Taku, a college student, sees a woman at a Tokyo train station who looks like Rikako, a girl he knew in high school. He reminisces to himself about how he and his best friend met Rikako, how his best friend was in love with her, how everybody hated her, and so on. Over the course of this trip down memory lane, and with a little help from others, he figures out he himself is in love with Rikako and that she’s been in love with him for a long time. He sees her again at the train station and runs to catch her. He catches her. They smile at each other. Roll credits.
There’s nothing wrong with this movie but there’s nothing that right with it either. Ocean Waves is a movie you watch once and if anybody asks you about it afterward you say, vaguely: “it’s fine.” There’s nothing to find offensive. It has various small flaws: he script can be clunky. Early in the movie, Taku says to his friend “that’s right, you’re on the student council” as a way of working this fact into dialogue. Much of the dialogue has this odd, strained form of information delivery, yet since the whole story is narrated to us by Taku, there’s no reason for the expository dialogue at all—he could just tell us. (Also, the student council never comes up again.) The movie also doesn’t sweat its details: Taku has to forgo summer school and work to have money for his school vacation. He also gives Rikako ¥60,000 (around $400) without thinking twice. He doesn’t even worry how she’s going to pay him back.
But it’s also not a bad movie. It’s fine. The characters are not very distinctive. It’s fine. Every once in a while the movie makes a choice about how to frame a shot that should be interesting but just feels weird. It’s fine. I’m not sure anything in it is surprising. It’s fine. The most memorable part of the movie comes near the end, when we see Taku’s high school classmates gather again when they’re home from college. The ways in which they’ve changed—or haven’t changed—feel like a window into better movie. But that’s not this movie. This movie is fine. There’s not much else to say about it.
We’re not doing every single Studio Ghibli movie in this series. With the exception of Ocean Waves and Whisper of the Heart, I’m just talking about movies directed by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. We’re not doing Goro Miyazaki’s movies or Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s movies or Yoshiaki Nishimura’s movie. I stuck Ocean Waves on the list because I was curious about it, and Whisper of the Heart on the list because I love it, but I’m content to leave the rest alone. However, even if Ocean Waves is not a very good movie—or really, because Ocean Waves is not a very good movie—it does illustrate a problem for Ghibli as an institution.
Ocean Waves was intended as a project for the younger generation at Ghibli to run. In 1993, Miyazaki was 52. In 1997, when Princess Mononoke came out, he would make one of his many threats to retire.1 So by 1993, I would guess the question of “what happens when Miyazaki leaves” was beginning to feel like something the studio should proactively address.
Both Ocean Waves and Whisper of the Heart look, to me, like attempts at giving people their shot. In each case, the director never made another movie for Ghibli, albeit for very different reasons. Ocean Waves went over budget and it is (as mentioned above) a fine but forgettable movie. “Over budget and great” or “under budget and fine” might have both have meant another movie, but over budget and mediocre is a kiss of death combination. Mochizuki has made plenty of other movies, but not for Ghibli. Whisper of the Heart, on the other hand, is a great movie and my personal favorite of the Ghibli movies I’ve seen. Its director, Yoshifumi Kondo, died of an aneurysm. Isao Takahata is dead. Yonebayashi and Nishimura left Ghibli to found their own studio.
What happens to Ghibli when Miyazaki dies?
Financially and legally, that is already a settled question: Ghibli is now owned by Nippon TV. So Ghibli will continue to exist. That’s not at issue. There will be Totoro merchandise and the Ghibli theme park. Artistically, though, as the “Ghibli” which has come to be beloved all over the world, it’s not at all clear to me what’s going to happen. It’s not that Miyazaki has no artistic children; he does. They’re just not at Ghibli. While Miyazaki’s flaws as an actual father are well known, it’s not a personal failing to found a studio that may not continue to put out great movies after you die. I’m not airing this to criticize him. Ghibli is also far from the only institution of its kind to face a succession crisis.
Still, I worry that Ocean Waves represents the most likely near term future for the studio: relaxed, nostalgic, artistically competent, uninteresting stories that will feel like “Ghibli movies.” It would make me sad if one day “Ghibli” functions the way that “Disney” does—as a corporate stamp that tells you you’ll get a reliable product. That it will make me sad is no guarantee it won’t happen.
I don’t have anything to put here.…
This movie is fine.
Miyazaki has threatened to retire at least three times that I can think of. He is going to die working.
this seemed very polite, or maybe deckle edged polite.