#blurays — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #blurays, aggregated by home.social.
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GameFly Wants Gamers to Fight Back Against an All-Digital Future With a $2.50 Membership Deal as Sony Moves PlayStation Closer to a Disc-Free Future
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Even the German Zootopia 2 Bluray only has German and English audio.
At least Disney used to include the big European languages on their releases, and now even Disney is very barebones.
At least the disk still had some bonus features and the main menu is done nicely, but damn.
I sure should review movies and their disk releases individually. I already have to complain so often about disks without subtitles (which I think should be mandatory, but that's just me), but now even Disney is lacking when it comes to languages.
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Even the German Zootopia 2 Bluray only has German and English audio.
At least Disney used to include the big European languages on their releases, and now even Disney is very barebones.
At least the disk still had some bonus features and the main menu is done nicely, but damn.
I sure should review movies and their disk releases individually. I already have to complain so often about disks without subtitles (which I think should be mandatory, but that's just me), but now even Disney is lacking when it comes to languages.
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DVDs & Blu-rays Are Dying As Most Cord Cutters Skip Physical Media
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"Heart Eyes" (2025) Blu-Ray Release Dates Revealed After $30M Box Office screenrant.com/heart-eyes-v... #bluray #blurays #PhysicalMedial #BlurayCollector #slasher #horror #comedy #NewRelease #Sony #ValentinesDay
Heart Eyes VOD & Blu-Ray Relea... -
“Racing with the Moon” Review From Fun City Editions In 1942 California, two young men await induction into the U.S. Marines and say goodbye to their girlfriends. www.undertheradarmag.com/reviews/raci... #bluray #blurays #PhysicalMedia #FunCityEditions #comedy #drama #romance #review
Racing with the Moon -
🎥 ManyVids Instant Downloads: Access 831 videos featuring #BDSM, #lesbian, #cosplay, #deepthroat, and #squirt. Celebrate #HumiliationDay with instant downloads and formats like #DVDs, #BluRays, #VHS, #HDDVD, #AVCHD, and #4KUHD: https://www.manyvids.com/Profile/694333/naughtynatali/Store/Videos?sort=lowest-price
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Hearing that new #BluRays are no longer being produced is quite disappointing, primarily because it's one of the few remaining ways to truly own the media you've purchased. Everything else is essentially just permission to access media that can be taken away at a publisher's or distributor's discretion. #bluray
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‘Doctor Vampire’ on Blu-ray February 24, 2025! Outrageous horror-comedy on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK whysoblu.com/doctor-vampi... #bluray #blurays #Review #ad #PhysicalMedia #BlurayCollector #vampire #comedy #horror #HongKongCinema #RegionB #UK #Eureka
'Doctor Vampire' on Blu-ray Fe... -
#NowWatching “Tangerine” (2015) on Netflix (until 12/31)
Written & directed by Sean Baker
A hooker tears through Tinseltown on Christmas Eve searching for the pimp who broke her heart.
#bluray #blurays #PhysicalMedia #blurayCollector #ad #ChristmasMovie #comedy #crime #drama #hollywood
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#NowWatching John Waters’ “Female Trouble” (1974) on Blu-Ray from The Criterion Collection
Get it: https://amzn.to/4gkefdE
Does this count as a Christmas movie?
Divine better get those cha cha heels!A spoiled schoolgirl runs away from home, gets pregnant while hitch-hiking, and ends up as a fashion model for a pair of beauticians who like to photograph women committing crimes.
#bluray #blurays #PhysicalMedia #blurayCollector #ad #satire #DarkComedy #ChaChaHills #JohnWaters
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Satoshi Kon Film Perfect Blue 4K Remaster Edition Gets Ultra HD Blu-ray Release in February 2025 The bonus items include 35mm raw film frames www.crunchyroll.com/news/latest/... #4K #4KUHD #4KBluray #UltraHD #Bluray #Blurays #PhysicalMedia #BlurayCollector #Anime #JapaneseCinema
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#NowWatching “Murder Party” (2007) on Blu-Ray from Magnolia Pictures (a Vinegar Syndrome partner label)
Get it: https://amzn.to/3VwaZUt
A random invitation to a Halloween party leads a man into the hands of a rogue collective intent on murdering him for the sake of their art, sparking a bloodbath of mishap, mayhem and hilarity.
#bluray #blurays #PhysicalMedia #blurayCollector #ad #satire #DarkComedy #horror
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#NowWatching “Murder Party” (2007) on Blu-Ray from Magnolia Pictures (a Vinegar Syndrome partner label)
Get it: https://amzn.to/3VwaZUt
A random invitation to a Halloween party leads a man into the hands of a rogue collective intent on murdering him for the sake of their art, sparking a bloodbath of mishap, mayhem and hilarity.
#bluray #blurays #PhysicalMedia #blurayCollector #ad #satire #DarkComedy #horror
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Hundreds of Beavers is the Best Surreal Comedy You Haven’t Seen — But Not For Long A love of silent slapstick and video games resulted in this “snowstick” classic. www.inverse.com/entertainmen... #filmsky #moviesky #comedy #IndieFilm #bluray #blurays #PhysicalMedia #BlurayCollector #sureal
The Trippiest Cult Hit of 2024... -
On Dec. 17 Kino Lorber will release the Arthur Dong Collection, a 3-disc Blu-ray set of critically acclaimed a&award-winning films by the director that explore the Asian American and LGBTQ experience www.mediaplaynews.com/kino-lorber-... #bluray #PhysicalMedia #blurays #BlurayCollector #LGBTQ
Kino Lorber to Release Blu-ray... -
Recently added titles (October 2024)
Local public library as shown in Encouragement of Climb episode The Homework’s Unending!Building upon the titles listed for July/August, September, October, November, and December 2021, and January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and December of 2022, and January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and December of 2023, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, and September of this year, this post notes recent titles with libraries or librarians in popular culture which I’ve come across in the past month. Each of these has been watched or read during the past month. Note: There will be spoilers for the series I am discussing here.
Animated series recently added to this page
- Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft, “Whanaungatanga” (s1 ep 5)
In this episode, in one scene, a messy library is shown, said to be the “best in the world.” While the location of this library is not stated, it is messy and somewhere within the mansion of Lara Croft’s family (possibly in Australia maybe? It’s definitely not in the UK), with her friend Zip being tired after reading the text of some dry history books on the Zulus. She tells him that this place is important to her, pointing to where her mother taught her French, and other life events that happened there, saying the place is full of “too many memories” and there’s no room for her there. She learns that her friend Jonah remembers Charles Devereaux, the series villain, heard him talking about the Battle of Zhuolu, not Zulu, which was one of the founding battles of China she heard about as a kid.
Anime series recently added to this page
- Encouragement of Climb, “The Homework’s Unending!” (s2 ep 19)
- Encouragement of Climb, “Kokona’s Big Hanno Adventure” (s2 ep 20)
- I’ll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History (s1 ep 1)
- I’ll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History (s1 ep 2)
- I’ll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History (s1 ep 3)
- I’ll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History (s1 ep 4)
- No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular! aka WataMote, “Since I’m Not Popular, I’ll Go See the Fireworks” (s1 ep 6)
- No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular! aka WataMote, “Since I’m Not Popular, I’ll Put on Airs” (s1 ep 8)
In the first episode mentioned here, Aoi Takimura studies with her friends at the local public library during the summer to get her homework done before she hikes on a nearby mountain, which is starting to make her exhausted. The fact she has any summer homework is a crime. She shouldn’t have any!
In the second episode mentioned here, Kokona goes to a local park (Akebano Children’s Forest Park) to try out her new shoes her mother gave her to celebrate her birthday, where she goes into a library room, in a building that almost looks like it came out of a fairytale, and happily reads a book, in one scene. Later she tells her mom that she “read an old book” there.
I mentioned it before, but in the first episode of Encouragement of Climb: Next Summit, which is a sort of reboot/revival of Encouragement of Climb, Aoi visits a local library and reads about mountain climbing. One of the librarians, a student at the same high school she goes to, recognizes her. The protagonist later describes the library as a place she likes to go since she is nice and quiet.
As for WataMote, in the sixth episode, noted above, the socially anxious protagonist Tomoko Kuroki, goes to the library in hopes of asking a nerd to the fireworks during the summer break from school, but decides to ask a cute girl in the library to go to the fireworks. However, before she can say anything, she realizes the girl has friends, and stops herself. After the girl leaves with her friends, she says her only option is a huge nerd reading in the library. She sets a timer, hoping he will ask her to go the fireworks, then takes a fake call with someone saying they can’t go to the fireworks, and says something hoping to entice him, and sits back in her seat, declaring the stage is set. Instead, he leaves and never says a word to her. There’s also a brief library scene in the eighth episode involving the cousin of Tomoko, Ki-tan, who comes to visit during the summer. The latter only involves the library as a brief setting, but Ki-tan is shown reading in the library and Tomoko walks through it.
I mentioned library scenes in the manga, from which this animated series was based, specifically in chapters 46, 47, 48, 50, and 84 back in August. I came across another scene in chapter, specifically chapter 101, in which Akari Iguchi (who has a crush on Tomoko’s brother, Tomoki) goes to the library where she sees Koriyama Kotomi, who is serving as the librarian, and Tomoko gets Arkari o admit she likes Tomoki, while Koriyama admits she likes Tomoki and his sexual organs. Akari claims she only likes Tomoki for his personality, something that confuses Tomoko because he has a terrible personality (not saying hers is great though).
I began watching I’ll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History (fully known as this, plus the colon “It Seems Turning into a High-Born Baddie Makes the Prince All the More Lovestruck” or Rekishi ni Nokoru Akujo ni Naru zo: Akuyaku Reijō ni Naru hodo Ōji no Dekiai wa Kasoku suru yō desu! in Japanese) on a whim, and in the first episode, shown above, the protagonist Alicia goes through the library to learn more about magic. She walks through the stacks so she can begin to master magic, to find the right book so she can begin self-training, but no book in the entire library is about magic, annoying her, so she decides to read a book on plants instead. She later is proud of herself for reading many books (probably 20-30) in one day. She goes to the library the next day so she can continue her reading. Her mother is even impressed. After a week, she has gained more energy. The next day she goes to the library again, and then leaves so she can do sword training.
In the next episode she goes to the library again and looks at a map, deciding to go to a far-off village, Lorea, so she can help. She decides to sneak out, knowing she won’t be able to go there with permission. She is shown reading in the library later on (set two years later), still learning more from the library’s collections. Some time later, she declares she will dedicate herself more to her studies to become the best villainess possible, so she returns to the library, hoping to find a grimoire this time. Her magical powers reveal hidden shelves of the library that she couldn’t see before, amazing her.
In the third episode, Alice goes to the reference room in the magic academy, which, of course, includes a library. Similarly, there is a library scene in the fourth episode as well, when the protagonist begins going to the magic academy, and is brought into the library by the prince in a transport spell without her permission, catching her completely off guard. She later says her conduct there is “completely unbecoming of a villainess” (whether that is true is up to the viewer).
Comics recently added to this page
- Diamond Dive, Issue 37
- Hilda and the Black Hound, page 41
- Humanoido, “Ep. 6 – I’ll Talk to You as a Friend“
- Kiniro Mosaic vol. 2 (p. 79-80)
- No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular!, Chapter 101
- The Engagement of the Disgraced Witch and the Cross-Dressing Princess, Chapter 9, “Green Convictions”
- The Oracle, Issue 2
I have already have mentioned Hilda animated series many times and I decided to check out the original graphic novels by Luke Pearson. Internet Archive has the first five. This is the only one that has a scene in a library, and while a librarian is shown, it is very brief. I also read the other graphic novel, Hilda and the Mountain King, and it has no scenes in libraries.
As for Diamond Dive, you can’t read this unless you have logged in, as you can’t view mature content on the site otherwise. Anyway, in this issue, they go to a library-like setting so they an schedule a duel with Ms. Davies, between Karta Kloss and Bailey Montgomery.
As for The Oracle, Niko goes to the school library, reading a book on Grimoire half-truths, being interested in what it said. Then for chapter 9, entitled “The Convictions”, in The Engagement of the Disgraced Witch and the Cross-Dressing Princess, the protagonist, the cross-dressing princess, Ciel, is shown reading in the central library of the capital, about traditions and fairy tales about witches, along with a scholar from the city and woman she loves, according to the 20th to 27th pages of the comic scan I read.
Then there’s Humanoido. In this sixth issue, Ido Noh and another girl, Jisu, are studying in the library together, but she is pulled away because “something exciting” is going on. In this flashback, Jisu wonders whether Ido wants to hang out with her at all, because she is very silent, and says it is like she is “talking to a machine.” It is observations like that which get her branded as a robot (even though she is human) and cause a misunderstanding: an actual robotic boy, Se-i Ryu, thinks that Ido is like him, serving as the crux of the story.
Lastly, I received the second volume of the Kiniro Mosaic [also known as Kin-iro Mosaic and Kinmoza] manga and the first volume of the Lycoris Recoil manga this month in the mail this month. Unsurprisingly, the latter didn’t have any library scenes (it did have some archivy themes which I’ll post about later on Wading Through the Cultural Stacks at some point). However, the Kiniro Mosaic manga volume did have library scenes, without librarians. In the past, I’ve noted the anime adaptation (which I was familiar with first and even wrote about in a review of the series Blu-ray for Pop Culture Maniacs, and even noted that it “depicts British-ness more positively than R.O.D. the TV which depicts the British Library as the series antagonists as they try to seize all the world’s knowledge for themselves”) on this blog, firstly noting library scenes in the episodes “Present For You” and “The Girl on My Mind”, with the latter featuring an unnamed and uncredited librarian who doesn’t have her hair in a hair bun, but in a pony tail. Otherwise, I mentioned the anime briefly on this blog in April 2023, April of this year, and September of this year, and then in July of this year I noted that the series had various episodes (“Aya Nervous in the Rain”, “Present For You”, “The Girl on My Mind”) which “feature characters studying in the library”, described said episodes, and the role of the library to the show’s characters during those episodes.
This volume has two panels of a scene in the library with Alice helping Karen study English, since Alice is very good at it, with Shino pointing this out. Karen and Shino end up bonding as their scores on the tests are the same. Later, Alice can’t reach the dictionary and Karen offers to help her. Following this, Aya tries to do the same, declares she can “do it herself,” to which Youko offers a stool, but Aya is embarrassed nonetheless. She really brings the yuri to this manga.
Films recently added to this page
- The Truman Show (1998) [updated]
I’ve had this entry for a while and have mentioned this series multiple times, first in August 2020, then in December 2020 (small mention), June 2024 (I noted that those who created Truman Burbank’s reality had “enough foresight to have the school library stocked with books. The idea was to create an illusion that the world he was in was “real,” and that there was no reason to ever leave”), and September 2024 (short description). My current entry for the series is as follows:
Truman Burbank and the woman he loves, Sylvia, meet in a library, in a pivotal scene of the film. At the urging of Sylvia, they escape it and are able to have a romantic time together, before she gets turned over to those trying to ensure that Truman doesn’t learn the truth about his world.
I wrote much more in my August 2020 post, my longest treatment of this scene to date, saying the following:
…I thought back and I remembered the library scene in The Truman Show, so I recently re-watched it and was pleased. The scene in this film only gets a short mention in Martin Raish’s bibliography of movies about librarians, who describes it simply as having a scene where “Truman and the lovely dark haired young woman meet in the campus library.” He adds that this was “filmed in the Fort Walton Beach Campus Library, a facility shared by the Okaloosa-Walton College and The University of West Florida” adding that a real librarian served as a consultant and as an extra, portraying the librarian, but “her scene was cut from the final version of the film.” But there is much more than this. In the film itself, this library setting is a key part of Truman’s life. While he is studying for finals, he sees Sylvia, who had been taken away from him, so they could set him up with Meryl, recognizing her bracelet. They only spend a brief time in the library, but they don’t employ any stereotypes here, which is promising to say the least.
From there, they run away to the beach, kiss, and “they” find Sylvia and take her away, with the “father” saying they are going to Fiji. So, he keeps the memory, keeping her sweater, although he doesn’t realize yet that his whole life is staged, and continues to have a sense of adventure. So, this isn’t exactly “love in the library” but it still is a relatively positive scene of libraries, having all the signs and notices that a usual library would have!
I have tentative plans to write a longer post on this subject in the future. We will see what happens.
Other entries recently added to this page
- Hilda and the Great Parade
- Hilda and the Nowhere Space
- Hilda and the Ghost Ship
- Hilda’s World: A guide to Trolberg, the wilderness, and beyond
- I’m in Love with the Villainess Vol. 2 (2021) [updated]
Recently I bought the first five novels of the tie-in novel series to the Hilda animate series, with novels by Stephen Davies. I foolishly thought that that these were graphic novels, but they are actually just children’s media. Of the five novels, only three of them, the ones listed above, feature the librarian, Kaisa, while the other two (Hilda and the Hidden People and Hilda and the Time Worm), do not.
The three novels I have listed above have scenes with Kaisa. I have written about her extensively on this blog for over sixty posts, including her brief role in season 3, Kaisa Day (on December 14), in connection to reference librarianship, the defense Kaisa made in favor of not returning a book, her role in season 2, how she is experiencing burnout, and other posts about her in January 2021 and September 2020. The latter post was her first mention on this blog. I plan to write a post about these novels in an upcoming post on this blog, which will appear at some point.
As for Hilda’s World: A guide to Trolberg, the wilderness, and beyond, it mentions the library on multiple pages, but especially pages 40-43, with even a profile of the librarian, Kaisa!
Then there’s I’m in Love with the Villainess Vol. 2 (2021). I had previously noted this in some posts before, but I hadn’t added it properly to this list, so its finally being added. Otherwise, there were also library scenes in volume 7 of the I’m in Love with the Villainess manga, and I updated the term I had for that “I’m in Love with the Villainess aka Watashi no Oshi wa Akuyaku Reijō aka Wataoshi (2020-Present) [Manga]” to “I’m in Love with the Villainess Vol. 7 (2024) [Manga]” to be more accurate.
© 2023-2024 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.
#BluRays #books #China #EncouragementOfClimb #EncouragementOfClimbNextSummit #Hilda #HildaAndTheGhostShip #HildaAndTheGreatParade #HildaAndTheNowhereSpace #HildaSWorld #homework #ILlBecomeAVillainessWhoGoesDownInHistory #IMInLoveWithTheVillainess #ItSYouGuysFaultIMNotPopular #Kaisa #KinIroMosaic #LibrariansInTheMoviesAnAnnotatedFilmography #lists #NoMatterHowILookAtIt #RODTheTV #RecentlyAddedTitles #shortBlogs #studying #TheEngagementOfTheDisgracedWitchAndTheCrossDressingPrincess #TheTrumanShow #TombRaiderTheLegendOfLaraCroft #WataMote
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Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (4K UHD Blu-Ray) Limited Edition Review by Tim Salmons thedigitalbits.com/item/elvira-... #4K #4KUHD #UltraHD #bluray #blurays #Arrow #review #horror #comedy #parody #LimitedEdition #CultFilm #CultMovie
Critically panned upon release... -
Arrow Video Announce Limited Edition 4K UHD and Blu-Ray For Korean Western THE GOOD THE BAD THE WEIRD horrorcultfilms.co.uk/2024/10/arro... #4K #4KUHD #UltraHD #bluray #blurays #PhysicalMedia #KoreanCinema #BlurayCollector #western #comedy #parody #ArrowVideo
Arrow Video Announce Limited E... -
Blu-ray Review – Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) Directed by Michael Cimino. Starring Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, George Kennedy, & Geoffrey Lewis www.flickeringmyth.com/blu-ray-revi... #bluray #blurays #ClintEastwood #comedy #crime #caper
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (197... -
Immer noch ohne Internet !
