Middle school friends Shizuku Tsukishima and Seiji Amasawa vow to achieve their dreams. Ten years later, Shizuku has given up on her dream of becoming a novelist and works as an editor for a publishing company. Seiji is abroad and still pursuing his dream.

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Video Quality

MPI Media Group brings Whisper of the Heart to Blu-Ray with a sumptuous 1080p video presentation. The image for this one is crisp and clean with the radiant, natural color palette permeating the screen favorably. Flesh tones are natural with a significant amount of detail present in close-ups such as fine lines. The presentation allows for a substantial amount of depth on display, especially when the central pair are sitting amongst nature. The production design and the clothing provide perfectly clear textural details. Black levels are deep with no discernible digital noise, and highlights avoid blooming. This is as comely as any modern movie should be in high definition.

Audio Quality

This Blu-Ray comes with a robust DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track in the original Japanese along with a dubbed English trach which both hold up well sonically. Despite the base sound quality of the track, we still strongly recommend the original language track. This is a gentle narrative, but the environmental sounds of the world open up the surround speakers in an amicable manner. Whenever the characters are in more densely populated areas, the ambient sounds are carefully placed in the rear channels for a fully immersive experience.

Dialogue comes through clearly without being drowned out by any competing sounds. The moving score in the film emanates through the speakers with wonderful fidelity. There are a few exciting moments in the film that add a small amount of texture to the low end, but it is not a standout in this regard. The audio track delivers on every point you could ask for with this release. There are optional English and English SDH subtitles provided.

Special Features

Trailer: The minute-long trailer is provided here.

Final Thoughts

Whisper of the Heart is a film which brings with it many reservations. Making a live-action adaptation of a Studio Ghibli movie feels like it should be some sort of crime, yet there is an obvious respect brought to the material which does not feel outside the spirit of the original property. If you were going to translate anything in this form, it makes sense that it would be one of their more grounded dramas, and this also does attempt to justify its existence with some narrative development. We are also grateful that this has not been Americanized, as much of the nuance would have been lost. Both the modern day and young performers do a really great job with their characters in a way that does move you on some level. If this had to be made, we are glad this turned out as well as it did. MPI Media Group has released a Blu-Ray featuring a fetching A/V presentation and nothing in the way of supplemental features. Recommended

Whisper of the Heart is currently available to purchase on Blu-Ray and DVD.

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: MPI Media Group has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.