Listen to the Voices of the Sea

Listen to the Voices of the Sea (Japanese: 日本戦歿学生の手記　きけ、わだつみの声, romanized: Nippon senbotsu gakusei no shuki: Kike wadatsumi no koe, lit.

It is based on the 1949 best-selling book Listen to the Voices from the Sea (Kike wadatsumi no koe), a collection of letters by Japanese student soldiers killed in World War II.

Close to the edge of starvation, a group of soldiers, led by squad leader Aoji, steal and slaughter the Lieutenant's horse.

In the flashback sequence showing the last university lecture because of the students' mobilisation, Professor Oki cites extensively from French philosopher and humanist Montaigne's 1580 essay Comme l’ame descharge ses passions sur des objects faux, quand les vrais luy défaillent (How the soul discharges its passions on false objects, when the true ones fail it), describing it as a contemplation on death in times marked by wars.

He closes with a quote from Montaigne's essay Que philosopher c'est apprendre à mourir (That to philosophise is to learn to die).