efren30 - 2017-02-07 02:50:25

96/100

Studio Ghibli’s best film. One of the most beautiful, realistic and soulful anime films I have ever seen. I simply love how grounded it was (except for one mesmerising fantasy sequence), and the simplicity of it, and yet at the same time, it’s complex. I loved all the characters in this film, and it gave me a warm feeling of pure comfort. The ending is beautiful and works perfectly. It’s a great shame that the director, Yoshifumi Kondo, died shortly after the film was completed, because I’m sure he would have made many more great films.

weimann.jamarcus - 2015-11-19 06:59:25

Really love this movie. Make my heart melt for a bit. A typical love story for youngsters. If youre up for a chill and relax, then I bet this movie is for you.

pearl.kerluke - 2015-08-19 04:01:27

I watched this about 20 times and every time I'm like OMG the whole time the one you were looking for turned out to be the one you originally hated but turned out to LOVE a marry (I guess that's what happens)

jovan.quitzon - 2015-06-06 08:31:30

I've always preferred Studio Ghibli's more human movies over their big fantasy epics, and Whisper is a big reason why, cliche story and all. No matter what kind of mood I'm in, this is one of those movies that will have me grinning like an idiot by the end. My favorite Ghibli film, and one of my favorite movies of all time.

qhill - 2014-12-25 02:41:03

Wonderful story,animation and music but the amount of times characters almost get run over is just disturbing.

turcotte.aditya - 2014-02-20 07:50:04

Whisper of the Heart is one of the most down-to-earth, un-Ghibli movies Studio Ghibli has ever produced. And it's one of their very best, I think.

The story of Whisper of the Heart is a very simple romance about two people who inspire creativity in each other. Shizuku is a girl about to graduate from high school, and has taken on the job of writing new lyrics for the song "Country Road" so that it can be performed at the graduation ceremony. She reads a lot of books, and one day finds that every book she ever borrowed from the library was previously taken out by a mysterious boy named Seiji Amasawa.

On paper the story is extremely simple, but the visuals carry a lot of concepts across without having to mention them outright. This is one of the most meticulously detailed animated movies I've ever seen, and it gives the audience a great sense of location in the city where it takes place, as well as a sense of how big the city is.

One of the movie's most important settings is an antique shop. The sheer detail of how it's drawn combined with how much backstory is given to the items there suggest that there's a story behind everything. And everything in the movie outside of the antique shop is shown to have stories behind them too. The main character learns to recognize these stories and make up her own to encompass the world she lives in.

There are a lot of shots that show up when the characters are feeling bad that show the whole expanse of the city, suggesting that the world is a lot bigger than they are. This follows logically from saying that everything has a story behind it; the story of the characters that the movie shows us is just one story embedded in a gigantic network of other stories.

But that doesn't mean their story doesn't matter. The amount of effort, color, and beauty put into the Shizuku's daydream sequences in which she builds a story around things she ran into during her everyday life, and how the images in her daydreams appear to float above the skyline of the city suggest that while each story is only one in a multitude, each one is great and expansive in its own way.

Whisper of the Heart is a romance about two creative people who inspire each other, which in turn causes them to be inspired by the world around them; Shizuku learns to recognize how her problems are incredibly small in the grand scheme of things, but not necessarily insignificant. She learns how much learning the stories of others can influence you, and so tries to make the best of her talents and creativity to give more great stories back to the world.

As mentioned before, the detail in this movie is almost unbelievable. The rest of the animation is equally top-notch, with a lot of effort clearly put into making light reflect off of things realistically and into the characters' body language.

This is the kind of movie that I get really emotional just thinking about, and it's given me tons more appreciation for the song Country Road to say the least. It has a lot of simplicity, but that doesn't take away any of its beauty at all. If straight-up, down-to-earth romance is your thing, I really recommend this movie if you get the chance to see it.

trantow.marisa - 2014-01-28 18:58:27

Adolescence is among the most memorable phases in one's life. During this time, we tend to make decisions based on adrenaline instincts, work as we wish to, while repudiating any advice. Some of us even develop endearing feelings of love for someone, while also chasing our own dream or even remoulding them for the sake of someone else, often out of inspiration and seldom out of desperation.

Working on the themes of adolescence and infatuation giving rise to a wonderful journey of self discovery, Studio Ghibli presents us with Mimi wo Sumaseba also commonly known as Whisper of the Heart. The story mainly revolves around the female lead, Shizuku Tsukishima, a junior high school girl living in New Tama Town. The story progresses as Shizuku constantly finds a certain someone, named Seiji Awasama, always issuing books before she does at her town library, which leads her to grow a sense of respect while her imagination weaves together a personality of Seiji as one could only describe as the "Prince Charming of her life." Much to her disappointment, Seiji is any thing but the "prince charming" she had imagined him to be; but Seiji had a unique charm of his own. One thing led to another and soon, Shizuku starts facing typical teenage life problem ranging from the urge to rebel against her parent's wishes, unnecessarily squabbling with her siblings, while also realising she has fallen in love with the "not-the-prince-charming-she-had-imagined", Seiji. Hereby follows a movie about self discovery, presented in the most heartwarming way possible.

