whisper of the heart / mimi o sumaseba (1995)

This movie is a treasure! The premise: A middle school girl named Shizuku who likes to read and write lives a regular life with friends and a semi-chaotic family life, when one day she takes a liking to a fluffy grey cat who joins her on the train on her way to the library. She follows the cat to a small shop full of antique objects, including a romantically designed grandfather clock and a figurine of a cat dressed in a baron's clothing. There, she befriends the owner, an elderly man who tells her stories and encourages her to write her own, and Seiji, a boy in her grade who wants to be a professional violin maker. From there, she becomes more inspired to pursue her own dreams of becoming a better writer.

finding a bit of confidence in her own voice with the help of a friend

Glad to see an anime with characters that build believable friendships and romances, especially after being disillusioned by Kimi no na wa. At the beginning of the story Shizuku finds herself being constantly berated by her older sister for not helping out around the house, as her mother is busy working on her master's degree and her father is, well, a man. She has friends at school who admire her writing, aka her translation of the song Country Road that they plan to perform, but she feels stuck, perhaps weighed down by her responsibilities at home and the pressure of having to get ready to take high school entrance exams. She ultimately finds inspiration in seeing Seji work so hard to achieve his dreams, and reassurance from the elderly man that perfection takes time and effort, that every gemstone starts out rough and unpolished and embedded in plain rock.

skipping dinner to work on her story

I thought the fact that she and Seiji agreed to marry each other in the future was so adorable and worked really well, as it is understood that they are children who may not understand the weight of their promise to each other, yet feel above all a kinship for one another and a desire to see each other succeed. Their love for one another is entirely unselfish, communicated to one another by the small ways in which they look out for each other (Shizuku hopping off the bike and helping push Seiji up the hill even though he had wanted to take her up the entire way, him catching an earlier plane back from his apprenticeship to see her, their feeling of being able to anticipate the other's presence suggesting they share the same desires to see each other). Shizuku does not devolve into a Female Love Interest in front of Seiji, and Seiji is not patronizing nor macho in front of her. Such a joy to see this kind of portrayal of a female character and romance in a film made in 1995, for although Shizuku does live in a man's world (the inspiring figures in the movie are all men), she remains an individual with curiosities and dreams.

In terms of how this film relates to its sequel, The Cat Returns, I wonder if it acts as a sort of big sister. It sets up a world in which characters dare to dream bigger, who encounter bits of the magic that is further unveiled in The Cat Returns, where The Baron takes a younger girl on an adventure and similarly shows her what she might be missing out on and inspires her to think bigger.