Starring Courtney Thorne-Smith, Brittany Snow, Cary Elwes, David Gallagher
Written By: Hayao Miyazaki
Directed By: Yoshifumi Kondo
Studio: Disney / Buena Vista
Buy on Amazon.com link

Whisper of the Heart is an animated Japanese movie that follows the adventures of a Japanese schoolgirl as she does all the horribly disgusting, stereotypical animated-Japanese-schoolgirl things you’ve ever heard about – things like learning and growing. I tell you, those Japanese animators are some sick bastards.

Whisper was written by Hayao “The Man!” Miyazaki, although it doesn’t contain any of his usual crazy-ass fantasy elements. The closest thing we get is a dream sequence where the heroine Shizuku is, uh, flying with a giant suit-wearing magic cat thing. (In case you’re wondering if the English dub is worth checking out, let’s just put it this way: the magic flying talking cat guy thing is voiced by Cary “Also The Man!” Elwes. Yay!) The story is actually very straightforward and, for the most part, realistic. It follows young Shizuku as she goes to school, gets into fights with her parents and older sister, and develops an adorable crush on a boy named Seiji who, uh, checked out a lot of books at the library.

The flick goes into detail about these two kids and their dreams. Seiji wants to travel to other countries to learn to be a master violin maker. Shizuku wants to be a writer. She’s just like me! Except animated. And a schoolgirl. And Japanese. And younger. But whatever. The point is, I totally sympathized in that scene where she gives her book to someone else to read, and then waits nervously for the verdict. The only difference there is that her book was actually read, whereas I can’t find a single damn person who will actually read mine, no matter how much they begged me for a copy beforehand. Bastards, all of them! Aaaargh. Okay, so I’m jealous of the damn cartoon character who can actually get other people to read her stuff. Do you have a problem with that? Do you want to fight? Huh?

Ahem, wait, where was I? Oh, right, the review. It’s a good movie. I suggest you check it out, if you’re not afraid of watching a cartoon dealing with fairly realistic life situations and adorable kids falling in love and all that jazz. You should also check it out if you’re a fan of brief dream sequences involving magic flying talking suit-wearing cat-people thingies.

Oh yeah, and there’s also a (regular) cat with a purple ear. Ha ha! Let’s all make fun of the stupid purple-eared cat! Hahahahahahahaha!

Features:
Behind the Microphone with Voice Talent From the Film, Including Brittany Snow, Courtney Thorne-Smith, David Gallagher and Cary Elwes
Original Storyboards
Trailers and TV Spots

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1
JAPANESE: Dolby Digital 5.1

Video:
Widescreen 1:85:1 – Enhanced for 16×9 Televisions

Subtitles:

Favorite Scenes:
Rating: G
Running Time: 111 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: