Emi Lenox writes and draws about her own life in the two-volume
Emitown: A Sketch Diary books published by Image Comics. She drew the graphic novel
Plutona written by
Jeff Lemire. For October this year, she drew a Ghibli subject every day and allowed her
Patreon supporters first crack and unclaimed pieces went to her
Emitown online store afterwards.
Whisper of the Heart (1995) was based on a manga by Aoi Hiiragi. The script was written by Hayao Miyazaki and directed by longtime Ghibli animator Yoshifumi Kondo. The latter seemed destined to succeed Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, but he passed away in 1998. The romantic drama stars high school students Shizuku, an aspiring writer, and Kenji, an aspiring violin maker. Shizuku reads many novels from the school library and finds the name Kenji appears on the checkout list of her library books. The girl wanders into an antique store where she finds an elderly man running the place. At one point, Shizuku discovers Kenji's violin workbench in his grandfather's antique store and she sings John Denver's
Country Roads to his violin accompaniment. The grandfather and his friends take up their instruments and play. This movie is related to the Isao Takahata film
Pom Poko. The setting of
Whisper is the suburb built up on the farmland and forest setting of the earlier film where the tanuki are driven out of their habitat by human encroachment.
