Whisper of the Heart is a movie by Studio Ghibli, that I somehow missed over the many years since I came out. Since virtually all their movies are on HBO Max now, I definitely wanted to see it soon.

The movie is about a Japanese girl named Shizuku Tsukishima. She loves to read books, but she’s not very good at passing tests. She meets a boy named Seiji Amasawa, and she’s quite impressed by his life‘s goal of being a master craftsman of violins.

She wants to be just like him, minus the violin part. She wants goals in her life, as she really wants something to call her own. She soon decides on a new path, despite not even be in high school yet.

She wants to become a writer, and she gets inspired by a statue that she sees that was made in Germany. The statues is of a cat, and the ownership of the statue has quite a unique history. The statue’s name is the Baron, but will anything make her a successful writer?

Whisper of the heart is probably my least favorite studio Ghibli film today. it’s definitely not a bad film, and it actually has a quite a Fanbase of people who really enjoy it. But I’ve always had a distaste for coming of age story, so they didn’t really help. I also found it boring more times than it should have been.

Score: B-