Respond to these rapid questions in our Ride Your Wave quiz and we will tell you which Ride Your Wave character you are. Play it now.
After beginning as a cute love story, “Ride Your Wave” quickly transforms into a moving character study about coming to terms with one’s own mortality. As we follow Hinako (Rina Kawaei), a charming, but clumsy surfer, as she falls in love with Minato (Ryota Katayose), the gentle, attentive firefighter who saves her life shortly after she moves to a postage stamp-sized town by the sea, we learn more about her past and her future.
In this charmingly intimate summer romance, Hinako and Minato bond over activities such as surfing (he’s not very good at it, but enjoys learning from her), cooking omurice (a popular Japanese dish that pairs a fluffy omelet with rice), watching fireworks together, and admiring finless porpoises (he’s not very good at it, but enjoys learning from her).
When Minato dies while attempting to save an unknown stranger, it’s only credible because he’s primarily present in “Ride Your Wave” as an extension of Hinako’s emotions, which makes his death all the more unbelievable. However, while Minato’s spirit is a figment of Hinako’s imagination, he is also a real person who can be found in any water surface, including tap and toilet water, and appears to her. Hinako imagines him as a porpoise at times, and at other times, he appears as a tidal wave of ocean water, which suggests that Hinako’s emotions are as substantial as the surf beneath her board at other times.
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That synopsis might make “Ride Your Wave” appear to be a tone-deaf and painfully earnest melodrama, but the film’s unabashed sentimentality never becomes unbearably overbearing throughout. With “Lu Over the Wall,” “Mind Game,” and “Lu Over the Wall 2,” director Masaaki Yuasa and screenwriter Reiko Yoshida provide a light, sensitive consideration of Hinako’s feelings that is genuinely refreshing, especially Yuasa’s focus on the ambient sounds and earthy details of Hinako and Minato’s romance. I was particularly taken with the film’s sound design, which conveys a clear sense of the romantic isolation that Hinako and Minato feel as a result of their microscopic surroundings, such as when seaside fireworks pop and hiss in the distance. I also enjoy the scene in which Minato’s best friend Wasabi (Kentaro Ito) is trying to regain his balance while riding a zipline during his firefighter training, which I think is hilarious. Other firefighters can be heard encouraging Wasabi as he attempts to pull himself up by his legs and shimmy from one post to another. The sound of his colleagues shouting somewhere off-screen causes him to sigh heavily, and his carabineer shifts in response to his weight. It’s a brief, but illuminating, exchange.
Ride Your Wave Quiz
Furthermore, Hinako’s world is credible due to the fact that she is not treated as the platonic ideal of a teenage girl. One scene in particular, in which the ocean breeze causes both Hinako’s dress and Minato’s light denim shirt to puff up as they talk, evoking images of David Byrne in his oversized “Stop Making Sense” suit, demonstrates Yuasa’s unconditional affection for his young lovers. Her cheekbones and shoulder blades stand out as well, and his arms and torso are impossibly lean, as is her body in general. Their world isn’t realistic, but it’s realistic enough because the world in which they live is unbelievably small.
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Given this, there are several scenes in “Ride Your Wave” that, in less capable hands, might have been unbearable due to the uneven mix of humor and sappiness (for example, why is his ghost haunting her in the toilet?). However, I found myself wanting to suspend my disbelief because Yuasa and his collaborators fought so hard against their better judgment as they attempted to faithfully represent Hinako’s post-romantic depression in their film. Despite the fact that Hinako’s visions of her deceased boyfriend are occasionally overly whimsical, her emotional derangement is never used as the punchline for a cheap joke. She calls him to her by singing one of their favorite pop songs, which feels appropriate given the sweetness and unassuming nature of the scene in which Hinako and Minato first sing together in his car. Also, every time she summons him, she appears to be taken aback by his appearance, as if, after all, who would expect to see their deceased ex in the bathtub?
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“Ride Your Wave” is a film that is as much about how we deal with unexpected events as it is about how we deal with grief. Hinako’s narrative takes a number of unexpected and leisurely turns that, in an unobtrusive way, reflect Hinako’s intuitive attempts to bring the story to a satisfying conclusion. Her feelings for Minato grow stronger as a result of his death, as she sees him through the eyes of Wasabi and Minato’s irritable sister Yoko (Honoka Matsumoto). Hinako also searches for Minato by delving deeper into her memories of him, as she does when she tries to revive his dead cellphone or when she stalks the careless teenagers who, in an early scene, set a fire that Minato intervenes to put out. Hinako’s emotional turmoil isn’t a major conflict or a tragic event, so “Ride Your Wave” moves without a strong sense of urgency. It is, on the other hand, just as real as the private heartaches that we wear on our sleeves with self-consciousness.Also, you must try to play this Ride Your Wave quiz.
For more personality quizzes check this: Greed Quiz.
