is a 1995 Japanese

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...

romantic drama film directed by

Yoshifumi Kondō was a Japanese animator who worked for Studio Ghibli in his last years. He was born in Gosen, Niigata Prefecture, Japan. He worked as an animation director on ''Anne of Green Gables'', '' Sherlock Hound'', ''Kiki's Delivery Service'', '' Only Yes ...

and written by

Hayao Miyazaki is a Japanese animator, director, producer, screenwriter, author, and manga artist. A co-founder of Studio Ghibli, he has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and creator of Japanese animated feature films, and is widel ...

based on the 1989 manga of the same name by

Aoi Hiiragi is a Japanese manga artist born in Fukuoka (which became Kamifukuoka in 1972 and then Fujimino in 2005), Saitama Prefecture, Japan, though she grew up in Mibu, Shimotsuga, Tochigi Prefecture. Hiiragi currently resides in Hakodate, Hokkaid� ...

. It was animated by

Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation studio headquartered in Koganei, Tokyo."Studio Ghibli Collection - Madman Entertainment". ''Studio Ghibli Collection - Madman Entertainment''. Retrieved 2020-12-14. It is best known for its animated feature films, and h ...

for

Tokuma Shoten is a publisher in Japan, headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. The company was established in 1954 by Yasuyoshi Tokuma in Minato, Tokyo. The company’s product portfolio includes music publishing, video game publishing, movies, anime, magazines, ...

Nippon Television Network JOAX-DTV (channel 4), branded as , is the flagship station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, owned-and-operated by the which is a subsidiary of the certified broadcasting holding company , itself a listed sub ...

and

Hakuhodo is a Japanese advertising and public relations company. It is headquartered at Akasaka Biz Tower in Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo. History Hakuhodo is one of the oldest advertising agencies in Japan and was founded by Hironao Seki at Nihonbashi-Hon ...

. The film stars

Yoko Honna Yoko may refer to: People * Yoko (name), a Japanese feminine given name; variants include Yōko and Yohko * Yoko Gushiken (具志堅用高, born 1955), Japanese professional boxer * Yoko Taro (横尾太郎, born 1970), Japanese video game di ...

, Issei Takahashi, Takashi Tachibana,

Shigeru Muroi is a Japanese actress. She won the award for Best Supporting Actress at the 19th Hochi Film Awards for '' Izakaya Yūrei''. Filmography Film * ''Something Like It'' (1981) – Aya * ''Burst City'' (1982) * '' Female Prisoner: Cage'' (1983) – ...

Shigeru Tsuyuguchi is a Japanese actor. Biography Tsuyuguchi was born in Tokyo and raised in Ehime.Nihon Eiga Jinmei Jiten　2　190-191 He attended Ehime University, but withdrew before completing his degree and joined the Haiyuza Theatre Company in 1955. His c ...

and

Keiju Kobayashi was a Japanese actor who appeared in 253 films in a career spanning 67 years. Born in Gunma Prefecture, he began acting at the Nikkatsu studio after dropping out of Nihon University and made his film debut in 1942. In 1956 he moved to Toho film ...

. ''Whisper of the Heart'' was Kondō's only film as director before his death in 1998. Studio Ghibli had hoped that Kondō would become the successor to Miyazaki and

Isao Takahata was a Japanese director, screenwriter and producer. A co-founder of Studio Ghibli, he earned international critical acclaim for his work as a director of Japanese animated feature films. Born in Ujiyamada, Mie Prefecture, Takahata joined Toe ...

. A spinoff film, ''

The Cat Returns is a 2002 Japanese animated fantasy film directed by Hiroyuki Morita, produced by Toshio Suzuki and Nozomu Takahashi, written by Reiko Yoshida, based on the manga '' The Cat Returns'' by Aoi Hiiragi, with music by Yuji Nomi, animated by Stud ...

'', was released in 2002, which focused on a minor character of the film, the Baron.