Ich habe mit 2 Tagen offline gerechnet, wegen des Wechsels von #vodaphone zur #sewikom "aus Erfahrung".
Mal sehen ob heute ein Servicetechniker kommt und das Problem behebt, vor dem Wochenende, als ich gestern angerufen hatte, saßen alle ein einem wichtigen Meeting. 🤪 🧐 🙄
Habe für den Notfall schon mal #blurays gebunkert.
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Immer noch ohne Internet !
Ich habe mit 2 Tagen offline gerechnet, wegen des Wechsels von #vodaphone zur #sewikom "aus Erfahrung".
Mal sehen ob heute ein Servicetechniker kommt und das Problem behebt, vor dem Wochenende, als ich gestern angerufen hatte, saßen alle ein einem wichtigen Meeting. 🤪 🧐 🙄
Habe für den Notfall schon mal #blurays gebunkert.
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Unmasking the Best Spooky Movies for Your Halloween Watchlist dentonrc.com/entertainmen... #Halloween #movies #bluray #blurays #list
Unmasking the Best Spooky Movi... -
Addams Family Values (4K UHD Blu-ray Review) Macabre and dark but still somehow light and comforting, the films work so well even 30+ years after their release whysoblu.com/addams-famil... #4k #4kUHD #UltraHD #BluRay #Blurays #review #AddamsFamily #comedy #macabre
Addams Family Values (4K UHD B... -
#NowWatching “Gladiator” (2000) in 4K Ultra HD
Directed by Ridley ScottGet it: https://amzn.to/3MM6lNh #ad
A former Roman General sets out to exact vengeance against the corrupt emperor who murdered his family & sent him into slavery
#4KUHD #UltraHD #Bluray #blurays #PhysicalMedia #BestPicture #Oscars
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#NowWatching the 4K Ultra HD film “Bob Le Flambeur” (1958) Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Get it: https://amzn.to/3ZooOag #ad
After losing big, an aging gambler decides to assemble a team to rob a casino
Released by Kino Lorber
#4K #4KUHD #UltraHD #Bluray #blurays #PhysicalMedia #FrenchCinema #BluRayCollector
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‘Friday The 13th’ (2009) Arrow Video 4K UHD Blu-Ray Review – A Vicious & Bloody Franchise Reboot
https://geekvibesnation.com/friday-the-13th-2009-arrow-video-4k-uhd-blu-ray-review/
#4K #4KUHD #UltraHD #bluray #blurays #horror #reboot #slasher #CultFilm #CultMovie #PhysicalMedia #review #BlurayCollector #ArrowVideo
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Today I’m watching “Kills On Wheels”
(2016) blu-ray from Kino Lorber
Directed by Attila TillGet it: https://amzn.to/4e3mdag #ad
Two disabled teenagers looking for meaning in their lives, team up with a wheelchair hit-man.
#Bluray #NowWatching #HungarianCinema #subtitled #bluray #blurays
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#NowWatching in 4K Ultra HD
“The Lighthouse”, (2019)
Starring Robert Pattinson & Willem Dafoe
Directed by Robert Eggers
Released by Arrow VideoGet it: https://amzn.to/47d24Mm #ad
Two lighthouse keepers try to maintain their sanity while living on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s.
#4K #4KUHD #UltraHD #Bluray #horror #thriller #Arrow #PsychologicalHorror #PhysicalMedia #suspense #drama #blurays
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Barcodes, library slips, bookworms, and book deliveries in “Whisper of the Heart”
Shizuku’s father is a librarian in this film. He later says that he would like the card catalogs to stay too, like her.When I watched Whisper of the Heart, a romantic drama anime film which came out over 29 years ago (on July 15, 1995), on Max, I never expected that libraries, and librarians would be such a central part of the film! I was aware that the film was listed on Jennifer Snoek-Brown’s list of “Foreign-Language Films” on Reel Librarians. The latter list notes films reportedly with librarians and/or archivists alphabetically by title”. She warns that she can’t confirm that “every film on this list actually includes a librarian and/or archivist” as her primary focus is on examining English-language films. While that is a laudable goal, I don’t limit myself in that way, personally, and happily cover anime on this blog time and again. In fact, I have written about over 70 anime series, four films, and various manga, with my first post in August 2020. [1] This review will focus on the role of libraries, and librarians like the protagonist’s father, in the story, while relating it to other fictional examples and real-life library concepts.
One of the first conversations in the film is between the 14-year-old protagonist Shizuku Tsukishima, living in the Tokyo suburb of Tama New Town, who learns the local library is going to the bar code system, and her father. She tells him that she likes the library slips instead. He actually agrees with her, but decides to go with the library’s change anyhow. Thanks to the library slip, she learns that one man’s name is in common on all the books she has checked out: Seiji Amasawa. This piques her interest. This major plot point is mentioned in many summaries and reviews of the film, noting that Seiji is on every single one of these checkout slips and how she is slowly drawn to him as the film goes forward, with their feelings growing. Shizuku is also drawn toward these books because she loves fantasy books, and meets Seiji at an old antique shop somewhere in town. Other reviewers have noted that the checkout cards are an interesting narrative device, which “lends itself well to romantic daydreaming.” It is worth noting that Shizuku is spending his summer vacation, last one she has at Mukaihara Junior High School, translating and reading “popular foreign music into Japanese” like John Denver’s Country Road. [2]
At one point, Shizuku checks a book out of the library, which was never checked out before, and even though she somewhat ends up disturbing the job of the librarian (or the teacher standing in as a librarian), she comes across Seiji. Then, not longer after, he is curiously reading the book she checked out and she takes it from him, surprised to see him. And he even knows her name from the book. So much for reader’s privacy! Although some may see a sense of relief and kinship at seeing these library check-out cards, looking at these cards would run afoul of existing ethics, as outlined by the ALA. Those ethics state that libraries will “protect each library user’s right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted.”
Such cards are sometimes known as borrowing cards. They had/have an equivalent inside the library: a circulation card. Such cards may include the name of who borrowed the book and name of the book. There are also slips/cards which remain in a book only listing the date a book is due to be returned, known as date due slips. I’m not sure why I haven’t gone into this much detail on this before, but better late than never. In the case of this film, it would be a borrowing card, rather than a date due slip, which was stuck in the back of book, and then the book would be shelved, a way to record who borrowed a book before computer systems supplanted this system. Paper can still be used in today’s libraries, even to write down call numbers for books. The latter has also been shown in the films Dangerous Minds and Regarding Henry.
I am reminded of a scene in All the President’s Men, in which Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein go to the Library of Congress, and a Black male librarian gives them the slips for who checked out certain books, as opposed to an interaction with a White female librarian. I described this all in a post on this very blog in February of last year:
…In the classic 1976 political thriller, All the President’s Men, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein travel to the Library of Congress after their research seems to be stalled and having a librarian have a strange conversation with one them. They go to one librarian, who declares that the records they want are confidential, and that he can’t fulfill their request of library card checkout slips since July 1971. The other, the image of which is shown above, fulfills their request. Voiced by Jaye Stewart, he tells them “I’m not sure you want ’em, but I’ve got ’em.” Woodward and Bernstein proceed to go through perhaps thousands of check-out slips in the Reading Room of the Library of Congress. Unfortunately, the work is for naught, as it doesn’t confirm if a White House staffer checked out books on Ted Kennedy…Snoek-Brown…[said] hat it is not ethical to “give out checkout slips or records without a court order” as librarians have an “obligation to protect the privacy rights of our patrons.” I agree with Snoek-Brown entirely on that point
Coming back to the film, I would think that such borrowing cards would weaken the commitment of the library to reader confidentiality. As it presently stands, almost every U.S. state has laws “protecting the confidentiality of library records”. The Japan Library Association in a statement published in 1980, states that librarians should respect the privacy of each library user, and should not “divulge his/her name or details of books or other library materials used to third parties”. A more recent statement notes library privacy and confidentiality, among other virtues, as important. This film came out before the economic downturn in Japan, in 1997, which unfortunately lead to privatization of libraries through “outsourcing of staff to reduce costs and provide a flexible workforce”, with privacy of user information is at stake because private management companies are “not obligated to protect users’ privacy and routinely gather their data”. [3]
Shizuku says card catalogs are better than digital recordsMoving on from that, and back to the film, Shizuku soon follows a cat to an antique shop and is drawn to a cat statue named Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, with the shop’s owner, Nishi, telling her about him. She barely makes it to the library in time, is annoyed by Seiji, and is embarrassed in the process, as he delivers “her” lunch for her, with the fat cat (she had followed to the shop) riding on the back of the bike. The lunch is actually for her dad, who works in the library! This library is a fictional place created for the film itself, as no such library exists at that location (Irohazaka Sakura Park). [4]
This fantastical nature of the library is not unique. However, this library is more akin to something that exists in reality, rather than in a magical realm by itself. This makes the series unique. Surely, there are public libraries akin to those in real-life in Josee the Tiger and the Fish or I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, to give two examples, apart from the many within school buildings that I’ve often written about. This library is clearly a place of knowledge, but it is not a place or refuge. Rather, it is a place of learning and development.
As the movie goes on, Shizuku learns who donated a book at the library: the father of Seiji. She is later called a “bookworm”, which she accepts happily. After all, she often goes to the library, a fantasy reportedly depicted in The Cat Returns, a 2002 film. She takes out books in the public library, so she can learn more for her story. At one point, she remains one of the last people there, writing away, and Seiji visits her in the library, while she writes her story. As a writer, she becomes more than a bookworm, and Seiji is more than a novice violin maker. Both characters are not exceptional, but have proven that they have what it takes to ensure their work can become “exceptional”, with their romance blossoming by the film’s end, even without a kiss. [5]
There is much more to this film than what I’ve noted so far and ending the article here would be selling it short, to say the least. For Shizuku to be called a bookworm as an insult, and turning it into a positive, is not limited to this film. There is an entire series entitled Ascendance of a Bookworm, which focuses on Myne and her quest to provide free books to the populace, building her previous life as a college librarian. In his quest, she even becomes a church librarian with some magical powers. The series has even been cited as an example of when an outsider from another world “usher systematic change in their adopted one.” The term was even alluded to in the series Bibliophile Princess, as a bibliophile, someone who frequently reads or collects books, and loves books, is also known as a bookworm. Bibliophile appears more “positive.”
