Rarely seen outside of Japan and never before released in North America, The Ocean Waves is one of Ghibli's most poignant and unsung masterpieces, capturing the joys and drama of adolescence and teenage alienation with subtle insight and affecting sensitivity. Kochi is your average coastal town on the sleepy, idyllic island of Shikoku, and young Taku is definitely your average high school student. But soon his quiet life will be turned upside down with the arrival of Rikako, a beautiful transfer student recently arrived from Tokyo. Taku and his best friend Yutaka are drawn in by Rikako's complicated family life and mercurial temperament, but as rumours start to spread at school the trio finds their friendship tested by changing relationships and the onset of adulthood. The first Ghibli film to be directed by someone other than Miyazaki or Takahata, The Ocean Waves was a project initiated and controlled by the studio's younger artists under the supervision of thirty-four-year-old director Tomomi Mochizuki, melding the classic Ghibli style with a more consciously mature narrative that reflects the concerns of the studio's new generational cohort.