Mimi wo Sumaseba (Whisper of the Heart)

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: If You Listen Carefully, Ghibli Movie 10

Japanese: 耳をすませば

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Information

Type: Movie

Episodes: 1

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Jul 15, 1995

Producers: Tokuma Shoten

Licensors: Disney Platform Distribution, GKIDS

Studios: Studio Ghibli

Source: Manga

Genres: Drama, Romance

Demographic: Shoujo

Duration: 1 hr. 51 min.

Rating: G - All Ages

Statistics

Score: 8.22¹ (scored by 198,763 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #327²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #647

Members: 351,886

Favorites: 4,892

Available At

Official Site

Resources

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ANN

Streaming Platforms

Netflix

May be unavailable in your region.

8.22

Ranked #327Popularity #647Members 351,886

MovieStudio Ghibli

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Episodes: /1

Trailer English sub version

play

Synopsis

Shizuku Tsukishima is an energetic 14-year-old girl who enjoys reading and writing poetry in her free time. Glancing at the checkout cards of her books one evening, she notices that her library books are frequently checked out by a boy named Seiji Amasawa. Curiosity strikes Shizuku, and she decides to search for the boy who shares her love for literature.

Meeting a peculiar cat on the train, Shizuku follows the animal and is eventually led to a quaint antique shop, where she learns about a cat statuette known as "The Baron." Taking an interest in the shop, she surprisingly finds Seiji, and the two quickly befriend one another. Shizuku learns while acquainting herself with Seiji that he has a dream that he would like to fulfill, causing her dismay as she remains uncertain of her future and has yet to recognize her talents.

However, as her relationship with Seiji grows, Shizuku becomes determined to work toward a goal. Guided by the whispers of her heart and inspiration from The Baron, she resolves to carve out her own potential and dreams.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Mimi wo Sumaseba is the highest-grossing Japanese film of 1995 and the first Japanese film that used the Dolby Digital sound format.

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Mimi wo Sumaseba
Spin-off:	Neko no Ongaeshi

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Tsukishima, Shizuku

Main

Honna, Youko
Japanese

Amasawa, Seiji

Main

Takahashi, Issei
Japanese

Baron Humbert von Gikkingen

Supporting

Moon, Renaldo

Supporting

Nishi, Shirou

Supporting

Kobayashi, Keijuu
Japanese

Tsukishima, Shiho

Supporting

Yamashita, Yorie
Japanese

Harada, Yuuko

Supporting

Yoshiyama, Maiko
Japanese

Tsukishima, Seiya

Supporting

Tachibana, Takashi
Japanese

Tsukishima, Asako

Supporting

Muroi, Shigeru
Japanese

Sugimura

Supporting

Nakajima, Yoshimi
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Miyazaki, Hayao

Producer, Storyboard, Creator, Screenplay

Suzuki, Toshio

Producer

Kondou, Yoshifumi

Director, Key Animation

Asari, Naoko

Sound Director

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Opening Theme

"Take Me Home, Country Roads" by Olivia Newton-John

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Ending Theme

"Country Road (カントリー・ロード)" by Youko Honna

Reviews

Oct 10, 2023

AnimeWatcher2006

Recommended

I love Studio Ghibli but most of those are from Miyazaki, and I have one non-Miyazaki film, that being The Cat Returns that until today. Whisper of the Heart is one the most criminally overlooked of Studio Ghibli filmography because it's so good. I love the simple slice-of-life story of a girl love reading and writing, the music is in my top 5 anime score of all time and the animation capture the simplicity and gorgeous in the fantasy sequence. The ending is my main issue, but I won't spoil what it is because even I didn't like how it ended, it's still one of ...

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May 20, 2021

xraaki

Mixed Feelings

This review contains *SPOILERS*.
Watched in Sub/Dub: Dub

Imagine how it feels to watch this film as someone who greatly dislikes the song Take Me Home, Country Roads.

Story: 5/10
Bookworm Shizuku Tsukishima discovers that all the books she’s checked out were previously checked out by a mysterious Seiji Amasawa. In the search for Seiji, Shizuku follows a cat to an antique shop and is introduced to the shop owner Shirou Nishi, and a statue in the shop known as “The Baron.” Shizuku eventually meets Seiji and they discuss their dreams for the future. Seiji encourages Shizuku to follow her dream, to which she writes an entire novel. At ... the end of the film Seiji asks Shizuku to marry him even though they’re in middle school. The end.
Honestly this film is incredibly boring and sparks no emotion out of me whatsoever. The plot is unrelatable to nearly every audience. I don’t know anyone who found their first love in middle school. Or anyone who was worried about their future for that matter. I think the small arc of Shizuku working on her book is the best part of the film and offers the most clear messaging. Otherwise this story is just dull and has basically nothing to offer.

Art: 7/10
This art follows the pleasant Studio Ghibli style but doesn’t go above and beyond by any means. It’s equally as predictable and boring as the story.

