Tuesday, March 17, 2020 — 6
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Two-and-a-half months in, and 2020 has
given the world a lot of things to consider. An
impeachment. The rumblings of war with Iran.
A whack-as-hell primary season. An online-
school-inducing, business-closing, all-around-
scary pandemic that maybe makes reviewing
theater-exclusive movies a public health hazard?
But never mind all that. The first quarter of
2020 has also given US-based anime fans some
interesting, maybe perplexing, things to chew
on: namely, a trifecta of water-themed fantasy
teen anime movies, only months apart. This
aquatic trio started off in January with Makoto
Shinkai’s “Weathering With You,” a movie
featuring a mythical “sunshine girl” with the
ability to dispel rain. The end of April, barring
postponements,
will bring Ayumu
Watanabe’s
“Children of the Sea,”
which tells the tale of
two young boys raised
by
dugongs
(yes,
by dugongs). But in
February and March,
in the midst of global
strife and confusion,
anime and surfing
fans alike can take
some
measure
of glee in the US
release, “Ride Your Wave,” from the famously
idiosyncratic director Masaaki Yuasa (“The
Night is Short, Walk on Girl”).
Seemingly the hot new thing to do after the
record-breaking success of Shinkai’s “Your
Name,” “Ride Your Wave” tells a syrupy love
story between two budding adults set to a
soundtrack of bubbly J-pop tunes. The love
story part is pretty standard romantic fare:
college student and avid surfer Hinako (Rina
Kawai, “Ajin: Demi-Human”) meets firefighter
Minato (Ryota Katayose, “Ani ni Aisaresugite”)
after he saves her life in the course of his manly-
man firefighting duties. As they bond over their
shared appreciation for omurice, pop music and
finless porpoises, the film swiftly falls into a
procession of tried and true romance scenes that
may be too cloying or cringey for some viewers:
handholding, tandem surfing, starlit walks and
even some PG-13 sexy times.
“Ride Your Wave” takes said “bubbly J-pop
tunes” from the “Your Name” formula a step
further. Where “Your Name” and “Weathering
With You” had Radwimps, “Ride Your Wave”
has the boy band Generations from Exile Tribe.
One of its seven members is even the voice of
Minato, and their song “Brand New Story”
figures heavily into the film, shifting between
diegetic and non-diegetic as Hinako and
Minato alternately sing along. This may prove
overbearing for some (you hear “Brand New
Story” just about a hundred times), but it serves
as an interesting plot element — it’s not just
there to underscore the romance and maritime
themes.
You see, “Ride Your Wave” isn’t just a love
story. It’s only after the first act that you get to
the sunshine girl, raised-by-dugongs element,
but it’s there. In a selfless at-sea rescue attempt,
Minato loses his life. But he’s not really gone!
Any time Hinako sings “Brand New Story,”
his spirit manifests in some nearby quantity of
water, whether it be a river, a simple glass or a big
inflatable porpoise (that last bit leads to a cute
parody of the aforementioned standard romantic
fare).
It’s here that the film begins to prove itself
as a brand new
story. The film’s
not so much about
Hinako being saved
by the manly-man
firefighter, or even
really about their
love at all. It’s about
grief,
grappling
with loss, learning
to move on. About
finding one’s own
strength to be a
better version of
themselves.
In
short, it’s about riding your own wave.
Pretty on the nose, right? That’s also the film’s
biggest flaw. It won’t let the audience figure this
out, despite it being the actual title. Instead,
it inflicts a fusillade of cheesy, water-themed
lines like “I just don’t know in which way I
should be paddling,” “if you stay with your head
underwater, you’ll never learn to ride the waves,”
and “the next wave is always just on the horizon,
waiting to be caught.” At one point Minato tells
Hinako that he “can be like (her) harbor.” Google
tells me that “Minato” does, in fact, mean harbor
in Japanese. And as fun and refreshing it was to
see a romance movie about grief set to scenes of
dancing porpoises possessed by ghost boys, the
film doesn’t handle this tonal balance well; the
shifts from gooey romance to quirky grief story
to all-out-fantasy in the final act come off as
uneven and a little confused.
That being said, it is a romance story about
a ghost boy possessing an inflatable porpoise.
Uneven, overwrought and way on the nose, yes
— but fun, gutsy and incredibly earnest as well.
Pair this earnestness with the soft, delicate and
easy-to-look-at animation style, along with the
giga-jolt of optimistic and effervescent J-pop,
and “Ride Your Wave” isn’t the worst thing to
watch in the middle of a pandemic.
