Director: Yoshifumi Kondo
Running Time: 110 mins
Certificate: U
Release Date: January 9th, 2012
When most British people think of Japanese animation (if they think anything about it), it’s either family fantasies such as Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle or the mad and violent world of adult anime. However there’s a lot more to it than that, with one vein being animation made specifically for teenage girls. Although not typical of the genre (there tends to be more of a fantasy element to most Japanese animation aimed at women), it’s into this field that Whisper Of The Heart fits.
Normally this movie would either never have seen the light of day in the UK or have gotten a tiny little niche DVD release. That’s not because it’s bad, but because traditional thinking would say there’s not market for it. However thanks to the fact it’s made by Studio Ghibli – the company behind the aforementioned Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle – and has a screenplay by Hayao Miyazaki, the 1995 movie is getting a Blu-ray release. [Read more…]