The story of Stranger By The Sea centers two characters: Shun and Mio, one secure about his romantic feelings, the other worried that they are better off loving other people instead.
Shun Hashimoto is an ashy-haired writer who helps run a local inn with his grandmother in Okinawa. He ran away from Hokkaido to Okinawa after coming out to his family when he realized he couldn’t marry his fiancee, a childhood friend, because he wanted to be with a man. His father, lashing out, drove Shun to leave. It doesn’t end badly though, as Shun finds a new home in southern Japan with a new family- consisting of his grandmother, Eli, and Suzu.
As for Mio, he is a lonely, young man who likes to spend his time sitting on a bench, looking longingly at the waves that pass by. Both of his parents passed away when he was younger, and so he keeps to himself, living the simple routine of getting up, paying your respects to the dead, doing errands, and coming home to sleep.
Shun and Mio don’t know each other, but Shun’s grandma notices Shun looks constantly out the window to see if Mio is on the same bench every morning. Giving Shun the nudge he needed, his grandma lets him know that Mio is by himself most of the time she sees him, and explains that he used to come by the inn quite frequently with his mom when he was younger. Knowing this information, Shun packs Mio a bagged dinner from the leftovers of food the inn did not sell that day, opening up their first interaction.
Stranger By The Sea will then give watchers butterflies in their stomach as they watch the two interact, perfectly replicating what it’s like to have a deep crush on someone: the nervousness between two people worried about overstepping boundaries, and how scary the things you’ve discussed could be miscommunicated.
Aside from how beautifully animated everything is, and the character designs giving big Studio Trigger (Kill La Kill, Gurren Lagann) vibes, its messaging with communication stuck. Viewers take a sneak peek in Shun’s past as a high schooler, where his classmates are making fun of him for being gay, making comments like “gosh, sucks for me that I sit next to him” or “he looks like a girl”. As many will be able to relate to, hearing hurtful comments does stay with you when you first hear them as a kid, whether it’s your sexuality, your body, how you talk and laugh…It grows with you.