Zac's Blind Studio Ghibli Watchthrough (ongoing spoilers)

#8 - Ocean Waves

This was a much shorter film, at just over an hour, and yet it still lasted for 10 minutes longer than it should have. The final few scenes focused on a reunion of characters that were never introduced or given any sort of screen time in the rest of the movie, which made the "growth"/feelings of chubby-dude and short-haired female towards the main cast completely meaningless. It then devolved into what I assume had to be unintentional comedy when Taku began to fondly reminisce about Yutaka, only to have memories of her complaining and berating him.

The rest of the film wasn't that great either, as 2 of the 3 cast members were downright unlikable;
Taku loved the idea of Rikako, but only because of how much she stood out. When she spent time with anyone else, he showed just immature he really was, first by sulking when his "best friend" spent any time with her, and then later by storming off when he met her ex.

Rikako isn't much better, as she was a very self-centered character, dragging down those who got near her (nearly taking that one friend to Tokyo against her will!)

Yutaka was the only character I liked, and that was due to a complete misread of his character on my part. Throughout the film, he is shown as very close to Taku, doing things like calling him up just to see him, or talking him up to Rikako. There was even a line early on where Taku says "From that day, I saw Yutaka differently from my other friends". I know this was made in 1993, but I swear, there was some yaoi undertones there, and I was all for it. Near the end, when Yutaka was talking to Taku and said "I'm in love with you", I 100% thought they had confirmed it, but alas, it quickly cut to him talking to Rikako. Deliberate? Hard to say watching it through a modern lens. But those two would have made a much better pairing than Taku/Rikako

I wouldn't say it's the worst anime movies I've seen, but it has set a new low bar for Ghibli
Ocean Waves - 5/10