Ocean Waves

“Our Tokyo trip wasn’t much fun, was it?” Ocean Waves is my second favorite Ghibli film, only being surpassed by Spirited Away in my eyes. This is an extremely unpopular opinion, so I have decided to express why I love this film as a semi-defense for the text. In my mind, there are two major flaws with the text that go hand-in-hand: the shortened length and the ending. Another hour and this would’ve been Ghibli’s A Confucian Confusion meets That Day, on the Beach. Ocean Waves is essentially Edward Yang-lite—an observation that I’m glad is shared with at least one other review—however, Ocean Waves’ length leads to an ending that betrays how the text engaged with intimacy up to that point: Taku’s dramatic montage of romanticized nostalgia attempts to recontextualize scenes that purposefully lacked traditional romanticism, leading to an ending that fails to understand why Taku and Rikako’s relationship succeeds. Moments of manipulation and dissatisfaction are suddenly scored by a sweeping track, and it makes for an admittedly laughable scene due to the fact that the adult section’s ideas surrounding nostalgic longing aren’t given space to truly breathe. Outside of those problems, I truly believe that Ocean Waves stands above the vast majority of the studio’s outings—at least, it is the work most aligned with my filmic ideals.  Pointless teenage melodrama is presented through a realist lens where empty conflict replaces emotional exposition—the detached manner in which emotions and motivations are presented composes a text that frames its analysis through the leads’ lack of emotional intelligence. Taku, Rikako, and Yutaka: these are characters who lack the personal insight and vocabulary to properly express what they are feeling, and it is this immaturity that informs how characterization is performed within the socialized space of high school.  Take the hotel scene for an example: Rikako barges into Taku’s hotel room crying about green wallpaper. She vents about her parents’ divorce as she downs whiskey and coke before passing out onto Taku’s bed; thus, he is forced to sleep in the bathtub. It is a display of complete self-absorption, and many other reviews often cite it as an example of Rikako’s annoying behavior; however, the hotel scene also serves to illustrate how the film handles its characterization and how intimacy is reconfigured inside the film’s framework of social perception and emotional immaturity. Instead of having Rikako directly address her emotions of displacement and abandonment, we are given empty dialogue about dark green wallpaper, fancy enamelware, and whose side she’s on in the divorce. The film, serving as an analysis of adolescent behavior from a fixed perspective, crafts a narrative dependent on outer perception—both in terms of the character’s interactions and the audience’s relationship towards these immature characters. Neither Taku nor the audience ever gets a scene where Rikako lays everything out in the open because she too is unaware of her emotions. With that said, it should be obvious that what is truly bothering her is not the wallpaper; it’s the uncontrollable change in her life and the sudden awareness of her lack of personal autonomy that provokes—a point Taku points out earlier in the film. In response, she calls his ex-boyfriend as a means of clinging onto the past, ultimately realizing that he isn’t the person she thought she knew. He’s as much of a self-centred ‘bore’ as she is. He has moved onto the next girl without a second thought. Life continues in light of her displacement. The world is bigger than she is.  I love Rikako because of how unsympathetically her character is presented. Her character is never allowed a moment of traditional vulnerability in a literary sense due to the fact that she’s a guarded teenage girl who doesn’t know how to express her emotions in a healthy manner. This lack of traditional vulnerability leads people to doubt the central romance—a doubt that is given validity due to that silly fucking montage—but I find that what really motivates this disconnect is in the atypical way the film’s realist philosophies influence how it views connection within the highly socialized space of adolescence.  I’ve seen some claim that the text would be more effective if it followed Rikako, thus granting the audience access to this unsympathetic character. I think that the film is aware of this desire to get closer to Rikako, as seen through Yutaka's objectification of her. Note how Yutaka romanticizes her isolation and displacement—both in physical and social terms. She’s the Tokyo girl who lies in her bed alone despite standing out in every way: an object of curiosity whom he unknowingly dehumanizes through his infatuation of her. He fails to develop conversation that isn’t about Taku because he cannot engage with Rikako as an individual. From a metatextual perspective, Yutaka represents the desire to dramatize the inner worlds of troubled girls. Perhaps she would be a more relatable character if the film’s perspective was constructed around her isolation and displacement, having scenes where she just lies alone in her empty house; even so, why do we as an audience need that dramatization to see through this teenage girl’s exterior—to empathize with her struggle?  