Now it may seem like any other teenage-romance on pen and paper, but Whisper of the Heart, has its own charm, specially due to the way it presents itself. The problem with most romance shows now a days is that they tend to be extremely dull or overly melodramatic and their predictable plot structure doesn’t help them much either. While being melodramatic, most also tend to be highly unrealistic with their character interactions, their behaviour, body language and much more which just brings their over all quality down. Whisper of the heart, throws all these out of the window and carves its path through this genre in a rather realistic and dramatic way, without crossing the dreaded line between the dramatic and the melodramatic. Character interactions are seamless and seem as realistic as it can get for a story of such sorts. Characters behave as a mere reflection of any other ordinary teenager, as they would to the shown circumstances and these strokes of realism are even more integrated into the movie with the help of detailed, subtle body language of the the characters through which many emotions are shown, rather than told through mere dialogue exchange.

The characters themselves are rather eccentric even though they are fairly ordinary people. The female lead, Shizuka, is a rather charming and adorable girl. Her relation with her family and her friends is well portrayed through meaningful dialogue. Her monologues of what she thinks about her sister, mother, her best friends and her general view of the situations she faces helps build up her base character along with her relationship with the side characters in a gradual and methodical way. The development that Shizuka goes through the movie, simply put, is phenomenal. From a naive junior high student, who didn’t know what she wanted to do with her talent, and on the bigger scale, with her life; Shizuka realises her field of interest and recognises her talents. Her love for writing also explores her vivid and colourful imagination. She comes to realise the importance of family and meeting up with family expectations, while chasing her individual dream too, but the main motivation behind most of her development is her love interest, Seiji.

Seiji is quite the character himself. He is shown as an ordinary boy, working at his grandfather’s small antique shop, while learning both, to build and play the violin. The development between Seiji and Shizuko’s romantic relationship, albeit a bit cheesy, was handled with great care. While Seiji doesn’t receive as much development as Shizuko on screen, most of his character development is rather implied. While maintaining Seiji’s lively manner, we see a sense of responsibility grow in him which we naturally see in most teens as they go through their phase of adolescence. His growth in sense of responsibility is established through his interactions with Shizuko, specially, the conversation they have on the school rooftop where they realise they have to work their way so that they could live and spend more time together in the future.All these character interactions which lead to their subtle development, was neatly woven together by the skilful hands of the director, Yoshifumi Kondou, who is known for his works in various other critically acclaimed works such as Omoide Poroporo and Akage no Anne as an animation director.

Studio Ghibli has always been known for sending the audience into another magical dimension with their various works, but sometimes, due to the lack of proper direction, the whole magical element backfires, and in the end, the movie tends to become a mess. Thankfully, Whisper of the Heart, is not one of these movies! Even though the movie is highly realistic at its core, Studio Ghibli didn’t stop from adding their key fantasy elements into the movie. And with the efficient direction, these were used to enhance the whole experience of the viewer. Shizuka’s main writing work is dynamically shown, rather than being simply narrated. These scenes range from talking rabbits wearing monocles to riding an air stream to an unknown mysterious castle. All these fantasy elements are integrated into the movie with great caress without leaving deep scars on the strokes of realism, the movie portrays.

The animation delivered by Studio Ghibli, as usual, is fantastic. Great detail is maintained in almost every frame and the movement of characters and the general motion is as fluid as it can get. The landscape scenes are pretty eye candy and the movie is completely devoid of any ugly CGI. There are some great camera angles used when necessary, sometime to show the overarching city while some soothing music plays to evoke a strange feeling of nostalgia. The artistic direction of the movie takes credits when the fantasy world is involved, as the colour palette becomes much more vibrant and animation becomes subtly smoother and camera angles range from the typical to experimental ones where Shizuka is shown riding the winds to the castle.

Along with the magical animation, the movie imbues a deep sense of nostalgia with its usage of music. The movie begins with Olivia Newton John’s cover of the famous song, Country Road, which itself evokes a warm fuzzy feeling in the viewer, making them feel right at home. Other than that particular cover of John Dever’s, country road, a japanese rendition is sung many times in the movie and their placement couldn’t have been more correct which added to the overall atmosphere of the film, whenever they were used. A personal favourite would be when Seiji plays the violin and Shizuka sings along and the elders join in with various other instruments, to create one of the most joyous and heart warming scenes in anime for me personally, but one could feel free to disagree, I guess. Other soundtracks just add to the magic of the film and its overarching, heartwarming atmosphere. To weave such a fantastic atmosphere, and evoke feelings of nostalgia with the music alone, credits must be given to the “music director”, Yuuiji Nomi who is also known for his quirky OST’s in Nichijou.

