A whale falls in love with a submarine and means it completely. The absurdity dissolves the moment you realize this is genuinely a love story, told straight, about the gap between what you want and what the world actually gives you. Dekao's loneliness is real even when the object of his desire has a periscope. A 1989 short that understands romance better than movies twice its length, because it never winks at the premise. The ending lands harder than it has any right to.

Dekao is a lonely whale who swims through the ocean feeling low and longing for a partner. One day a strikingly beautiful whale appears right in front of him, and he falls in love at once. There is a catch he does not see: the whale that has won his heart is really a submarine, built by the Japanese Navy. This 1989 animated film tells the story of that mistaken romance.