Sound/Soundtrack: 4/10
God the use of Take Me Home, Country Roads is just frustrating. I personally dislike the song, but I think the amount of times it’s used is excessive whether you enjoy the song or not. The rest of the soundtrack is just background music for the animations and doesn’t add anything special to the film, it’s clearly just used to fill the dead space.

Character: 5/10
Am I supposed to… care about these characters? Admittedly, Shizuku is pretty well developed as a character but her story is so boring I just wanted to watch her work on her book the whole time. Seiji offers nothing for me. He’s just a generic side character that’s used to encourage Shizuku. They’re romance feels so empty and unrewarding. There was a small amount of time when Shizuku didn’t know Seiji was the same Seiji who was checking out books but other than that their love story is just bland. The romance is especially disappointing because they’re in middle school so the audience knows there’s no way they’ll stay together forever, or at the very least if they are soulmates that is not well-represented in the film. The side characters are mainly empty vessels aside from Shirou Nishi who seems like the nicest old man to ever exist.

Enjoyment: 4/10
I think I checked out of this film right about at the 5 minute mark. I mean I still paid enough attention to understand what was going on but there was really nothing ever happening on screen to draw me in. As already mentioned several times, I don’t like the song Take Me Home, Country Road and having to hear it played multiple times throughout the film started to feel like torture by the end of the 111mins.

Overall: 5/10
Whisper of the Heart isn’t an abomination of a film but it really is a slog to get through. If you like mundane slice of life content then perhaps you’ll enjoy this film. But truly for anyone else, if you don’t have to watch it then I would advise that you avoid it.

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May 8, 2021

pichuscute

Not Recommended

I'm not really sure what happened here. I'm a massive fan of Ghibli, particularly of their more human stories (When Marnie Was There, From Up On Poppy Hill, Totoro, Ocean Waves, etc.). I read the manga this movie is based on and absolutely loved it. And yet... I hated this. Like, really hated it. I guess I better dive into why.

Story:
You already get a general description, so I won't go into it here, but the story here diverges a good bit from what is seen in the original manga. And most of it actually makes very little sense in context. It feels like they ... filled in the details, like they do so well in other Ghibli movies, but here they failed to take any care in HOW they filled those details in.

Important events are missing or entirely changed to remove their original meanings. Important details about characters are changed or removed, leaving far less of an impact and causing the relationships to feel far less believable. Some characters are even missing outright, like one of the cats or Seiji's older brother, both of which were very major parts of why the original story worked so well. The tone from the original is also quite different, putting a weird focus on the bustling city for some reason, which muddies the message a bit imo. And finally, the antique shop doesn't even look to be a shop at all for some reason, which really kills a lot of the awe there.

Frankly put, they really failed here somehow. I don't know what happened, but it was very disappointing, unfortunately.

Art:
This review won't be all negative, though. If Ghibli manages anything well, it's usually the art. And this movie is no exception. In fact, it might be the best example of their work from a realistic setting. The backgrounds in particular are just absolutely gorgeous and it makes me want to go to this city. If I have one gripe, it's that many of the locations changed how they look compared to the original story, sometimes in ways that don't make as much sense, but the art is still drawn well either way.

Sound:
On the other hand, this is the worst OST in a Ghibli movie, by far. I didn't realize an OST could be bad in a Ghibli movie until watching this and I'm still in awe a bit. The big problem here is the abysmal and repetitive use of the god-awful song "Country Roads" throughout the movie. This song has nothing to do with the source material at all (in fact, there was no topic of music in the manga at all), but it's EVERYWHERE here. You hear renditions of this song 3 times in a row in the first 10 minutes. And it just keeps bringing it back over and over and over. The 7th or 8th time I'd heard it was my breaking point and I stopped watching. I was only halfway through the movie...

This would be a lot less bad if the other music was any good, but outside of one scene at night, I can't say I enjoyed any of the other music in the OST either. It really feels like the composer just couldn't be arsed to make a proper theme and the director had some really bad ideas for the story, so they came together to make a special kind of shitshow. To be clear, they rewrote key details about the main characters just to shoehorn this song in as much as possible. Seiji is supposed to be an artist, not a musician. And Shizuka is supposed to be convinced to write from Seiji, not because of this shitty song. I hate it.

Character:
Since much of my complaints with the characters are intertwined with portions of what I've said already, I won't restate much here. But the combination of removing major characters, changing key details of characters, and changing character relationships to make them get along less makes the characters far less enjoyable than any Ghibli movie should be able to manage. Beyond what I've mentioned already, I think my biggest disappointment here was how they managed to change "Moon" from the type of cat in Cat Returns (which was also how this cat was designed in the original manga) to some ugly fat one instead. Not only is this change arbitrary, but it also just ends up making quite a few things make a lot less sense in the end...

Enjoyment/Overall:
Needless to say, I didn't enjoy this much. I did appreciate the art, but as a movie and a story, it's just not good at all. I would recommend reading the original manga, but stay well clear of this unless you really need to. And definitely don't try it if you can't stomach listening to "Country Roads" like 20 times within a couple hours, ugh.

In the end, it was great source material absolutely destroyed by bad execution, unfortunately.

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Mimi wo Sumaseba

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