Otherwise, there was a British comic from 1978-1985 entitled Bookworm about a young boy who always has a book and his parents tell him to do more “boyish” things, but it results in disaster. There’s also an 1850 painting entitled The Bookworm by Carl Spitzweg. A variation of this piece was even named The Librarian! Pu Songling published a romantic short story, in about 1740, entitled The Bookworm, while there are characters known as bookworms in Tiny Toon Adventures and most infamously in the campy 1960s Batman series. There are many other bookworms in fiction, like in Wonder Man (1945), Navy Blues (1937), and even Wong in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, to an extent.
There is also the Association internationale de bibliophilie, which is called International Association of Bibliophiles or AIB in English. It is dedicated to bibliophiles. Russia has its National Union of Bibliophiles (formed in 2010), while there are is a book club in Detroit, a former group for female bibliophiles (Hroswitha Club), and the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles. There is even a 15-minute film, which I haven’t seen, entitled The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, about a man who is writing his memoir, but is blown off a balcony, writing out of a library,and even becomes a librarian with the city suffering from impact of a storm. There’s also books such as The Great Book-Collectors about book-collecting practices of the British Library, Bodleian Library, and Ashmolean Museum, along with a physical archive named Library of the Printed Web dedicated to “web-to-print artists’ books, zines and other printout matter.”
All of this is related to the concept of tsundoku, which means acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in your home without actually reading them. It can refer to books ready for reading later, as well, when those books are on a bookshelf. It is related to what A. Edward Newton wrote about in 1921, and stands in opposition to the term antilibrary. The latter, coined by Lebanese-American author Nassim Nicholas Taleb means a “collection of unread books”, which make people curious and humble. [6] He further stated that the older someone gets, the more they know, the larger is their “accumulation of unread books” and those who focus on such unread books are antischolars, i.e. those who do not “care about how much you know, but how much you don’t know” and how to find information you need.
When it comes to libraries, I would think people would side more with idea of antilibrary than the idea of tsundoku, as the latter seems to imply that having unread books is “bad.” Having books you haven’t read should not be seen as a negative. It is inevitable there will be books you haven’t read in your lifetime, no matter what. And libraries hold the books so they can be read by others, and shared, to spread knowledge, and understanding. This doesn’t mean that every book is right, immutable, or correct. Rather, the books can help you understand more about the world, at their best, and at their worst, promote misinformation. The latter can be prevented with careful weeding to ensure that patrons have the best information available.
Shizuku is studying in the library with a stack of books sitting on the table next to her. The man she likes is across the table from her, I believe.As I’ve noted on this blog various times, libraries serve many important functions in society. One of those is providing a place to study. This is shown clearly, as indicated in the above screenshot. You don’t have to be a bibliophile/bookworm for that. In fact, not all bookworms are librarians, and not all librarians are bookworms. Some are, but due to the many tasks during the work-day, often librarians don’t have time to read a book on the job, as some people might think.
When it comes to Japan, I’ve noted this before on here, but there are over 3,000 public libraries in this island nation, and remain an important part of the country’s society. In fact, there is even an entire Wikipedia page listing them, entitled “List of libraries in Japan” (not to be confused with the page “List of archives in Japan“). Some probably still have card catalogs. These libraries, known as toshokan in Japanese, are centered by the National Diet Library. The only series, I know, to date to directly feature this library is 26-episode early 2000s R.O.D. the TV anime series, which features characters from the Read or Die light novels, manga, and OVA, and the Read or Dream manga.
Academics have noted that information commons/learning commons which provide various materials, facilities, and services, in one place, originally appearing in North America, has also appeared in Japanese universities and college. Such spaces are reportedly in an ” the early stage of development”, and there is a need for such spaces to rebuild their own services because of student needs. Furthermore, many libraries in pre-modern Japan were arguably private and have been called bunko, meaning “storehouses of books.” Currently, most have been subsumed into larger national, prefectural, university, or research library institutions. Some have even covered this in books such as Youth-Serving Libraries in Japan, Russia, and the United States.
It is also said that Japanese academic libraries are well-resourced and support the country’s research capacity, while reflecting the country’s “strong bureaucratic culture.” I’m not sure if this is also the case for the country’s public libraries as well, to be perfectly honest. I can say, with certainty, that libraries are an important part of the country, especially considering that the Imperial Library (forerunner to the National Diet Library) was established in the latter 19th century, and in 1947, the National Library Act created Japan’s sole national library (National Diet Library). This was followed by the landmark 1950 Library Act. The law states, in part, that the country’s libraries are aimed to promoting “sound development…[and] the enhancement of the education and culture of the nation”. It goes onto say:
…libraries shall endeavor to accomplish…[collection of] nooks, archives, audio-visual materials and other necessary data and materials…with suitable attention paid to the acquisition of local materials, art works, materials on local administration, gramophone records and films…library materials shall be properly classified and processed…efforts shall be made to ensure that library personnel acquire sufficient knowledge of library matters…close communication and cooperation shall be maintained by…inter-library loans between libraries…reading circles, seminars, appreciation groups, film showings and exhibits of data…shall be sponsored and encouraged…close contact and cooperation shall be maintained with schools, museums, community centers and research institutes, etc….professional personnel of libraries shall be called librarians and assistant librarians.
And that’s only part of Chapter 1! There is no comparison to this in U.S. law. The legislation, which passed the U.S. Congress in April 1800 (see page 56), only mentioned that the purchase of books “as may be necessary for the use of Congress at the said city of Washington, and for fitting up a suitable apartment for containing them and for placing them therein, the sum of five thousand dollars shall be…appropriated.” That same law went onto say that a library catalogue shall be furnished by a joint congressional committee, with books “placed in one suitable apartment in the capitol in the said city, for the use of both…houses of Congress and the members thereof”. That is it. It wasn’t until 1802 that a law defined the functions and role of this library, the Library of Congress (LOC), and even made the appointment of the Librarian of Congress a “presidential responsibility”! Still, this was nothing like the Library Law in Japan, which was much more extensive.
Such a law in the U.S, would be unthinkable, even at this current time, despite the fact it could have extreme value in ensuring the institution’s mission and objectives. On the other hand, LOC has broadly defined that on its own, and has a bit of autonomy, as it is only the de facto national library. This makes it different from the many across the world, coupled with any state-established libraries serving as preeminent information repositories for specific regions.
When I watched Whisper of the Heart on Max, with my mom and dad, I never expected libraries to be as big of a part of the film from the get-go. I am truly grateful that I came across this film, and would surely watch it again if I get a chance. That;s all for this post. Until next week! As always, comments are welcome.
Shizuku looks at library slips and finding out some man checked the SAME book out before her© 2023-2024 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.
Notes
[1] Since then, I’ve written about (I don’t recommend you watch all of these, though, and some of the following I would not watch again) over 80 anime series: Revolutionary Girl Utena, Wandering Son, Ice, Kuttsukiboshi, Paradise Kiss, Macross Frontier, Classroom of the Elite, Gargantia, Kandagawa Jet Girls, El-Hazard, Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, Ascendance of a Bookworm, R.O.D. the TV, B Gata H Kei, Bloom Into You, Little Witch Academia, Yamibou, Whispered Words, Aoi Hana / Sweet Blue Flowers, Strawberry Panic!, My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, Manaria Friends, Kampfer, Lapis Re:Lights, Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, Blue Drop, The Mystic Archives of Dantalian, Cardcaptor Sakura, Venus vs. Virus, Otherside Picnic, My-Hime, Simoun, Riddle Story of Devil, Ms. Vampire who lives in my neighborhood, Dear Brother, Library War, Girl Friend Beta, Kokoro Library, Attack on Titan, Let’s Make a Mug Too, Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra, Bernard-jou Iwaku a.k.a. Miss Bernard said, Komi Can’t Communicate, The Ancient Magus Bride: Those Awaiting a Star, Gosick, Laid-Back Camp, As Miss Beelzebub Likes, Bibliophile Princess, Love Live! Sunshine!!, Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie, My Roommate is a Cat, Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, Kin-iro Mosaic, Akebi’s Sailor Uniform, Makura no Danshi, Azumanga Daioh, Oresuki, Seitokai Yakuindomo, Gabriel DropOut, Spy x Family, A Couple of Cuckoos, Märchen Mädchen, Healer Girl, Smile of the Arsnotoria the Animation, Smile Pretty Cure!/Glitter Force, A Good Librarian Like a Good Shepard, A Place Further Than The Universe, Teasing Master Takagi-san, Myself ; Yourself, Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War, Stars Align, Tokyo Mew Mew New, Skip and Loafer, Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible, Violet Evergarden, Somali and the Forest Spirit, Aharen-San wa Hakarenai, Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, Chitose Got You, Clannad, Cue!, Encouragement to Climb: Next Summit, Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro, Gabriel Drop Out, Kin-iro Mosaic, K-On!, Noir, Otherside Picnic, The Rising of the Shield Hero, and Re:Zero, and four films: I Want To Eat Your Pancreas, Calamity of a Zombie Girl, Your Name, and Josee, the Tiger and the Fish. Later posts this year will focus on series such as Ouran High School Host Club, Is the Order a Rabbit?, Kiss Him, Not Me, The Demon Girl Next Door, The Executioner and Her Way of Life, YuruYuri, Library War, Maria Watches Over Us, Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka, and Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu (Haruka Nogizaka’s Secret), to name a few.
