To develop marine science, research in each field of marine science must be bolstered and efforts must be made to assess the entire discipline through interdisciplinary research and/or comprehensive graduate-school education. Today the best-organized graduate-level studies in the marine sciences are found in the United States; Japan's contributions in research and education are worryingly weak. Japan must significantly boost its support for the graduate-level studies and specialization that form the bedrock of marine science and radically rework its system for these studies.