IMAGES: あの夏の恋・Summer Echoes

*Music begins at around 00:09

I am a lover of Studio Ghibli’s films. While I believe works like Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle stand on their own as the “big four”, I also have a deep appreciation of some of their lesser known films, including one called Ocean Waves. The 1993 film, which sits between 1992’s Porco Rosso and 1994’s Pom Poko in the Studio’s chronology, was borne from a original script written by Hayao Miyazaki. However, instead of directing it himself, the production was entrusted to the younger employees of the studio. The resulting film is a lovely story about the tumult of adolescence, and perhaps mirrors the young and tumultuous days of the staff who were given this project.

The events of the film centre around the bristly romance between an obtuse but well-meaning boy and a girl struggling through unfortunate circumstances beyond her control. The film is narrated in past tense by the main character Morisaki, and from the get-go the it is dyed with a nostalgic hue. Kōchi is the setting, a warm part of Japan on the southern coast of Shikoku, and one can practically smell the ocean air as the colourful scenes unfurl on the screen.

A film such as this makes one feel quite romantic, and I took it upon myself to compose original music inspired by the film. I basically chose some scenes which I thought would be interesting to write music to, and created a short medley of an original score to these non-dialogue sequences as a sort of “tone poem” reflecting the film.

It’s sort of a strange form of creating, but I enjoyed the process, and hope this can serve as a gateway into watching the actual film if you haven’t already!

*Due to copyright restrictions, I cannot upload this video to YouTube, so feel free to watch it right here on my website.