Distributor GKIDS has announced that it will release Studio Ghibli’s Ocean Waves, which has been unreleased in the U.S. until now. The film will play starting on December 28th at IFC Center in New York, and one night only in Los Angeles at the Egyptian Theatre, in a new 4K restoration. The film will then be released on home video formats in Spring 2017.

Ocean Waves is directed by Tomomi Mochizuki and written by Kaori Nakamura, which was adapted from a novel of the same name by Saeko Himuro. The film was originally made in 1993 for Japanese television.

SYNOPSIS
Rarely seen outside of Japan, Ocean Waves is a subtle, poignant and wonderfully detailed story of adolescence and teenage isolation. Taku and his best friend Yutaka are headed back to school for what looks like another uneventful year. But they soon find their friendship tested by the arrival of Rikako, a beautiful new transfer student from Tokyo whose attitude vacillates wildly from flirty and flippant to melancholic. When Taku joins Rikako on a trip to Tokyo, the school erupts with rumors, and the three friends are forced to come to terms with their changing relationships.