Whisper of the Heart | Blu-ray+DVD

Perhaps the most effectively realized romance in Anime cinema? I'm probably not the right person to make that judgement call, but Whisper of the Heart does an unusually nuanced job (especially for what is ostensibly a fantasy genre film) of painting a portrait of two people whose love for one another grows slowly and naturally over time.

A young girl dreams of being a writer, a young man dreams of being a violinist. Both are clearly talented, but as the love between them grows it becomes clearer that their dreams of success may take them far away from one another.

One of Studio Ghibli's chief animators, Whisper of the Heart was Yoshifumi Kondo's only feature directorial credit. It's a beautiful, sentimental story with all the sense of magic, detail and craft that has defined the studio's best known works.