really miss travelling and staying in nice hotels. If there's one thing that stands out about Ocean Waves, it's the highly detailed backgrounds and meticulous depictions of transport and technology.

Kind of a non sequitur, but what did any of this have to do with Ocean Waves? I mean there were a couple of scenes that took place by the ocean, and certainly there were waves, but they didn't seem eponymously significant to me at the time.

Nice looking, but sort of forgettable. Pretty good overall.

[radiosilenced]

Ocean Waves (1993) dir. Tomomi Mochizuki

[neone0n]

[bygonedazes]

not that i care about the heaps of bad faith criticism about ghibli movies or over simplifies their interpretations for #controversial hot takes on a widely acclaimed studio, yet i may have a lot of feelings about Ocean Waves being called a flop or a bad film.

there's this one piece of criticism i don't get. yall the female lead is not SUPPOSED to be likeable on the surface level. the characters in the film are flawed and human, and nowhere in ghibli will you find one dimensional morally pure characters.

you're not meant to like this akiko or the many akikos you'll come across and have your heart broken by in life. it just suggests that maybe, you should forgive akiko (for being young and selfish like all of us)