Plot

Shizuku Tsukishima is a 14-year-old student at Mukaihara Junior High School, where she is best friends with Yūko Harada. She lives in Tokyo with her parents Asako and Seiya and older sister Shiho, and is keen on creative writing. One evening, she looks through the checkout cards in her library books and discovers they were all checked out previously by someone named Seiji Amasawa. Over the next few days, she encounters a boy who annoys her by teasing her about "Concrete Roads", a set of original lyrics describing

Tama New Town is a large residential development, straddling the municipalities of Hachiōji, Tama, Inagi and Machida cities, in Tokyo, Japan. It was designed as a new town in 1965. It is approximately long stretching east-west, and between and wide, ...

that Shizuku based on the song "

Take Me Home, Country Roads "Take Me Home, Country Roads", also known simply as "Country Roads", is a song written by Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert and John Denver about West Virginia. It was released as a single performed by Denver on April 12, 1971, peaking at number two ...

". Finding a cat riding a train, Shizuku follows it to discover an

antique shop An antique shop (or antiques shop) is a retail store specializing in the selling of antiques. Antiques shops can be located either locally or, with the advent of the Internet, found online. An antiques shop can also be located within an ant ...

run by Shirō Nishi. In the shop is a cat statuette nicknamed The Baron. Shizuku is ecstatic about finding "a place where stories begin". Shizuku later encounters the boy again at the antique shop. He shows her the workshop, where she discovers that he is learning to make violins to pursue his dream of becoming a master luthier. She begs him to play the violin for her, but he agrees on the condition that she sings along. The pair perform "Take Me Home, Country Roads". The boy is revealed to be Seiji, Nishi's grandson, and Shizuku and Seiji finally befriend each other. Seiji admits that he admires Shizuku’s talents and that he had been checking out a large number of books in the hopes that she would eventually notice him. Days after, Seiji leaves for Cremona, Italy for a two-month study with a master violin-maker. Inspired by him pursuing his dream, Shizuku decides to pursue her writing seriously during the two months. She asks Nishi if she can write a story featuring the Baron, to which Nishi grants his consent in exchange for being the first to read her story. Shizuku concocts a fantasy story featuring herself as the protagonist, the Baron as the male hero looking for his lost love, Louise, and the cat from the train (a neighborhood stray who is, among other names, known as "Moon" and "Muta") as the antagonist. Devoting her time to her writing, Shizuku stays up until early in the morning, and her school grades drop. She argues with her family over her grades and future. As she continues to push herself, her anxiety mounts. When her story is complete, Nishi reads it and gives his honest assessment. Shizuku bursts into tears as the stress of the last two months turns into relief. Nishi consoles her and tells her the real-life story of the Baron. When he studied in Germany in his youth, he found his first love, a woman named Louise. Nishi discovered the twin statuettes of the Baron and his female companion in a cafe, but as the female one was away for repairs, the shopkeeper would only allow Nishi to buy the Baron if Louise agreed to hold onto its companion so they could be reunited. However, the two lovers and their cat statues were separated during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Deciding she needs to learn more about writing, and that she wants to attend high school, Shizuku announces to her mother that she will resume studying for her high school entrance exams. The next morning, she wakes up and sees Seiji outside on his bicycle, having returned a day earlier. Seiji tells Shizuku he will return to Cremona after middle school graduation as planned. The two ride Seiji's bike to a lookout and watch the sunrise, where Seiji professes his love for Shizuku and proposes that they marry in the future; she happily accepts.

Voice cast

For the English dub, Cary Elwes reprised his role as the Baron from ''

'': while ''The Cat Returns'' is a spin-off of ''Whisper of the Heart'', its English dub was produced before the latter film saw an American release.

Background

Traffic circle in SakuraOka(Tama City Japan)

''Whisper of the Heart'' was based on the manga ''Mimi o Sumaseba'' which was originally created by

. The manga was serialized in Shueisha's shōjo manga magazine '' Ribon'' between August and November 1989, and a single ''

tankōbon is the Japanese term for a book that is not part of an anthology or corpus. In modern Japanese, the term is most often used in reference to individual volumes of a manga series: most series first appear as individual chapters in a weekly or ...

