Ocean Waves
Short description
Ocean Waves follows Taku Morisaki, a student in the coastal city of Kochi, whose life is unsettled by the arrival of Rikako Muto, a transfer student from Tokyo. She is bright and athletic yet struggles to fit in with her new classmates, and her guarded manner sets her apart. Taku's close friend Yutaka Matsuno falls for her, and when rumours link Taku and Rikako instead, the friendship between the two boys is strained. The story is framed by Taku's memories, recalled as he travels after finishing high school, looking back on the summer that tested those bonds.
The film is a Studio Ghibli production, made for television and running just over an hour, with Nippon Television Network Corporation, Tokaku Shoten and J.C.STAFF among its backers. It is based on a novel by Saeko Himuro. Tomomi Mochizuki directed, working from a screenplay by Keiko Niwa; it is the second of the three films listed as his directed features, arriving between Kimagure Orange Road: I Want to Return to That Day and Love and Berry Dress Up and Dance! Magic of Happiness. The voice cast includes Nobuo Tobita as Taku, Youko Sakamoto as Rikako, Toshihiko Seki as Yutaka, Yuri Amano, Kae Araki and Jun'ichi Kanemaru.
Its reputation is steady rather than rapturous. On IMDb it holds 6.6 out of 10 from roughly 23,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.4 from about a thousand. A critics' rating of 6.6 from 18 reviews sits close to the audience scores, suggesting broad agreement about the film's modest, low-key strengths.
What's left behind the scenes
- This is the only anime by Studio Ghibli that did not involve Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki.
- Tomomi Motizuki is a big fan of Saeko Himuro's work, the author of popular teenage love stories. Therefore, he immediately proposed adapting her work for the screen. Himuro's story was published in the magazine "Animage," and its illustrator was Kondo Katsuya (the film's character designer). Later, Himuro wrote a sequel to the story, and both parts were adapted into a feature film.
- When Motizuki received an offer to create a film at Studio Ghibli, he had already agreed to work on the series "Greenwood." Because both projects were interesting to him, Motizuki started working on both at once. As a result, he became so overworked that he ended up in the hospital.
- During the last school festival, when Rikako's classmates were selling noodles and discussing Rikako's absence again, as the camera pulls back, the back of Porco Rosso – the main character of the 1992 animated film "Porco Rosso" – is visible in the lower right corner of the screen.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
