Mimi wo Sumaseba

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]

Tsukishima, Shizuku Main

Honna, Youko Japanese

Amasawa, Seiji Main

Takahashi, Issei Japanese

Baron Humbert von Gikkingen Supporting

Tsuyuguchi, Shigeru Japanese

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

Sugimura Supporting

Nakajima, Yoshimi Japanese

Tsukishima, Asako Supporting

Muroi, Shigeru Japanese

Miyazaki, Hayao Producer, Storyboard, Creator, Screenplay

Suzuki, Toshio Producer

Kondou, Yoshifumi Director, Key Animation

Asari, Naoko Sound Director

Reviews

Nov 2, 2024

Frogfrog_

Recommended

It's one of my favorite Studio Ghibli films and in general. I like how the story doesn't revolve around just the main couple and gives more light to the development of both the main and secondary characters individually... It shows well what teenagers' thoughts are like and such, the story is slow at the right pace, making the story remain interesting throughout the entire film. One thing I really like about this film is the soundtrack, not to mention the drawing and animation (like every film by the studio).

Original -

É um dos meus filmes favoritos do Studio Ghibli e no geral. Gosto de como ... a história não gira em volta somente do casal principal e dá mais luz ao desenvolvimento dos personagens tanto principais quanto secundários individualmente...... Mostra bem como é o pensamento de adolescentes e tal, a história é lenta no tempo certo, fazendo a história continuar interessante durante o filme inteiro. Uma coisa que eu gosto muito nesse filme é a trilha sonora, sem mencionar o traço e a animação (igual todo filme do estúdio).

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Mar 1, 2024

OhsnapitsDavid

Mixed Feelings

The reason I only gave this movie is a 9 is because it's sort of clickbait in both the "whimsical" look of the cover image, and the description of the movie itself paints the story differently than what it is: a mundane tale of a girl just going to school.

If the movie started out by what it attempts to achieve in the first place, then this movie would no doubt be a masterpiece.

Unfortunately, this is more about a movie about a young school girl, who has an ordinary school life, and nothing is happening in a plot. So, if I just wanted to watch ... a 2 hour slice of life, I could just stop watching and go do my own homework.

But in honesty, this film is not going to get the same praise from me where other movies / animes do in their "everyday life" plots. Because, unlike other anime shows that have something interesting in the plot, this is just a stretched out slice of life with the interesting parts all going into the girl's project that she later begins working on.

Which is a HUGE, let down when her eventual "project" begins, because the story there is FAR better than the actual main story. So, that's a little bit to summarize this movie overall.

Not to mention, the movie description reads as this girl that writes "poetry" and encompasses themes about books, yet fellow artists and book lovers out there, let me say this is not the movie for us.

This is a bland movie in its worst, and a Ghibili touch of creativity at its best. It's a movie better left running in the background of some static tv.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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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.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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	Poll: Mimi wo Sumaseba Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Beatnik - Jul 9, 2008	162 replies	by matildag165 »» Oct 19, 6:22 AM
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