An optical submarine communication system has a land cable connected to a terminal apparatus which is installed on land near the seashore for transmitting an optical signal and electric power. One illumination subsystem includes a diffractive optical element configured to separate an illumination light beam into multiple light beams and a refractive lens array positioned in the path of the multiple light beams. The weighing signal is changed with time. The width of a bus for data transfer between the controller IC and data-line driver of the display panel is such that data of a greater number of bits is transferred in parallel by a single transfer than is transferred by the bus between the controller and the host device.