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But as a result, her grades in school are getting worse, and there is a chance that she will not get to high school.
For me, "Whisper of the heart" is one of Studio Ghibli's best movies and that means something, because Studio Ghibli has designed only good or perfect films.
The film radiates its beauty through the richly detailed world of it. It is especially nice when, for example, the character slips on the stairs and quickly keeps his balance just before the fall, or even the half-torn advertising posters hang loosely on the walls or even how many books are distributed one above the other, with slips of paper, on the floor.
Like many Japanese films, "Whisper of the heart" also has Easter eggs, all of which relate to Studio Ghibli films and are usually easy to spot once you've watched the movies. By the way, "Whisper of the Heart" was later taken as a template for the movie “The Cat Returns”, in which the stray cat plays the cat-baron, which would also explain how the cat was able to get in and out of the train and why he also has green eyes like the cat- baron.
Yoshifumi Kondo's film, like many Ghibli films, talks about pollution, although indirectly. In this film, for example, Shizuki makes a Japanese version of the old American song "Country Roads", in which she sings about the condition in Tokyo which was even worse in 1995 than nowadays.
But the really heartwarming part is the reality "Whisper of the Heart" shows. I felt directly addressed in several scenes when, for example, the stray cat annoyed a dog by sitting on the garden fence, which reminded me of my former and current cats. It must also be said that the film directly speaks to cat-lovers like me, because the it just reflects this stubborn arrogance of cats so well which gave me a huge smile. Or when Seiji sits in a scene across from Shizuki and they look each other in the eyes and smile, even though they know that they have to say goodbye in the morning, it gives me a sense of sadness as well as happiness, which fascinates me so much.
It really is worth watching "Whisper of the heart", especially if you like animes, romances and happy ends with a bit of corny. A small weak point may be the dubs that I've heard in German and English, as they are not always able to properly represent the lyrics of the song “Country Roads” of the Japanese version. But even the dubs had their strengths in the main characters. Especially with Shizuki, I liked the German dub better than the Japanese original. So I can only warmly recommend "Whisper of the heart" to you and I give it an overall rating of four and a half out of five stars.
OVERALL RATING: **** and a half