Studio Ghibli‘s Whisper of the Heart will return to the big screen in the City of Film, Chofu Festival 2023, 28 years after the animated feature film debuted in Japanese theaters. Alongside the film, the On Your Mark anime short will be screened with it for the first time since 1995.
Whisper of the Heart first premiered in Japanese theaters on July 15, 1995. I was directed by Yoshifumi Kondo with the script by Hayao Miyazaki. On Your Mark, an anime short created by Hayao Miyazaki and set to the song of the same name by Chage & Aska was also shown during the movie’s initial showing.
The short has been re-released as part of the Ghibli Shorts collection, but this is the first time the movie will be screened together since its debut showings. The screenings are scheduled to take place from February 11 to February 19, 2023, spread out across nine days. Whisper of the Heart adult tickets are 1,100 yen ($8.60), and one ticket is good for both animations.
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WHAT IS THE STORY OF ON YOUR MARK?
On Your Mark is an animated music video created by Studio Ghibli for the song “On Your Mark” by the Japanese rock duo Chage & Aska. It was released as part of their single “Heart”. After experiencing writer’s block with Princess Mononoke in 1995, Hayao Miyazaki created the short for the song “On Your Mark” as a side-project. He also wrote and directed it. The events are depicted in the anime music video through numerous repetitions and alternative sequences. There is no dialogue in the music video, but sound effects have been added to the audio track.
In order to illustrate his image of the world where mankind inhabits underground cities and the surface becomes inhospitable, Miyazaki purposefully misread the lyrics. To inspire original ideas from viewers, he intentionally made the video enigmatic.
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The music video follows two policemen who discover an angelic being in a raid and a religious cult massacre, only to have her whisked away and imprisoned in a guarded laboratory. The two men come up with a strategy to break into the facility while being haunted by what happened to the “angel”. The three, fleeing in an armored vehicle, attempt to elude a police helicopter along a constrained, suspended road before falling into a chasm. The armored truck suddenly rams into an apartment building after a montage of the other images, allowing their escape. The three make their way to the surface, dodging radiation and warning signs along the way, and emerge close to a covered nuclear reactor. The “angel” is freed by the two guys, who then watch as she soars into the air.
The animation and attention to detail in the music video won plaudits from the public. Before Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart, it debuted as a short film. Since then, it has been made available on laserdisc and DVD as part of the compilation All Things Ghibli Special Short Short.
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