Special Features include nice featurettes on the making of the film, original storyboards and a look at the record sessions with the English cast. The most disappointing of the three new releases is Whisper of the Heart. Perhaps I had different expectations because the Blu-ray summary described a mystical cat that takes a young girl on an adventure. That cat doesn’t show up until half way through the film. Before it arrives I was fighting to retain my own interest. While it is just as wonderful to look at as the other two movies, the story drags. Whisper of the Heart is a coming of age tale that plays more like a YA novel rather than a mystical anime film. I love a good YA story, but the English dub of this movie doesn’t do the story justice. Switching to the Japanese voices with English subtitles made the film a little more interesting, but after watching Castle in the Sky, which was both emotional and exciting, I found Whisper of the Heart to be a major letdown. Perhaps someone out there has a deeper love of the film and wants to contribute a few lines in the comments section. The Blu-ray of Whisper of the Heart includes the film on DVD (as do all of these releases) and many of the same featurettes found on Castle in the Sky. The Secret World of Arrietty is based on the book series, The Borrowers, written by Mary Norton. In the film, Arrietty is a daughter in a family of three Borrowers- little people who live in the walls and tiny places of our homes. Hidden from our view, these little people ”borrow” common items from houses, such as sugar cubes or pins, things we big people don’t miss or even notice gone. Arrietty and her family live beneath the ground and in the walls of a country summer home. Their lives change when a sickly teenage boy, Sho, comes to the country to rest before he has a major operation. Arrietty is discovered by Sho and an unusual friendship forms. When Sho’s caretaker discovers the Borrowers she doesn’t harbor the good will that Sho does she tries to have them exterminated. This film combines the coming-of-age storytelling of Whisper of the Heart with the visual excitement of Castle in the Sky. Although not quite the out of the world adventure as Castle in the Sky, The Secret World of Arrietty is a fun, beautiful film. The animators really captured what it must be like to only be a couple inches tall and have to function in our world. In addition, the sound design takes you out of our world and really places you in the Borrowers environment.
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