Mimi wo Sumaseba (Whisper of the Heart) (1995)

This was described to me with the keywords "Libraries! Strong female leads! A chubby cat!" by a trusted source, so I was pretty psyched to see it. Adapted by Hayao Miyazaki from Aoi Hiiragi's manga, and directed by Studio Ghibli animator Yoshifumi Kondo, Whisper of the Heart is a dramatic anime about Shizuku, a literature-loving high school student who becomes intrigued by a boy's name she finds in all of the library books she takes out. However, she doesn't have a lot of time to dwell on the mystery amidst school entrance exams, her friends' romantic drama, and taking care of the house while her mother works on her Master's thesis.

One day she spots a fat cat on the subway and follows it up a steep hill (because it "felt like the beginning of a story)" to a fascinating little antique shop. She becomes fast friends with the proprietor, an old man with a passion for music. Shizuku discovers that his grandson is the same jerk who's been chastising her at school, and begins to re-think her opinion of him. His desire to make violins in Italy inspires her to forgo studying for her exams and write a story as a way of feeling productive and driven.

Hey, those descriptive keywords were correct! The protagonist is an independent, hard-working, and talented young woman, a library is prominent in the story, and there is indeed a rather chubby cat. The story is fairly straightforward, slice-of-life stuff, with realistic characters and a good pace (though knowing Miyazaki had written it I kept expecting something fantastical to happen, which it did, briefly, for a magical sequence illustrating Shizuku's story). While romance is an important part of the plot, it's really more of a coming-of-age tale as Shizuku decides what she wants to do with her life and explores her own limits and talents.

I haven't read the manga, but I'd really like to because there were a few ambiguities that confused me when watching the film. I had no idea what age the students were- at first I thought they were around 14 because they kept talking about getting into high school (I know Japan's school system is surely much different than America's, but I figured the translators would find the age-appropriate equivalent), but then they talked about their future careers as if they had to figure it out in a few months. There was also something at the very, very end that caught me off guard, both because of their assumed ages and the shaky romance that had developed. It's hard to explain without giving everything away, but suffice to say I was a bit perplexed.

Despite those minor mishaps Whisper of the Heart is still a very enjoyable, cute film, with good characters and beautiful Studio Ghibli-style animation. Sadly this is the only film Yoshifumi Kondo ever directed- Miyazaki wanted him to take over the studio, but he died unexpectedly a few years after this film.

4.5/5