Ocean Waves says: You will be confused. You will be hurt. You will misunderstand everyone. And twenty years later, standing on a train platform in Tokyo, you will finally realize you were in love.
Unlike most Ghibli classics, Ocean Waves was not directed by Hayao Miyazaki or Isao Takahata. Instead, it was a project handed to the studio’s younger staff. The goal was to see if the junior team could produce a high-quality film quickly and on a budget for television.
Western fans, desperate for any Ghibli content they hadn't seen, began trading bootleg VHS tapes of the 1993 broadcast. The source was a grainy, subbed copy recorded off Japanese television. The quality was terrible. The audio hissed. Ocean Waves -1993-1993
That is why the date is poetic. The film only "lived" for 72 minutes on a single broadcast day. But like the ghost of a high school crush, it never actually left.