[2] “Whisper of the Heart,” IFC Center, accessed Jun. 6, 2023; Russo, Lee. “How Whisper of the Heart Explores the Fear of Failure,” CBR, Jun. 13, 2020; Graeme. “The Best Films I’ve Ever Seen: Whisper of the Heart,” Film School Rejects, Jun. 15, 2018; “Whisper of the Heart,” Studio Ghibli, accessed Jun. 6, 2023; Faith. “Whisper of the Heart,” Studio Ghibli Movies, Nov. 28, 2014; Toole, Michael. “Whisper of the Heart Blu-Ray + DVD Review,” Anime News Network, Nov. 29, 2014; Osmond, Andrew. “Whisper of the Heart Review,” Anime News Network, Jan. 11, 2012; Mindus, Jay. “Why Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart Is the Perfect Movie for Young Artists,” CBR, May 12, 2022; “Whisper of the Heart (Mimi wo sumaseba),” Harvard Film Archive, accessed Jun. 6, 2023; Cyrenne, Randall. “Whisper Of The Heart,” Animated Views, Mar. 7, 2006.
[3] Alix, Francis A. “The History and Current Challenges of Libraries in Japan,” SLIS Connectings 10(1): 10.
[4] Graeme, “The Best Films I’ve Ever Seen: Whisper of the Heart,” 2018; Toole, “Whisper of the Heart Blu-Ray + DVD Review,” 2014; Osmond, “Whisper of the Heart Review,” 2012; “Tracing Shizuku’s Steps: Visit ‘Whisper of the Heart’ Locations in Real Life,” tsunagu Japan, accessed Jun. 7, 2023; “Visiting ‘Whisper of the Heart’ Movie Location,” justa-fangirl, 2014.
[5] “Whisper of the Heart,” Ghibli Wiki, accessed Jun. 7, 2023; Cyrenne, “Whisper Of The Heart,” 2006; “Whisper of the Heart (Mimi wo sumaseba,” Harvard Film Archive; Mindus, “Why Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart Is the Perfect Movie for Young Artists,” 2022; Pineda, Rafael Antonio. “Live-Action Whisper of the Heart Sequel Film Delayed Due to COVID-19,” Anime News Network, Apr. 20, 2020. The live-action sequel, also named Whisper of the Heart came out in October 2022 in Japan, but it was received badly if the reviews from Japan Times and Crunchyroll listed on the “Whisper of the Heart (2022 film)” Wikipedia page are any indication. Apparently, there is even a library scene in the film. I haven’t watched the film, so I can’t confirm that completely, however.
[6] Brooks, Katherine. “There’s A Japanese Word For People Who Buy More Books Than They Can Actually Read,” HuffPost, Apr. 19, 2017; Tobar, Hector, “Are you a book hoarder? There’s a word for that,” Los Angeles Times, Jul. 24, 2014; “Tsundoku: The art of buying books and never reading them,” BBC News, Jul. 29, 2018; Crow, Jonathan. “‘Tsundoku,’ the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves, Should Enter the English Language,” Open Culture, Jul. 24, 2014; “A QUOTE ON BIBLIOMANIA,” Language Hat, Feb. 7, 2008; Popova, Maria. “Umberto Eco’s Antilibrary: Why Unread Books Are More Valuable to Our Lives than Read Ones,” The Marginalian, Mar. 24, 2015; Stillman, Jessica. “Why You Should Surround Yourself With More Books Than You’ll Ever Have Time to Read,” Inc., Dec. 5, 2017; McDonough, Lauren Smith. “Everyone Is Obsessed With the Trend of Antilibraries Right Now,” House Beautiful, Dec. 19, 2017; Boyd, Rebecca Lowry. “The book trend everyone is talking about right now,” Better Homes & Gardens, accessed Jun. 27, 2023.
#AllThePresidentSMen #AnimeNewsNetwork #antilibrary #AscendanceOfABookworm #barcodes #BibliophilePrincess #bibliophilia #BlackLibrarians #BlackWomen #BluRays #books #booksAreNotSacred #ethics #femaleLibrarians #IWantToEatYourPancreas #JapaneseLibrarians #JapaneseMen #JapanesePatrons #JoseeTheTigerAndTheFish #KOn #libraryCards #librarySlips #magic #NationalDietLibrary #NavyBluesFilm #RODTheTV #ReadOrDieLightNovels #ReadOrDieManga #ReadOrDieOVA #ReadOrDream #readerConfidentiality #ReelLibrarians #SeitokaiYakuindomo #Simoun #students #studying #teachers #TheCatReturns #tsundoku #WhisperOfTheHeart #WhiteLibrarians #WhiteWomen
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Barcodes, library slips, bookworms, and book deliveries in “Whisper of the Heart”
Shizuku’s father is a librarian in this film. He later says that he would like the card catalogs to stay too, like her.When I watched Whisper of the Heart, a romantic drama anime film which came out over 29 years ago (on July 15, 1995), on Max, I never expected that libraries, and librarians would be such a central part of the film! I was aware that the film was listed on Jennifer Snoek-Brown’s list of “Foreign-Language Films” on Reel Librarians. The latter list notes films reportedly with librarians and/or archivists alphabetically by title”. She warns that she can’t confirm that “every film on this list actually includes a librarian and/or archivist” as her primary focus is on examining English-language films. While that is a laudable goal, I don’t limit myself in that way, personally, and happily cover anime on this blog time and again. In fact, I have written about over 70 anime series, four films, and various manga, with my first post in August 2020. [1] This review will focus on the role of libraries, and librarians like the protagonist’s father, in the story, while relating it to other fictional examples and real-life library concepts.
One of the first conversations in the film is between the 14-year-old protagonist Shizuku Tsukishima, living in the Tokyo suburb of Tama New Town, who learns the local library is going to the bar code system, and her father. She tells him that she likes the library slips instead. He actually agrees with her, but decides to go with the library’s change anyhow. Thanks to the library slip, she learns that one man’s name is in common on all the books she has checked out: Seiji Amasawa. This piques her interest. This major plot point is mentioned in many summaries and reviews of the film, noting that Seiji is on every single one of these checkout slips and how she is slowly drawn to him as the film goes forward, with their feelings growing. Shizuku is also drawn toward these books because she loves fantasy books, and meets Seiji at an old antique shop somewhere in town. Other reviewers have noted that the checkout cards are an interesting narrative device, which “lends itself well to romantic daydreaming.” It is worth noting that Shizuku is spending his summer vacation, last one she has at Mukaihara Junior High School, translating and reading “popular foreign music into Japanese” like John Denver’s Country Road. [2]
At one point, Shizuku checks a book out of the library, which was never checked out before, and even though she somewhat ends up disturbing the job of the librarian (or the teacher standing in as a librarian), she comes across Seiji. Then, not longer after, he is curiously reading the book she checked out and she takes it from him, surprised to see him. And he even knows her name from the book. So much for reader’s privacy! Although some may see a sense of relief and kinship at seeing these library check-out cards, looking at these cards would run afoul of existing ethics, as outlined by the ALA. Those ethics state that libraries will “protect each library user’s right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted.”
Such cards are sometimes known as borrowing cards. They had/have an equivalent inside the library: a circulation card. Such cards may include the name of who borrowed the book and name of the book. There are also slips/cards which remain in a book only listing the date a book is due to be returned, known as date due slips. I’m not sure why I haven’t gone into this much detail on this before, but better late than never. In the case of this film, it would be a borrowing card, rather than a date due slip, which was stuck in the back of book, and then the book would be shelved, a way to record who borrowed a book before computer systems supplanted this system. Paper can still be used in today’s libraries, even to write down call numbers for books. The latter has also been shown in the films Dangerous Minds and Regarding Henry.
I am reminded of a scene in All the President’s Men, in which Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein go to the Library of Congress, and a Black male librarian gives them the slips for who checked out certain books, as opposed to an interaction with a White female librarian. I described this all in a post on this very blog in February of last year:
…In the classic 1976 political thriller, All the President’s Men, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein travel to the Library of Congress after their research seems to be stalled and having a librarian have a strange conversation with one them. They go to one librarian, who declares that the records they want are confidential, and that he can’t fulfill their request of library card checkout slips since July 1971. The other, the image of which is shown above, fulfills their request. Voiced by Jaye Stewart, he tells them “I’m not sure you want ’em, but I’ve got ’em.” Woodward and Bernstein proceed to go through perhaps thousands of check-out slips in the Reading Room of the Library of Congress. Unfortunately, the work is for naught, as it doesn’t confirm if a White House staffer checked out books on Ted Kennedy…Snoek-Brown…[said] hat it is not ethical to “give out checkout slips or records without a court order” as librarians have an “obligation to protect the privacy rights of our patrons.” I agree with Snoek-Brown entirely on that point
Coming back to the film, I would think that such borrowing cards would weaken the commitment of the library to reader confidentiality. As it presently stands, almost every U.S. state has laws “protecting the confidentiality of library records”. The Japan Library Association in a statement published in 1980, states that librarians should respect the privacy of each library user, and should not “divulge his/her name or details of books or other library materials used to third parties”. A more recent statement notes library privacy and confidentiality, among other virtues, as important. This film came out before the economic downturn in Japan, in 1997, which unfortunately lead to privatization of libraries through “outsourcing of staff to reduce costs and provide a flexible workforce”, with privacy of user information is at stake because private management companies are “not obligated to protect users’ privacy and routinely gather their data”. [3]
Shizuku says card catalogs are better than digital recordsMoving on from that, and back to the film, Shizuku soon follows a cat to an antique shop and is drawn to a cat statue named Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, with the shop’s owner, Nishi, telling her about him. She barely makes it to the library in time, is annoyed by Seiji, and is embarrassed in the process, as he delivers “her” lunch for her, with the fat cat (she had followed to the shop) riding on the back of the bike. The lunch is actually for her dad, who works in the library! This library is a fictional place created for the film itself, as no such library exists at that location (Irohazaka Sakura Park). [4]
This fantastical nature of the library is not unique. However, this library is more akin to something that exists in reality, rather than in a magical realm by itself. This makes the series unique. Surely, there are public libraries akin to those in real-life in Josee the Tiger and the Fish or I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, to give two examples, apart from the many within school buildings that I’ve often written about. This library is clearly a place of knowledge, but it is not a place or refuge. Rather, it is a place of learning and development.