With all that said and done, I must conclude by saying that Whisper of the Heart is a wonderful coming of age film; and a journey of self discovery. This film has something for everybody to enjoy, whether it be seeing yourself as a teenager grow up in the movie, facing similar problems or for parents, who could see how to co-operate with their child when they’re in their rebellious phase of life and let them freely chase their dreams. The fantastic musical score coupled with the fluid animation has the right balance of drama imbibed into it. It may appear to some as a typical animated work at first glance but once the experience is over, many will quickly realise that Whisper of the Heart is anything but typical.

And yeah, Country Roads, will never be the same again, for me at least.

drake63 - 2013-09-07 03:24:41

Another great movie from Studio Ghibli. Of course not its best, but still a great entertainement.

The Story is pretty simple and linear. As usual with Ghibli, characters don't have a big quest to fufill in this movie. You are not expecting much and not receiving much in return. I mean, it's a love story... Everything is naturally obvious and predictible. Although, the story itself is entertaining for the lengh of the movie. It's a movie, you don't really need a plot twisting ending like Fight Club or Shutter Island.

The Animation is classic to Ghibli studio. As a fan of their work, I am probably biased. The artwork is familiar and contains the signature of Ghibli. Nothing to say about it.

Sound probably deserve a higher note. Soundtrack in general didn't really bother me or amaze me, BUT if it wasn't from ''Country Roads'' the theme song I would have been indulgent. Sadly, I watch an episode of American Dad were the song was featured. I couldn't stop laughing! For the first minutes, I would only think about American Dad instead of Whisper of the Heart.

Characters were great. There didn't had much depth, but as a said, it's a love story... You don't have to expect to have huge back stories behind everyone. They were funny and classic. The land in the common field of Ghibli's protagonists. I am not especially fond of lovey-dovey teenagers in love, but I can say, they were cute to see.

The whole movie was cute. This studio has a way to make adorable love stories. Even though, everything was close to past work from Ghibli, this movie was a good experience. It takes you to another perspective and gives you the feeling you a fluffy sensation in your chest... yeah, I am cheesy.

gust.tremblay - 2013-08-27 03:08:23

It was hard getting my mother to sit down. It's not that she doesn't enjoy watching films with me and my sister, but she's not exactly a fan of animated films- she often feels that they're not particularly rooted in reality, and I'm not sure why, but she tends to stray away from them.

With a bit of trickery (sorry, Mom), I managed to get my mother to sit and watch Whisper of the Heart in its entirety.

Directed by Yoshifumi Kondo for Studio Ghibli, Whisper is the story of Shizuku Tsukishima, a Japanese girl going nowhere fast. Shizuku hasn't a clue as to what she wants to do with the rest of her life- she'd be happy sitting on her bed, reading library books. In the film, she finds that most of the books she checks out from the library have been checked out by a certain Seiji Amasawa- I don't feel that it's too much of a spoiler to say that she eventually encounters this person.

If you're used to some of Ghibli's somewhat more fantastical works, such as Castle in the Sky, you might want to take into consideration that while Whisper of the Heart contains all the magic and joy that mark it as one of Ghibli's works, it's no fairy tale. Besides one scene in the imagination of the protagonist (a wonderful, insane part of the movie), Whisper tells a story that happens in our world. Personally, that's part of the appeal of the film for me; it's an everyday story told in an extraordinary way. The protagonist wasn't a tired archetype- she was full of personality, well-rounded- Whisper deserves special acclaim for having particularly strong character development. My mother, who tends to speak her mind during movies, was rather quiet while watching Whisper- she spoke up a few times and commented on the plot and characters- they caught her attention and, like magic, enthralled her.

Visually, Whisper of the Heart is just as beautiful as Ghibli's other movies. Everything's nicely animated, the use of colour is fantastic, and the backgrounds? I could rave about those for days. My sister, an artist, noted that Whisper is full of wonderful little touches that make it seem much more realistic- characters are animated with their own odd foibles and such- they behave like people. There's a loving amount of detail that went into this movie, and it all paid off. As for music, Whisper features quite prominently the song Country Roads. I'm not usually one for country music, but by the end, my family was singing the happy little ballad of West Virginia. Besides having good music, Whisper featured very good voice acting. We watched the English dub of the film, and the VAs for the protagonists all seemed to fit perfectly.

Overall, Whisper of the Heart is a wonderful movie- it has a wonderfully engaging story and characters, gorgeous visuals and music that's practically guaranteed to get stuck in your head. There are very few animated films that my mother has enjoyed; this is among them. I hold no grudge against her taste, but I think it's worth saying that if you have a friend who thinks that he or she doesn't enjoy animated films, that person hasn't seen Whisper of the Heart.

ulices93 - 2013-07-26 17:34:26

I think that this is the most... normal? of the films Miyazaki has made. XD Because of this, it wasn't really what I expected when I started watching it, but it's still a good movie. It's probably the least intense of the bunch, and it focuses more on the life of a young girl who's an aspiring writer.It's also linked to the other Ghibli movie; The Cat Returns, although you don't have to have seen them both for the films to make sense. I would watch this movie just because... it's a Ghibli movie and they all rock, but keep in mind that it's not the typical Miyazaki film. :)