'' volume was released on February 20, 1990. The volume was reprinted on July 15, 2005. A second manga by the same author titled ''Mimi o Sumaseba: Shiawase na Jikan'' was serialized in Shueisha's ''

Ribon Original was a Japanese manga magazine published by Shueisha. It was a sister magazine of '' Ribon'', and was published from 1981 until 2006. New and up-and-coming ''Ribon'' manga artists A is a comic artist who writes and/or illustrates manga. As ...

'' in August 1995 and released in a single volume on February 20, 1996. A spiritual sequel to this film adaption, ''

'', was turned back into a manga by Aoi Hiiragi, under the name ''Baron: Neko no Danshaku''.

Production

During production, the backgrounds in the fantasy sequences of the film were drawn by Naohisa Inoue and the

woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas tha ...

of the imprisoned violin-maker was created by Miyazaki's son Keisuke Miyazaki, a professional engraver.

Music

The film score of ''Whisper of the Heart'' was composed by

Yuji Nomi is a Japanese composer. His work includes the Studio Ghibli films ''Whisper of the Heart'' (1995) and ''The Cat Returns'' (2002), as well as the Kyoto Animation television series ''Nichijou'' (2011). His mentor was Ryuichi Sakamoto, whom he helpe ...

. At times during the film, Shizuku translates John Denver's song "

" to Japanese for her school's chorus club. She writes her own humorous Japanese version of the song, called "Concrete Road," about her hometown in

western Tokyo Western Tokyo, also known as the , or , in the Tokyo Metropolis consists of 30 ordinary municipalities (cities (市 shi), towns (町 machi) and one village (村 mura)), unlike the eastern part which consists of 23 special wards. Before it was t ...

. The songs were actually translated by producer Toshio Suzuki's daughter Mamiko with

writing supplemental lyrics. These songs play a role at points in the story. A recording of "Take Me Home, Country Roads," performed by

Olivia Newton-John Dame Olivia Newton-John (26 September 1948 – 8 August 2022) was a British-Australian singer, actress and activist. She was a four-time Grammy Award winner whose music career included 15 top-ten singles, including 5 number-one singles on the ...

, plays during the film's opening sequence. The song was also performed by Shizuku's voice actress

Setting

The movie is set around Seiseki-Sakuragaoka station in Tama city,

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

, where Shizuku goes up and down stairs and where she and Seiji declare their love on top of the hill near the station. There are paper fortunes at the shrine where this scene takes place. There are three shops where fans of the movie go to meet.

Release

''Whisper of the Heart'' was released in Japan on July 15, 1995, as the first film in the country to use the Dolby Digital sound format. It was shown alongside the music video ''

On Your Mark is an animated music video created by Studio Ghibli for the song " On Your Mark" by the Japanese rock duo Chage & Aska. The song was released in 1994 as part of the single "Heart". In 1995, Hayao Miyazaki wrote and directed the short film for t ...

'' for the song by

Chage and Aska were a Japanese popular music duo composed of male singer-songwriters from Fukuoka Prefecture: and . To date they have sold over 31 million albums and singles in Japan. History They were formed in the late 1970s at the suggestion of the A&R ...

. The film was released on VHS and Laserdisc by

in January 1996, and the VHS was later reissued by Buena Vista Home Entertainment Japan on July 25, 1997 as part of the "Ghibli ga Ippai" series. The movie later saw a DVD release on May 24, 2002, and was soon reissued again with a new HD master by Disney on April 20, 2022. On July 20, 2011, Walt Disney Studios Japan released the movie on Blu-Ray.

English release

An English dub of this film was produced by

Walt Disney Pictures Walt Disney Pictures is an American film production company and subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company. The studio is the flagship producer of live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Studios unit ...

in 2003, but it wouldn't be released until March 7, 2006, when it came out on DVD.