As the movie goes on, Shizuku learns who donated a book at the library: the father of Seiji. She is later called a “bookworm”, which she accepts happily. After all, she often goes to the library, a fantasy reportedly depicted in The Cat Returns, a 2002 film. She takes out books in the public library, so she can learn more for her story. At one point, she remains one of the last people there, writing away, and Seiji visits her in the library, while she writes her story. As a writer, she becomes more than a bookworm, and Seiji is more than a novice violin maker. Both characters are not exceptional, but have proven that they have what it takes to ensure their work can become “exceptional”, with their romance blossoming by the film’s end, even without a kiss. [5]
There is much more to this film than what I’ve noted so far and ending the article here would be selling it short, to say the least. For Shizuku to be called a bookworm as an insult, and turning it into a positive, is not limited to this film. There is an entire series entitled Ascendance of a Bookworm, which focuses on Myne and her quest to provide free books to the populace, building her previous life as a college librarian. In his quest, she even becomes a church librarian with some magical powers. The series has even been cited as an example of when an outsider from another world “usher systematic change in their adopted one.” The term was even alluded to in the series Bibliophile Princess, as a bibliophile, someone who frequently reads or collects books, and loves books, is also known as a bookworm. Bibliophile appears more “positive.”
Otherwise, there was a British comic from 1978-1985 entitled Bookworm about a young boy who always has a book and his parents tell him to do more “boyish” things, but it results in disaster. There’s also an 1850 painting entitled The Bookworm by Carl Spitzweg. A variation of this piece was even named The Librarian! Pu Songling published a romantic short story, in about 1740, entitled The Bookworm, while there are characters known as bookworms in Tiny Toon Adventures and most infamously in the campy 1960s Batman series. There are many other bookworms in fiction, like in Wonder Man (1945), Navy Blues (1937), and even Wong in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, to an extent.
There is also the Association internationale de bibliophilie, which is called International Association of Bibliophiles or AIB in English. It is dedicated to bibliophiles. Russia has its National Union of Bibliophiles (formed in 2010), while there are is a book club in Detroit, a former group for female bibliophiles (Hroswitha Club), and the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles. There is even a 15-minute film, which I haven’t seen, entitled The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, about a man who is writing his memoir, but is blown off a balcony, writing out of a library,and even becomes a librarian with the city suffering from impact of a storm. There’s also books such as The Great Book-Collectors about book-collecting practices of the British Library, Bodleian Library, and Ashmolean Museum, along with a physical archive named Library of the Printed Web dedicated to “web-to-print artists’ books, zines and other printout matter.”
All of this is related to the concept of tsundoku, which means acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in your home without actually reading them. It can refer to books ready for reading later, as well, when those books are on a bookshelf. It is related to what A. Edward Newton wrote about in 1921, and stands in opposition to the term antilibrary. The latter, coined by Lebanese-American author Nassim Nicholas Taleb means a “collection of unread books”, which make people curious and humble. [6] He further stated that the older someone gets, the more they know, the larger is their “accumulation of unread books” and those who focus on such unread books are antischolars, i.e. those who do not “care about how much you know, but how much you don’t know” and how to find information you need.
When it comes to libraries, I would think people would side more with idea of antilibrary than the idea of tsundoku, as the latter seems to imply that having unread books is “bad.” Having books you haven’t read should not be seen as a negative. It is inevitable there will be books you haven’t read in your lifetime, no matter what. And libraries hold the books so they can be read by others, and shared, to spread knowledge, and understanding. This doesn’t mean that every book is right, immutable, or correct. Rather, the books can help you understand more about the world, at their best, and at their worst, promote misinformation. The latter can be prevented with careful weeding to ensure that patrons have the best information available.
Shizuku is studying in the library with a stack of books sitting on the table next to her. The man she likes is across the table from her, I believe.As I’ve noted on this blog various times, libraries serve many important functions in society. One of those is providing a place to study. This is shown clearly, as indicated in the above screenshot. You don’t have to be a bibliophile/bookworm for that. In fact, not all bookworms are librarians, and not all librarians are bookworms. Some are, but due to the many tasks during the work-day, often librarians don’t have time to read a book on the job, as some people might think.
When it comes to Japan, I’ve noted this before on here, but there are over 3,000 public libraries in this island nation, and remain an important part of the country’s society. In fact, there is even an entire Wikipedia page listing them, entitled “List of libraries in Japan” (not to be confused with the page “List of archives in Japan“). Some probably still have card catalogs. These libraries, known as toshokan in Japanese, are centered by the National Diet Library. The only series, I know, to date to directly feature this library is 26-episode early 2000s R.O.D. the TV anime series, which features characters from the Read or Die light novels, manga, and OVA, and the Read or Dream manga.
Academics have noted that information commons/learning commons which provide various materials, facilities, and services, in one place, originally appearing in North America, has also appeared in Japanese universities and college. Such spaces are reportedly in an ” the early stage of development”, and there is a need for such spaces to rebuild their own services because of student needs. Furthermore, many libraries in pre-modern Japan were arguably private and have been called bunko, meaning “storehouses of books.” Currently, most have been subsumed into larger national, prefectural, university, or research library institutions. Some have even covered this in books such as Youth-Serving Libraries in Japan, Russia, and the United States.
It is also said that Japanese academic libraries are well-resourced and support the country’s research capacity, while reflecting the country’s “strong bureaucratic culture.” I’m not sure if this is also the case for the country’s public libraries as well, to be perfectly honest. I can say, with certainty, that libraries are an important part of the country, especially considering that the Imperial Library (forerunner to the National Diet Library) was established in the latter 19th century, and in 1947, the National Library Act created Japan’s sole national library (National Diet Library). This was followed by the landmark 1950 Library Act. The law states, in part, that the country’s libraries are aimed to promoting “sound development…[and] the enhancement of the education and culture of the nation”. It goes onto say:
…libraries shall endeavor to accomplish…[collection of] nooks, archives, audio-visual materials and other necessary data and materials…with suitable attention paid to the acquisition of local materials, art works, materials on local administration, gramophone records and films…library materials shall be properly classified and processed…efforts shall be made to ensure that library personnel acquire sufficient knowledge of library matters…close communication and cooperation shall be maintained by…inter-library loans between libraries…reading circles, seminars, appreciation groups, film showings and exhibits of data…shall be sponsored and encouraged…close contact and cooperation shall be maintained with schools, museums, community centers and research institutes, etc….professional personnel of libraries shall be called librarians and assistant librarians.
And that’s only part of Chapter 1! There is no comparison to this in U.S. law. The legislation, which passed the U.S. Congress in April 1800 (see page 56), only mentioned that the purchase of books “as may be necessary for the use of Congress at the said city of Washington, and for fitting up a suitable apartment for containing them and for placing them therein, the sum of five thousand dollars shall be…appropriated.” That same law went onto say that a library catalogue shall be furnished by a joint congressional committee, with books “placed in one suitable apartment in the capitol in the said city, for the use of both…houses of Congress and the members thereof”. That is it. It wasn’t until 1802 that a law defined the functions and role of this library, the Library of Congress (LOC), and even made the appointment of the Librarian of Congress a “presidential responsibility”! Still, this was nothing like the Library Law in Japan, which was much more extensive.
Such a law in the U.S, would be unthinkable, even at this current time, despite the fact it could have extreme value in ensuring the institution’s mission and objectives. On the other hand, LOC has broadly defined that on its own, and has a bit of autonomy, as it is only the de facto national library. This makes it different from the many across the world, coupled with any state-established libraries serving as preeminent information repositories for specific regions.
When I watched Whisper of the Heart on Max, with my mom and dad, I never expected libraries to be as big of a part of the film from the get-go. I am truly grateful that I came across this film, and would surely watch it again if I get a chance. That;s all for this post. Until next week! As always, comments are welcome.
Shizuku looks at library slips and finding out some man checked the SAME book out before her© 2023-2024 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.
Notes
[1] Since then, I’ve written about (I don’t recommend you watch all of these, though, and some of the following I would not watch again) over 80 anime series: Revolutionary Girl Utena, Wandering Son, Ice, Kuttsukiboshi, Paradise Kiss, Macross Frontier, Classroom of the Elite, Gargantia, Kandagawa Jet Girls, El-Hazard, Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, Ascendance of a Bookworm, R.O.D. the TV, B Gata H Kei, Bloom Into You, Little Witch Academia, Yamibou, Whispered Words, Aoi Hana / Sweet Blue Flowers, Strawberry Panic!, My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, Manaria Friends, Kampfer, Lapis Re:Lights, Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, Blue Drop, The Mystic Archives of Dantalian, Cardcaptor Sakura, Venus vs. Virus, Otherside Picnic, My-Hime, Simoun, Riddle Story of Devil, Ms. Vampire who lives in my neighborhood, Dear Brother, Library War, Girl Friend Beta, Kokoro Library, Attack on Titan, Let’s Make a Mug Too, Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra, Bernard-jou Iwaku a.k.a. Miss Bernard said, Komi Can’t Communicate, The Ancient Magus Bride: Those Awaiting a Star, Gosick, Laid-Back Camp, As Miss Beelzebub Likes, Bibliophile Princess, Love Live! Sunshine!!, Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie, My Roommate is a Cat, Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, Kin-iro Mosaic, Akebi’s Sailor Uniform, Makura no Danshi, Azumanga Daioh, Oresuki, Seitokai Yakuindomo, Gabriel DropOut, Spy x Family, A Couple of Cuckoos, Märchen Mädchen, Healer Girl, Smile of the Arsnotoria the Animation, Smile Pretty Cure!/Glitter Force, A Good Librarian Like a Good Shepard, A Place Further Than The Universe, Teasing Master Takagi-san, Myself ; Yourself, Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War, Stars Align, Tokyo Mew Mew New, Skip and Loafer, Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible, Violet Evergarden, Somali and the Forest Spirit, Aharen-San wa Hakarenai, Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, Chitose Got You, Clannad, Cue!, Encouragement to Climb: Next Summit, Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro, Gabriel Drop Out, Kin-iro Mosaic, K-On!, Noir, Otherside Picnic, The Rising of the Shield Hero, and Re:Zero, and four films: I Want To Eat Your Pancreas, Calamity of a Zombie Girl, Your Name, and Josee, the Tiger and the Fish. Later posts this year will focus on series such as Ouran High School Host Club, Is the Order a Rabbit?, Kiss Him, Not Me, The Demon Girl Next Door, The Executioner and Her Way of Life, YuruYuri, Library War, Maria Watches Over Us, Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka, and Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu (Haruka Nogizaka’s Secret), to name a few.
