Whisper of the Heart

Shizuku has fallen in love with someone she only knows the name of, Seiji Amasawa, after seeing his name inside each of the 20 books she spends her vacation reading. One day, on her way to the library, she is distracted by a cat on the train. She follows it up a hill where she finds an antique store filled with beautiful artifacts. A nice old man, with many stories to tell, owns the store. Shizuku also meets his rather annoying grandson, but it turns out he actually is very nice… She decides to write her own story about the cat statuette whose name is Baron Humbert von Gikkingen. htb

Yoshifumi Kondō (1950-1998) was a highly regarded Studio Ghibli animator before his debut as director with Whisper of the Heart. The film was an enormous success, and Kondō was expected to take the torch from the grand old masters Miyazaki and Takahata. Sadly, he died suddenly of an aneurysm, but his one and only film shines on like lapis lazuli.