Miss Makima

breakfast at howl’s ~

I will never emotionaly recover from this

smal gays

Time Out’s 50 greatest animated films:

Whisper of the Heart (1995)

Directed by Yoshifumi Kondo

You could sit through ‘Whisper of the Heart’, one of Studio Ghibli’s lesser-known masterworks, and ponder: did this really need to be an animated movie? Eschewing the expressionist flights of fancy most associated with the medium, Kondo’s film is more of a muted family drama that takes place in a very basic and very real Japanese neighbourhood while adopting as its focus the growing pains of sprightly teenage heroine, Shizuku. It traces her persistent attempts to become an author, mainly of pop song lyrics, but takes a sweetly-realised romantic detour when she develops a crush on a fellow student who yearns to be a violin maker in Italy. A lavish dream sequence involving a statue of a Germanic cat in tails and a top hat is the only time we depart from reality, but here is a film that uses the gifts of the animated form to magnify the tiny magical minutiae of everyday life. Things like an ornamental grandfather clock that tells a story when it chimes, or a cat that jumps on a train and leads Shizuku to an antique shop… The realist backdrop in turn makes these small moments feel all the more pertinent, especially as the film works hard to convey the uplifting notion that inspiration can take many weird and wonderful forms – it’s just waiting for you to find it. How else could an ad-hoc chamber music rendition of John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ bring a big, salty tear to your eye? A beautiful film. (x)

“My heart is stronger now that you’re in it”

~ Shou (The Secret World of Arriety)

Seiseki Sakuragaoka Tama - Locations used in Whisper of the Heart 耳をすませば Mimi o Sumaseba.

A Model Place guide map located near the Keio Line, the stairway you see Shizuku heading down towards the library, the shrine in the scene of Sugimara’s rejection, the round about near the Antique shop and the view Seiji and Shizuku watch the sunrise from in the final scene.

I also read that the Tama district is also the location for Pom Poko! :D

PRINCESS MONONOKE (1997)

the garden of words (2013) ↳雨 rain