Turner Classic Movies Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of At ...

televised both the dubbed and subbed versions on January 19, 2006 as part of their month-long celebration of Miyazaki in honor of his birthday, January 5. The reason for the long delay was due to rights issues surrounding "Take Me Home, Country Roads", as it's a major plot point in the movie. The English title, ''Whisper of the Heart'', was created by Studio Ghibli and used on several officially licensed "character goods" released around the same time as the film was released in theaters in Japan. The North American Blu-ray was released by

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc., doing business as Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, is the home entertainment distribution arm of The Walt Disney Company. The division handles the distribution of Disney's films, television series, an ...

on May 22, 2012, alongside ''Castle in the Sky'' and ''The Secret World of Arrietty''.

GKIDS GKIDS is an American film distributor based in New York with, according to the ''Los Angeles Times'', a focus on "sophisticated, indie" animation. GKIDS releases critically acclaimed, mostly hand-drawn, international films—such as the works o ...

& Shout! Factory re-issued the film on Blu-ray and DVD on January 16, 2018 under a new deal with Studio Ghibli.

Reception

''Whisper of the Heart'' was the highest-grossing Japanese film on the domestic market in 1995, earning in distribution income, and grossing in total box office revenue. It grossed $34.9 million worldwide. The

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reported that 94% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 17 reviews, with an average rating of 7.6/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 75 out of 100 based on 4 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Time Out London included ''Whisper of the Heart'' in their Top 50 Animated Film list. It was also included in

Film4 Film4 is a British free-to-air television network owned by Channel Four Television Corporation launched on 1 November 1998, devoted to broadcasting films. While its standard-definition channel is available on Freeview and Freesat platforms, i ...

's Top 25 Animated Film list. On Anime News Network, Michael Toole gave it an overall grade of A−, calling it "beautiful and evocative; a fine tale of adolescent yearning and aspiration." General producer and screenwriter Hayao Miyazaki defended the film's ending, saying that it was his idea. Miyazaki wanted Shizuku and Seiji to "commit to something."

Spin-off

Over the course of the film, Shizuku is working on a fantasy novel that revolves around a cat figurine, named The Baron, which she discovers in Mr. Nishi's antique store. In 2002,

produced a spin-off film ''

,'' directed by

Hiroyuki Morita is a Japanese animator and director. He is best known for working as director on the Studio Ghibli film ''The Cat Returns''. History Morita was born in Fukuoka Prefecture and graduated from Fukuoka Kenritsu Chikushikoto School. During his high ...

and again featuring The Baron, and the stray cat, Muta, in the film. Later on, Muta and the crow (Toto, who is friends with him and the Baron) seem to appear in ''

The Secret World of Arrietty ''Arrietty'', titled in Japan and ''The Secret World of Arrietty'' in North America, is a 2010 Japanese animated fantasy film directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi as his feature film debut as a director, animated by Studio Ghibli for the Nippon Te ...

'' as two skirmishing animals.

Sequel

In January 2020, Sony Pictures Entertainment announced that there will be a live-action sequel. The film will star

Nana Seino is a Japanese actress. She has played Sunmi in ''Tokyo Tribe'', Tetsuko Kuroyanagi in the TV Asahi adaptation of Kuroyanagi's autobiography '' Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window'', and Yuko Komiya in the 98th NHK asadora '' Half Blue Sky' ...

as Shizuku and

Tori Matsuzaka is a Japanese actor and model. He debuted as Takeru Shiba/Shinken Red in ''Samurai Sentai Shinkenger.'' Since then, he has appeared in several television shows and films. Personal life On December 10, 2020, Matsuzaka married actress Erika Tod ...

as Seiji. Yūichirō Hirakawa will direct. It was released on October 14, 2022, after being postponed from its original release date of September 2020 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Whisper Of The Heart 1995 anime films 1990s children's animated films 1990s Japanese-language films 1995 romantic drama films 1990s musical films Animated coming-of-age films Animated drama films Animated musical films Animated romance films Animated films about cats Anime films based on manga Drama anime and manga Films directed by Yoshifumi Kondō Films set in 1995 Films set in Tokyo Films with screenplays by Hayao Miyazaki Japanese musical drama films Japanese romantic musical films Japanese romantic drama films Shueisha franchises Studio Ghibli animated films Toho animated films Films set in Japan 1995 films Films scored by Yuji Nomi