In my life, I am often the one who humanizes people that my friends and family don’t like. I just have this intuition when it comes to understanding what may motivate negative or undesirable behavior. If I am being honest, it’s disappointing seeing grown-ass adults look at this troubled teenager and just dismiss her as just being a bitch. I would argue that Rikako is one of the most realized characters in Ghibli’s canon, exhibiting character traits that come from socialized behavior in Tokyo’s urbanized environment—I will talk about the dialect motif later—physical displacement, and familial conflict. Yes, she is very manipulative throughout the film; however, her primary inner conflict is the loss of personal autonomy and control. Surprise surprise! When an emotionally immature teenage girl is faced with a lack of control, the unhealthy behavior she may exhibit will likely be about gaining back control in her life. Who would’ve thought! I’m being shady in this paragraph, and I don’t wanna look too deep into this, but I feel like a lot of us could benefit from learning how to engage and empathize with folks that we don’t like. Personally, I am always asking that ‘why’ when it comes to others, and that nature of mine led me to deeply appreciate the film’s observational approach to Rikako’s characterization. The text allows the behavior to speak for itself, which leads us to Taku: the point of where this behavior is observed from If we are to say that Yutaka represents the objectifying effect of romanticization, it is important to note the lack of direct romanticization in Taku’s subjective interpretation of Rikako, as well as how both boys’ perceptions differ from how their classmates engage with Rikako’s displacement. In the school, Rikako’s depressive isolation—when paired with her abilities, class, and cultural position—leads to the affirmation of her ‘othered’ status. The class’ othering of Rikako follows the same pattern of projection and mystification due to her regional differences as Yutaka’s objectification; conversely, Taku—while making note of her abilities—consistently demystifies Rikako. He is the one who points out her depression, he is the one who identifies her displacement, and he is the one who picks up on her parents’ divorce. He is the only person who recognizes her humanity throughout the text.  Intimacy and vulnerability are given new meaning under the socialized framework of adolescence. The ‘lost money’ scene is interesting to me because while Rikako is indeed manipulating Taku, the scene uses a similar approach to the hotel scene: seemingly mundane and empty conversation being utilized as indirect characterization. Contrasting the romantic mystery she was framed under during the scenes with Yutaka and the emotional distance of the school scenes, the film humanizes Rikako through her exchanges with Taku while still being true to the fact that she’s a shitty teenager who’s emotionally guarded. She asks Taku for money—which we later learn was to see her dad—before insulting his and everyone else’s dialect. It’s such a casual, seemingly empty scene, but it’s representative of how the film views vulnerability relative to Rikako. It wouldn’t make sense for her to directly open up about her feelings of displacement and the resulting social isolation, so… she talks about dialects instead. For the first time in the film, we are introduced to a version of Rikako that is closer to the truth without breaking the barrier of outer perception. Vulnerability with limitations; intimacy from a distance. Even as she’s low-key being unlikable (though I personally love girls like Rikako. I find them endearing irl), there’s this sense of intimacy due to the “realness” of the exchange.  The next time dialect plays a major role is in the rejection of Yutaka. It’s an interesting contrast because both stand to represent Rikako’s inability to fully unpack how her displacement has affected her ability to develop relationships. In Taku’s scene, it’s a moment of conditional vulnerability and intimacy—in Yutaka’s scene, it’s the exact opposite. It’s a scapegoat to cope with Rikako’s lack of emotional vulnerability, using something she had only told Taku against Yutaka.  The romance of Ocean Waves is informed by the struggle of wanting to be seen during a time when you cannot even see or express yourself properly—when you don’t know how to be vulnerable enough to be seen. On the not-so-fun Tokyo trip, Taku saw Rikako in a vulnerable state, so… she pushed him away. Immaturity is a bitch. These characters slap each other because being open about their feelings seems impossible. I enjoyed the moment after the group of girls harasses Rikako because you see her heartbreak after Taku doesn’t stand up for her. His description of events, through framing Rikako as a cold bitch who made a girl cry, affirms this false image of herself rather than identifying the underlying isolation like he has previously done. It’s an excellent piece of characterization due to the hypocrisy she exhibits. After pushing Taku away and failing to address her feelings towards him, Rikako still expected him to see her and recognize her struggle.  I just love this movie! I could go even deeper, but this already is one of my longer and “yappy” pieces. As a side, the Ocean Waves score is the only film score I consistently listen to. It’s one of my go-tos when I wanna lock tf in. Ocean Waves is also my favorite Ghibli film from an aesthetic and directional standpoint, but it’s also like… How much of that comes from me just liking the ‘City Pop’ aesthetic? Idk 😛