© 2008 DIVE!! Committee

A number of popular Japanese movies were released in the summer of 2008, including Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, an animated film by legendary director Miyakazi Hayao about the adventures of a cute young fish; the latest movie in the Pokemon series; and Gegege no Kitaro: Sennen-noroiuta (Kitaro’s Thousand-Year Spell), which was a hit with kids who like scary movies. But young moviegoers also flocked this summer to see sports films portraying middle- and high school students.

© 2008 DIVE!! Committee

The movie Dive!! depicts the lives and times of middle- and high school athletes devoted to the sport of diving. The key to the art of diving is how beautifully you can twist and turn in the given time of 1.8 seconds, the amount of time to reach the water from a towering 10-meter-high diving platform.