YMMV / Whisper of the Heart

• Adaptation Displacement: Many foreign countries were exposed to the film first, as the original manga wasn't released anywhere else at the time. Unsurprisingly, this has led to major confusion when a live action sequel was announced by Sony, with several outlets confusing it for being a sequel to the film as opposed to the manga.
• Awesome Art: It's Ghibli, so this should go without saying, but the animation in the film is gorgeous. Some people have apparently mistaken the backgrounds for real life photos, which just goes to show how great the artistry is in this film.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The Baron is only a minor character in the film (despite his prominence on some of the film's posters). However, he is easily one of, if not the most popular character in the film. He is so popular in fact, he would get his own film in 2002.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The optimistic tone of the film's ending regarding Shizuku's future career as a writer takes on a somewhat somber tone with the 1998 passing of director Yoshifumi Kondo; Ghibli had high hopes for Kondo as a potential successor to co-founder Hayao Miyazaki.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The mining dwarf diorama with color coded dresses bring a lot of players to Deep Rock Galactic in mind.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Many John Denver (and Fallout) fans watch this film for the Real Song Theme Tune, "Take Me Home, Country Roads." Fittingly enough, Denver's music has a dedicated fanbase in Japan, given that he toured the country throughout his life.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Shizuku studying.^Explanation The image of Shizuku writing while listening to music has become popular among lo-fi fans, thanks to several people using it (or edited versions) as a background image in lo-fi compilation videos and streams. It helps that a lot of fans think it encapsulates what the genre feels like. The gif in question would soon form the basis for the popular Lo-Fi girl in ChilledCow's lo-fi livestreams, who in turn, would spawn even more memes and lookalikes.
  • Adding various characters into the background of the scene where Shizuku is scolded by her parents at the dinner table is a popular edit to make.
• Narm: Seiji's declaration of "Shizuku, I love you!" in the English dub.
• Narm Charm: Despite the aforementioned Narm, it's still a very sweet scene.
• Nightmare Fuel: The glowing lapis lazuli from Shizuku's story suddenly turning into a dead baby bird.
• Parody Displacement: ChilledCow's Lo-Fi Girl and his "Lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to" livestream is a parody of the scene in which Shizuku studies at her desk. However, far more people (particularly younger fans) are more familiar with ChilledCow's recreation than they are with the original scene thanks to the former's booming popularity on the internet in the mid-to-late-2010's.
• The Scrappy: Shiho is not well-liked amongst fans, thanks to her overly bossy and demanding attitude towards Shizuku.
• Signature Scene:
  • The above-mentioned image of Shizuku sitting at her desk writing in her notebook while listening to her headphones has become one of the film's most iconic scenes, if nothing else but for the Memetic Mutation it spawned.
  • The scene of Shizuku singing "Country Roads" with Seiji on violin is another famous moment.
• Spiritual Successor: The film can be seen as being a far more successful attempt at what Ocean Waves tried to do, sharing some of that film's themes and its more quiet, realistic atmosphere, but pulling it off much more successfully than Ocean Waves. It helps that Whisper of the Heart is not restrained by the same production and budget woes that plagued Ocean Waves, since it was a feature-length theatrical film, as opposed to a Made-for-TV Movie like Ocean Waves was.
• Wangst:
  • Yuuko's over-the-top reaction to Sugimura encouraging her to date his friend. Skipping school just because she cried the day before might seem a bit over-the-top to some.
  • The way that Shizuku, Yuuko and Sugimura all treat the Love Triangle with far, far more gravitas than it actually deserves. Then again it's justified as they're teenagers, and stuff like that really does feel like a bigger deal than it is at that age.
• Woolseyism: In the Japanese script, Shizuku is translating "Country Roads" as a project for her English class, something that serves as a minor subplot throughout the film. Because this could never have been replicated accurately without replacing the song outright (which would've likely violated Disney's contract with Studio Ghibli), the dub frames it as Shizuku writing new lyrics for the song to perform at her graduation ceremony.

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