‘Ride Your Wave’ dips its
toes in love and loss alike
JACOB LUSK
For The Daily
TOHO
Megan Thee Stallion intended on dropping
Suga on May 2, her late mother’s birthday;
however, the project was released prematurely
on March 6. Suga was supposed to be an
attempt at a debut album following her rising
popularity as a 2019 XXL Freshman with last
summer’s mixtape, Fever. “I’m still working on
my ‘album,’” Megan said during her most recent
interview on The Breakfast Club. She bent her
fingers into air quotes around the word “album.”
“I had to hurry up and put out an EP.”
So why the rush? On Mar. 1, Megan
Thee
Stallion
took
to
Twitter
with
#FREETHESTALLION. She revealed that
her record label, 1501 Entertainment, was
blocking her from releasing music. Not fully
understanding the onerous terms she signed
onto as a 20-year-old, Megan attempted to
renegotiate her situation, only for 1501 to freeze
further music releases. She filed a lawsuit against
1501 the next day to try to get out of the contract.
Megan
points
to her label not
being up to par
with
industry
standards.
The
lawsuit claims that
her label attempted
to
“literally
do
nothing,
while
at
the
same
time
taking
for
themselves
the
vast majority of
Megan’s
income
from all sources.”
A
Texas
judge
granted
her
a
temporary
restraining order that forbade 1501 from
blocking Megan’s future releases.
Despite
the
legal
tribulations
and
corresponding change in Suga’s release and
structure, the nine-track EP is a minor win for
Megan. Her struggles echo those of many other
women of color in music, such as Kelis and SZA.
And Megan’s level of candor is just as rare as it
is admirable.
Suga is just as thematically defiant as its
existence. The opener, “Ain’t Equal,” is hard-
hitting and determined. Megan raps over a
fast-paced, abrasive trap beat and isn’t fazed by
the conflict between her and her label. “Bitch,
I been popping, doing numbers, been lit / And
since the n**** think he made me, tell him do it
again,” she raps at the end of the second verse,
an obvious shot at 1501 label CEO Carl Crawford.
The third verse is just as scathing and unsubtle:
“Ni***s tryna get some fame off my name, that’s
a shame / When I started making money, that’s
when everybody changed, huh.” Despite her
label’s attempt to take credit for Megan’s efforts,
she knows her merit and worth. Starting Suga
off with “Ain’t Equal” emphasizes Megan’s
realness, her inability to give into peer pressure
and scrutiny.
The rest of the album is classic Hot Girl Meg.
Despite not as many obvious shots at her label,
her creativity and unapologetic sexiness shine
through to show 1501 Entertainment exactly
who they’re messing with. “Savage” goes toe-to-
toe with the sound of Fever. The track rides off
the classic southern rap sound that established
her. “I’m that bitch (Yeah) / Been that bitch, still
that bitch (Ah),” she raps in the intro. The rest
of the lyrics stick true to that sentiment, often
referencing her past songs. “Bad bitch, still
talking cash shit,” she raps in the first verse, an
obvious allusion to her summer hit with DaBaby,
“Cash Shit.” “Captain Hook” is raunchy and
graphic, down to the title. Following a year in
which she’s been romantically linked to various
other artists and athletes, the song is fitting —
she is confident in her sexuality and doesn’t care
what the media has to say. She puts it simply: “I
like to drink and I like to have sex.” The nearly
three-minute-long track packs an onslaught that
lets Megan’s deft
lyricism shine in
all its R-rated glory.
The EP harkens
back
to
the
Southern influence
and self-awareness
of Fever, but Suga
doesn’t run the risk
of being too similar
to its predecessor.
Alongside Megan’s
classic
Southern
sound,
there’s
some West Coast
flair. Most notably
there’s “B.I.T.C.H,”
an
homage
to
West Coast legend Tupac Shakur. Using the
same sample of Bootsy Collin’s “I’d Rather Be
With You,” the song flips the sentiments of
Shakur’s “I’d Ratha be Ya N.I*.*.A” on their head
to better fit the song to her situation. Whereas
Shakur sang a song of devotion and striving for
a relationship the other partner doesn’t have
faith in, Megan isn’t one to beat around the bush
— she’d rather be called a bitch than involved
in an uneven relationship that gets nowhere.
Despite the change from her classic sound and
demeanor, Megan sounds assured and in her
element. Her uncharacteristically breathy vocals
carry the sensual, synthy layers and West Coast
bass brilliantly and with ease. The elements
carry on into “Hit My Phone,” a collaboration
with Kehlani. Whereas “B.I.T.C.H” is more of
a banger, “Hit My Phone” is a funky slow track.
The song is fun, sexy and addictive with a sticky
chorus.
Meg is bittersweet on ‘Suga’
DIANA YASSIN
Daily Arts Writer
300 ENTERTAINMENT
ALBUM REVIEW
ALBUM REVIEW
FILM REVIEW
Suga
Megan Thee Stallion
300 Entertainment
Ride Your Wave
Michigan Theater
Science Saru Productions
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