Review of Whisper of the Heart

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. Atthe 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.