Studio Ghibli's Whisper of the Heart - framing goof (1 Viewer)

[Patrick H.]

The official review thread on this title has been archived, so I'm opening this one. I finally had an opportunity to see this terrific film via Netflix...a lovely drama written by the great Hayao Miyazaki and directed by his late protege Yoshifumi Kondo. As I often do with the Disney releases of the Ghibli films, I actually watched it through in both its original Japanese and then English-dubbed version. In doing so, though, I came across a seemingly major error...

As usual, Disney provides the original-language credits on the Japanese version via seemless brancing. However the end titles in this case are severely zoomed/cropped. It's easy to see, as the unique design of the credits has various characters from the film moving and interacting on a street across the top of the frame as the sky changes to reflect the time of day. A couple of minor plot threads are even resolved, if you watch closely. On the Japanese version, though, you can only see people from the waist-down, and the sky isn't visible at all.

A pity, as the original Japanese is defintely the way to go in the case of this particular film.

 

[Richard Kim]

Just got a look at both the English and Japanese closing credits and it's true, the Japanese credits are zoomed in, and as a result, the characters heads are completely cropped off! This is strange, considering that most films credit sequences are windowboxed to prevent just such a thing from happening. Looks like someone fell asleep at the telecine.

I guess I'm gonna have to track down the Japanese version of Whisper of the Heart.

 

[Carlo_M]

Argh, I have this film but haven't got around to watching it. Come on Disney, time to recall and replace...

 

[Lord Dalek]

This argument is a bit six in one. The Region 2 dvd suffers from far greater deficencies (windowboxed, interlaced, etc.).

 

[Vincent_P]

This seems to be a problem with many of the Disney DVDs of the Studio Ghibli films- when you choose to watch the movies in English (sacriledge, I know...), the credit sequences and often many other shots in the films that contain Japanese text are "zoomed in" quite a bit in order to crop the "offending" text and accomadate (in the case of the credits at least) new English text. I first noticed this practice on KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE. To add insult to injury, not only is the image zoomed in considerably, but it's zoomed in ON THE VIDEO MASTER, so the image quality takes a huge hit for these sections of the film as well. Had they zoomed in on the film print, it wouldn't look nearly as bad as what we have here (not that the practice itself would be any less unacceptable).

Vincent

 

[Patrick H.]

I have sort of a loose preference with the Ghibli dubs...I generally watch them in the language most appropriate to their setting. 'Spirited Away,' for example, is always in Japanese. A quasi-European fantasy like 'Howl's Moving Castle,' though, I enjoy more in English. I've also found it's really fun to watch 'Porco Rosso' in French.

'Whisper' actually has a pretty good English dub, I thought, but the Japanese version is essential for making the cultural leap into the lives of its characters. Which is why this particular transfer gaffe is unfortunate.