Whisper of the Heart (1995)

This movie… explained EVERYTHING. At least with regard to its sort of sequel The Cat Returns, the oddball adventure movie I reviewed a while back and valued for its sheer whimsy.

In Whisper of the Heart we see that the lead characters of The Cat Returns (The Baron and Muta) are very minor characters that figure in a narrative about finding out what you really want out of life. Whereas Cat takes some serious flights of fancy, Whisper is far more solidly located in the real world. In it we follow Shizuku through Tokyo as she struggles to decide what path she wants to take in life. She has to face obstacles stemming from family, love, and problems with self-worth while she pursues her goal of becoming a writer.

Though Whisper can’t compete with Cat for first prize in weird, Whisper does have hugely superior quality animation. And while Cat is a bit silly and hard to take seriously on the level of plot, Whisper is way more emotionally engaging. Definitely more along the lines of what you would expect from Studio Ghibli.

Overall, Whisper of the Heart is good for the same thing every other Ghibli film is good for—interesting visuals, interesting narrative, and all around great animated filmmaking!