[2] “Whisper of the Heart,” IFC Center, accessed Jun. 6, 2023; Russo, Lee. “How Whisper of the Heart Explores the Fear of Failure,” CBR, Jun. 13, 2020; Graeme. “The Best Films I’ve Ever Seen: Whisper of the Heart,” Film School Rejects, Jun. 15, 2018; “Whisper of the Heart,” Studio Ghibli, accessed Jun. 6, 2023; Faith. “Whisper of the Heart,” Studio Ghibli Movies, Nov. 28, 2014; Toole, Michael. “Whisper of the Heart Blu-Ray + DVD Review,” Anime News Network, Nov. 29, 2014; Osmond, Andrew. “Whisper of the Heart Review,” Anime News Network, Jan. 11, 2012; Mindus, Jay. “Why Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart Is the Perfect Movie for Young Artists,” CBR, May 12, 2022; “Whisper of the Heart (Mimi wo sumaseba),” Harvard Film Archive, accessed Jun. 6, 2023; Cyrenne, Randall. “Whisper Of The Heart,” Animated Views, Mar. 7, 2006.
[3] Alix, Francis A. “The History and Current Challenges of Libraries in Japan,” SLIS Connectings 10(1): 10.
[4] Graeme, “The Best Films I’ve Ever Seen: Whisper of the Heart,” 2018; Toole, “Whisper of the Heart Blu-Ray + DVD Review,” 2014; Osmond, “Whisper of the Heart Review,” 2012; “Tracing Shizuku’s Steps: Visit ‘Whisper of the Heart’ Locations in Real Life,” tsunagu Japan, accessed Jun. 7, 2023; “Visiting ‘Whisper of the Heart’ Movie Location,” justa-fangirl, 2014.
[5] “Whisper of the Heart,” Ghibli Wiki, accessed Jun. 7, 2023; Cyrenne, “Whisper Of The Heart,” 2006; “Whisper of the Heart (Mimi wo sumaseba,” Harvard Film Archive; Mindus, “Why Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart Is the Perfect Movie for Young Artists,” 2022; Pineda, Rafael Antonio. “Live-Action Whisper of the Heart Sequel Film Delayed Due to COVID-19,” Anime News Network, Apr. 20, 2020. The live-action sequel, also named Whisper of the Heart came out in October 2022 in Japan, but it was received badly if the reviews from Japan Times and Crunchyroll listed on the “Whisper of the Heart (2022 film)” Wikipedia page are any indication. Apparently, there is even a library scene in the film. I haven’t watched the film, so I can’t confirm that completely, however.
[6] Brooks, Katherine. “There’s A Japanese Word For People Who Buy More Books Than They Can Actually Read,” HuffPost, Apr. 19, 2017; Tobar, Hector, “Are you a book hoarder? There’s a word for that,” Los Angeles Times, Jul. 24, 2014; “Tsundoku: The art of buying books and never reading them,” BBC News, Jul. 29, 2018; Crow, Jonathan. “‘Tsundoku,’ the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves, Should Enter the English Language,” Open Culture, Jul. 24, 2014; “A QUOTE ON BIBLIOMANIA,” Language Hat, Feb. 7, 2008; Popova, Maria. “Umberto Eco’s Antilibrary: Why Unread Books Are More Valuable to Our Lives than Read Ones,” The Marginalian, Mar. 24, 2015; Stillman, Jessica. “Why You Should Surround Yourself With More Books Than You’ll Ever Have Time to Read,” Inc., Dec. 5, 2017; McDonough, Lauren Smith. “Everyone Is Obsessed With the Trend of Antilibraries Right Now,” House Beautiful, Dec. 19, 2017; Boyd, Rebecca Lowry. “The book trend everyone is talking about right now,” Better Homes & Gardens, accessed Jun. 27, 2023.
#AllThePresidentSMen #AnimeNewsNetwork #antilibrary #AscendanceOfABookworm #barcodes #BibliophilePrincess #bibliophilia #BlackLibrarians #BlackWomen #BluRays #books #booksAreNotSacred #ethics #femaleLibrarians #IWantToEatYourPancreas #JapaneseLibrarians #JapaneseMen #JapanesePatrons #JoseeTheTigerAndTheFish #KOn #libraryCards #librarySlips #magic #NationalDietLibrary #NavyBluesFilm #RODTheTV #ReadOrDieLightNovels #ReadOrDieManga #ReadOrDieOVA #ReadOrDream #readerConfidentiality #ReelLibrarians #SeitokaiYakuindomo #Simoun #students #studying #teachers #TheCatReturns #tsundoku #WhisperOfTheHeart #WhiteLibrarians #WhiteWomen
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Barcodes, library slips, bookworms, and book deliveries in “Whisper of the Heart”
Shizuku’s father is a librarian in this film. He later says that he would like the card catalogs to stay too, like her.When I watched Whisper of the Heart, a romantic drama anime film which came out over 29 years ago (on July 15, 1995), on Max, I never expected that libraries, and librarians would be such a central part of the film! I was aware that the film was listed on Jennifer Snoek-Brown’s list of “Foreign-Language Films” on Reel Librarians. The latter list notes films reportedly with librarians and/or archivists alphabetically by title”. She warns that she can’t confirm that “every film on this list actually includes a librarian and/or archivist” as her primary focus is on examining English-language films. While that is a laudable goal, I don’t limit myself in that way, personally, and happily cover anime on this blog time and again. In fact, I have written about over 70 anime series, four films, and various manga, with my first post in August 2020. [1] This review will focus on the role of libraries, and librarians like the protagonist’s father, in the story, while relating it to other fictional examples and real-life library concepts.
One of the first conversations in the film is between the 14-year-old protagonist Shizuku Tsukishima, living in the Tokyo suburb of Tama New Town, who learns the local library is going to the bar code system, and her father. She tells him that she likes the library slips instead. He actually agrees with her, but decides to go with the library’s change anyhow. Thanks to the library slip, she learns that one man’s name is in common on all the books she has checked out: Seiji Amasawa. This piques her interest. This major plot point is mentioned in many summaries and reviews of the film, noting that Seiji is on every single one of these checkout slips and how she is slowly drawn to him as the film goes forward, with their feelings growing. Shizuku is also drawn toward these books because she loves fantasy books, and meets Seiji at an old antique shop somewhere in town. Other reviewers have noted that the checkout cards are an interesting narrative device, which “lends itself well to romantic daydreaming.” It is worth noting that Shizuku is spending his summer vacation, last one she has at Mukaihara Junior High School, translating and reading “popular foreign music into Japanese” like John Denver’s Country Road. [2]
At one point, Shizuku checks a book out of the library, which was never checked out before, and even though she somewhat ends up disturbing the job of the librarian (or the teacher standing in as a librarian), she comes across Seiji. Then, not longer after, he is curiously reading the book she checked out and she takes it from him, surprised to see him. And he even knows her name from the book. So much for reader’s privacy! Although some may see a sense of relief and kinship at seeing these library check-out cards, looking at these cards would run afoul of existing ethics, as outlined by the ALA. Those ethics state that libraries will “protect each library user’s right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted.”
Such cards are sometimes known as borrowing cards. They had/have an equivalent inside the library: a circulation card. Such cards may include the name of who borrowed the book and name of the book. There are also slips/cards which remain in a book only listing the date a book is due to be returned, known as date due slips. I’m not sure why I haven’t gone into this much detail on this before, but better late than never. In the case of this film, it would be a borrowing card, rather than a date due slip, which was stuck in the back of book, and then the book would be shelved, a way to record who borrowed a book before computer systems supplanted this system. Paper can still be used in today’s libraries, even to write down call numbers for books. The latter has also been shown in the films Dangerous Minds and Regarding Henry.
I am reminded of a scene in All the President’s Men, in which Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein go to the Library of Congress, and a Black male librarian gives them the slips for who checked out certain books, as opposed to an interaction with a White female librarian. I described this all in a post on this very blog in February of last year:
…In the classic 1976 political thriller, All the President’s Men, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein travel to the Library of Congress after their research seems to be stalled and having a librarian have a strange conversation with one them. They go to one librarian, who declares that the records they want are confidential, and that he can’t fulfill their request of library card checkout slips since July 1971. The other, the image of which is shown above, fulfills their request. Voiced by Jaye Stewart, he tells them “I’m not sure you want ’em, but I’ve got ’em.” Woodward and Bernstein proceed to go through perhaps thousands of check-out slips in the Reading Room of the Library of Congress. Unfortunately, the work is for naught, as it doesn’t confirm if a White House staffer checked out books on Ted Kennedy…Snoek-Brown…[said] hat it is not ethical to “give out checkout slips or records without a court order” as librarians have an “obligation to protect the privacy rights of our patrons.” I agree with Snoek-Brown entirely on that point
Coming back to the film, I would think that such borrowing cards would weaken the commitment of the library to reader confidentiality. As it presently stands, almost every U.S. state has laws “protecting the confidentiality of library records”. The Japan Library Association in a statement published in 1980, states that librarians should respect the privacy of each library user, and should not “divulge his/her name or details of books or other library materials used to third parties”. A more recent statement notes library privacy and confidentiality, among other virtues, as important. This film came out before the economic downturn in Japan, in 1997, which unfortunately lead to privatization of libraries through “outsourcing of staff to reduce costs and provide a flexible workforce”, with privacy of user information is at stake because private management companies are “not obligated to protect users’ privacy and routinely gather their data”. [3]
Shizuku says card catalogs are better than digital recordsMoving on from that, and back to the film, Shizuku soon follows a cat to an antique shop and is drawn to a cat statue named Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, with the shop’s owner, Nishi, telling her about him. She barely makes it to the library in time, is annoyed by Seiji, and is embarrassed in the process, as he delivers “her” lunch for her, with the fat cat (she had followed to the shop) riding on the back of the bike. The lunch is actually for her dad, who works in the library! This library is a fictional place created for the film itself, as no such library exists at that location (Irohazaka Sakura Park). [4]
This fantastical nature of the library is not unique. However, this library is more akin to something that exists in reality, rather than in a magical realm by itself. This makes the series unique. Surely, there are public libraries akin to those in real-life in Josee the Tiger and the Fish or I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, to give two examples, apart from the many within school buildings that I’ve often written about. This library is clearly a place of knowledge, but it is not a place or refuge. Rather, it is a place of learning and development.
