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Arashi no Yoru ni is a story of friendship between a goat and a wolf. It's adopted from Yuichi Kimura's book, and in 2005 the animated movie won the Japan Academy Award in its category. Author writes for children, yet below surface it appeared to me as much more mature and adult staff.

To give a face value it's for kids: plot is like a fairy tale. There is nothing special: neither plot, nor music, even art - you may think it resembles Disney movies, and characters are easily predictable. But here appears subtle elagance of the movie: its beauty lies in its successful concealment of existential, philosphical questions in a one simple, ordinary story. It's a question of existence. Here it radically differs from Disney movies.

The reason why I rated it 8 lies here, in its story, it appeals for both kids and adults. Without paying attention what I mentioned above, if you watch the movie you may feel that you have otugrown this. If you feel like giving break to typical animes, Arashi no Yoru ni is one of the best choice. read more

Individual’s world is very small: one can’t understand others’ actions; they may seem silly, egocentric, and even senseless. Characters’ doings are not on the surface, you can see only waves of that ocean, these are the only hints in understanding human beings. Ocean Wave is about these small waves.

It does not have a straightforward plot, though it can be called unique. It can seem hard to get into, because what the movie shows is not some type of romance, drama or anything different. From that point it has a slight similarity with 5 centimeters per second. It is about persons’ lives in their small contexts, but it does not dive into person’s deep feelings that determine their characters. Relations happen under the surface. It is soft and relaxing, it does not fill you with emotions or leave you with a bitter taste. The story is open-ended, everyone can understand in his/her own way. More than that, ending is just beautiful (not expected or unexpected, movie’s aim is not that.

Ocean Wave is a Ghibli production, but one point must be mentioned. There is a widespread ‘prejudice’ toward Ghibli productions. It is a tendency to call them as ‘typical Ghibli product,’ but if it is done we can miss the point. One must bear in mind that Ghibli productions change throughout the time, it evolves and matures. The reason behind why people still tend to call them ‘Ghiblitic’ is the reality that those changes are more subtle than that of the other studios. For instance, difference between Nausicaa: of the Valley of the Wind (1984) and Princess Mononoke (1997) are radical though they might be seem very similar at first sight. Back to the subject, Ocean Wave is very unique, though it can be called ‘typical Ghibli production.’

Characters are excellent, their characteristics are not easily revealed. They are not like those of popular anime in which characters are successfully depicted, in a way one can easily understand who is what type of person at first sight. Characters are realistically and beautifully depicted. They are ordinary persons and thus it is much more different to create a regular character. Another good point is characters mature through time, without important changes in their characteristics. That is also hard to do in anime production.

P.S.: if you need info about plot or genre Google it.
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