Ocean Waves (1993)

Ocean Waves is a coming of age tale about a student named Rikako Muto who transfers to a new high school. Rikako is talented in academics and sport, but comes off as arrogant to many of the students at her new school. However one of her classmates, Taku, thinks that Rikako is unhappy after leaving Tokyo. Taku gets entangled in Rikako’s life after Taku lends her ¥60,000, which she fails to promptly repay. When Taku gets a phone call from Rikako’s friend Yumi, who is stressed because Rikako tricked Yumi into getting a plane ticket (which was paid for with Taku’s money) for a concert when the real destination was Tokyo, he heads to the airport straightaway to help Yumi by taking her place on the trip to go to Tokyo with Rikako instead of Yumi going and possibly getting in trouble with her parents. In Tokyo, Taku gets a glimpse of Rikako’s life in Tokyo and forms a deeper understanding and connection to her.

This made-for-TV film was directed by Tomomi Mochizuki, in collaboration with the animation studio Studio Ghibli. Mochizuki has also worked with Nippon Animation, Pierrot, and Sunrise animation studios. The screenplay was written by Keiko Niwa (as Kaoru Nakamura) and based on the novel Ocean Waves, also known as I Can Hear the Sea in Japanese, by Saeko Himuro. One thing I’ve discovered during my year of watching Japanese movies is that HBO Max is a wealth of Japanese films, old and new, and Ocean Waves is currently streaming there.