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

Read more online at 

michigandaily.com

