Supposedly set ten years after the events of the Ghibli film, Hirakawa once again separates Shizuku Tsukishima and Seiji Amasawa, but this time it is for ten long years. Amasawa is perfecting his musical chops in Italy, while Tsukishima works as a junior editor, while collecting rejection slips for her own writing. From her perspective, Amasawa is living his dream, but she hardly knows, since she has not seen him in ten years and they rarely talk. Nevertheless, he still considers her his girlfriend—even though she does not know that for certain.
As the two young lovers struggle with their relationship and their own day-to-day frustrations, Hirakawa flashes back to the events from high school that fans will know. The Baron, the cat statuette in the curio shop owned by Amasawa’s grandfather, definitely gets his screentime, but he never walks around talking, like he does in Ghibli’s meta-sequel, The Cat Returns.
This Whisper of the Heart is lovely to look at and sweet as Shoo-fly pie. It is also overly melodramatic and inescapably inconsequential. Yet, perhaps most importantly, it never disrespects the spirit of the original film, so fans who want to revisit the two lead characters in a different context can do so without fear their childhood memories will be violated.
There are some nice cello arrangements and the backdrops (both in Japan and Italy) are lushly scenic. Keeping the 1988 and 1998 settings was quite shrewd, because it explains how the two lovers could remain so largely out of touch. It is basically cute fluff. Recommended for fans who love the heck out of the Ghibli film, Whisper of the Heart is currently playing in New York at the AMC Empire.
