waterboys - ウォーターボーイズ

• Movie: Waterboys
• Japanese: ウォーターボーイズ
• Director: Shinobu Yaguchi
• Writer: Shinobu Yaguchi, Yasushi Fukuda
• Producer: Yoshino Sasaki, Daisuke Sekiguchi, Akifumi Takuma
• Cinematographer: Yuichi Nagata, Shinobu Yaguchi
• Release Date: September 15, 2001
• Runtime: 90 min.
• Production Company: Fuji TV, Toho, Altamira Pictures, DENTSU Music And Entertainment
• Distributor: Toho
• Language: Japanese
• Country: Japan

Based on a true story - members of the swimming team at Kawagoe High School, a boy's prep school in Kawagoe City, Saitama Prefecture, dreamed up an unusual event for their school festival: "men's synchronized swimming." Inspired by the popular Olympic synchronized swimming exhibitions on TV, the young men choreographed and successfully performed their own synchronized swimming event.

It's springtime in Japan and the Tadano High School swim team is barely keeping afloat. When a pretty new coach turns up with the nutty idea of creating a top synchronized swimming team of her own, she has just a few problems to overcome. First, she's teaching at an all-boys school; second, the 5 boys who have committed to the team are all hopelessly bad swimmers; third, she suddenly discovers she's 8 months pregnant and due for maternity leave.

Inspired by their darling coach's dream, the boys bumble through the spring and summer, preparing a routine for Tadano High's festival. They face great adversity: the derision of their fellow students, a swimming pool full of dead fish, the mounting pressures of college entrance exams, and worst of all, their own dismal record of constant failure. Their only encouragement comes from a gaggle of local drag queens and the crazy owner of an aquarium, whose idea of trainin them, is making them polish fish tanks round-the-clock.

When autumn finally rolls around, the boys have not only miraculously perfected a truly unique routine, they've won the respect and participation of a whole crew of new teammates. On the eve of the festival, the performance is threatened by one last catastrophe. Will the Waterboys hard work be wasted, or can they paddle their way to the success and recognition they've worked so hard to win?