As the movie goes on, Shizuku learns who donated a book at the library: the father of Seiji. She is later called a “bookworm”, which she accepts happily. After all, she often goes to the library, a fantasy reportedly depicted in The Cat Returns, a 2002 film. She takes out books in the public library, so she can learn more for her story. At one point, she remains one of the last people there, writing away, and Seiji visits her in the library, while she writes her story. As a writer, she becomes more than a bookworm, and Seiji is more than a novice violin maker. Both characters are not exceptional, but have proven that they have what it takes to ensure their work can become “exceptional”, with their romance blossoming by the film’s end, even without a kiss. [5]
There is much more to this film than what I’ve noted so far and ending the article here would be selling it short, to say the least. For Shizuku to be called a bookworm as an insult, and turning it into a positive, is not limited to this film. There is an entire series entitled Ascendance of a Bookworm, which focuses on Myne and her quest to provide free books to the populace, building her previous life as a college librarian. In his quest, she even becomes a church librarian with some magical powers. The series has even been cited as an example of when an outsider from another world “usher systematic change in their adopted one.” The term was even alluded to in the series Bibliophile Princess, as a bibliophile, someone who frequently reads or collects books, and loves books, is also known as a bookworm. Bibliophile appears more “positive.”
Otherwise, there was a British comic from 1978-1985 entitled Bookworm about a young boy who always has a book and his parents tell him to do more “boyish” things, but it results in disaster. There’s also an 1850 painting entitled The Bookworm by Carl Spitzweg. A variation of this piece was even named The Librarian! Pu Songling published a romantic short story, in about 1740, entitled The Bookworm, while there are characters known as bookworms in Tiny Toon Adventures and most infamously in the campy 1960s Batman series. There are many other bookworms in fiction, like in Wonder Man (1945), Navy Blues (1937), and even Wong in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, to an extent.
There is also the Association internationale de bibliophilie, which is called International Association of Bibliophiles or AIB in English. It is dedicated to bibliophiles. Russia has its National Union of Bibliophiles (formed in 2010), while there are is a book club in Detroit, a former group for female bibliophiles (Hroswitha Club), and the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles. There is even a 15-minute film, which I haven’t seen, entitled The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, about a man who is writing his memoir, but is blown off a balcony, writing out of a library,and even becomes a librarian with the city suffering from impact of a storm. There’s also books such as The Great Book-Collectors about book-collecting practices of the British Library, Bodleian Library, and Ashmolean Museum, along with a physical archive named Library of the Printed Web dedicated to “web-to-print artists’ books, zines and other printout matter.”
All of this is related to the concept of tsundoku, which means acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in your home without actually reading them. It can refer to books ready for reading later, as well, when those books are on a bookshelf. It is related to what A. Edward Newton wrote about in 1921, and stands in opposition to the term antilibrary. The latter, coined by Lebanese-American author Nassim Nicholas Taleb means a “collection of unread books”, which make people curious and humble. [6] He further stated that the older someone gets, the more they know, the larger is their “accumulation of unread books” and those who focus on such unread books are antischolars, i.e. those who do not “care about how much you know, but how much you don’t know” and how to find information you need.
When it comes to libraries, I would think people would side more with idea of antilibrary than the idea of tsundoku, as the latter seems to imply that having unread books is “bad.” Having books you haven’t read should not be seen as a negative. It is inevitable there will be books you haven’t read in your lifetime, no matter what. And libraries hold the books so they can be read by others, and shared, to spread knowledge, and understanding. This doesn’t mean that every book is right, immutable, or correct. Rather, the books can help you understand more about the world, at their best, and at their worst, promote misinformation. The latter can be prevented with careful weeding to ensure that patrons have the best information available.
Shizuku is studying in the library with a stack of books sitting on the table next to her. The man she likes is across the table from her, I believe.As I’ve noted on this blog various times, libraries serve many important functions in society. One of those is providing a place to study. This is shown clearly, as indicated in the above screenshot. You don’t have to be a bibliophile/bookworm for that. In fact, not all bookworms are librarians, and not all librarians are bookworms. Some are, but due to the many tasks during the work-day, often librarians don’t have time to read a book on the job, as some people might think.
When it comes to Japan, I’ve noted this before on here, but there are over 3,000 public libraries in this island nation, and remain an important part of the country’s society. In fact, there is even an entire Wikipedia page listing them, entitled “List of libraries in Japan” (not to be confused with the page “List of archives in Japan“). Some probably still have card catalogs. These libraries, known as toshokan in Japanese, are centered by the National Diet Library. The only series, I know, to date to directly feature this library is 26-episode early 2000s R.O.D. the TV anime series, which features characters from the Read or Die light novels, manga, and OVA, and the Read or Dream manga.
Academics have noted that information commons/learning commons which provide various materials, facilities, and services, in one place, originally appearing in North America, has also appeared in Japanese universities and college. Such spaces are reportedly in an ” the early stage of development”, and there is a need for such spaces to rebuild their own services because of student needs. Furthermore, many libraries in pre-modern Japan were arguably private and have been called bunko, meaning “storehouses of books.” Currently, most have been subsumed into larger national, prefectural, university, or research library institutions. Some have even covered this in books such as Youth-Serving Libraries in Japan, Russia, and the United States.
It is also said that Japanese academic libraries are well-resourced and support the country’s research capacity, while reflecting the country’s “strong bureaucratic culture.” I’m not sure if this is also the case for the country’s public libraries as well, to be perfectly honest. I can say, with certainty, that libraries are an important part of the country, especially considering that the Imperial Library (forerunner to the National Diet Library) was established in the latter 19th century, and in 1947, the National Library Act created Japan’s sole national library (National Diet Library). This was followed by the landmark 1950 Library Act. The law states, in part, that the country’s libraries are aimed to promoting “sound development…[and] the enhancement of the education and culture of the nation”. It goes onto say:
…libraries shall endeavor to accomplish…[collection of] nooks, archives, audio-visual materials and other necessary data and materials…with suitable attention paid to the acquisition of local materials, art works, materials on local administration, gramophone records and films…library materials shall be properly classified and processed…efforts shall be made to ensure that library personnel acquire sufficient knowledge of library matters…close communication and cooperation shall be maintained by…inter-library loans between libraries…reading circles, seminars, appreciation groups, film showings and exhibits of data…shall be sponsored and encouraged…close contact and cooperation shall be maintained with schools, museums, community centers and research institutes, etc….professional personnel of libraries shall be called librarians and assistant librarians.
And that’s only part of Chapter 1! There is no comparison to this in U.S. law. The legislation, which passed the U.S. Congress in April 1800 (see page 56), only mentioned that the purchase of books “as may be necessary for the use of Congress at the said city of Washington, and for fitting up a suitable apartment for containing them and for placing them therein, the sum of five thousand dollars shall be…appropriated.” That same law went onto say that a library catalogue shall be furnished by a joint congressional committee, with books “placed in one suitable apartment in the capitol in the said city, for the use of both…houses of Congress and the members thereof”. That is it. It wasn’t until 1802 that a law defined the functions and role of this library, the Library of Congress (LOC), and even made the appointment of the Librarian of Congress a “presidential responsibility”! Still, this was nothing like the Library Law in Japan, which was much more extensive.
Such a law in the U.S, would be unthinkable, even at this current time, despite the fact it could have extreme value in ensuring the institution’s mission and objectives. On the other hand, LOC has broadly defined that on its own, and has a bit of autonomy, as it is only the de facto national library. This makes it different from the many across the world, coupled with any state-established libraries serving as preeminent information repositories for specific regions.
When I watched Whisper of the Heart on Max, with my mom and dad, I never expected libraries to be as big of a part of the film from the get-go. I am truly grateful that I came across this film, and would surely watch it again if I get a chance. That;s all for this post. Until next week! As always, comments are welcome.
Shizuku looks at library slips and finding out some man checked the SAME book out before her© 2023-2024 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.
Notes
[1] Since then, I’ve written about (I don’t recommend you watch all of these, though, and some of the following I would not watch again) over 80 anime series: Revolutionary Girl Utena, Wandering Son, Ice, Kuttsukiboshi, Paradise Kiss, Macross Frontier, Classroom of the Elite, Gargantia, Kandagawa Jet Girls, El-Hazard, Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, Ascendance of a Bookworm, R.O.D. the TV, B Gata H Kei, Bloom Into You, Little Witch Academia, Yamibou, Whispered Words, Aoi Hana / Sweet Blue Flowers, Strawberry Panic!, My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, Manaria Friends, Kampfer, Lapis Re:Lights, Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, Blue Drop, The Mystic Archives of Dantalian, Cardcaptor Sakura, Venus vs. Virus, Otherside Picnic, My-Hime, Simoun, Riddle Story of Devil, Ms. Vampire who lives in my neighborhood, Dear Brother, Library War, Girl Friend Beta, Kokoro Library, Attack on Titan, Let’s Make a Mug Too, Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra, Bernard-jou Iwaku a.k.a. Miss Bernard said, Komi Can’t Communicate, The Ancient Magus Bride: Those Awaiting a Star, Gosick, Laid-Back Camp, As Miss Beelzebub Likes, Bibliophile Princess, Love Live! Sunshine!!, Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie, My Roommate is a Cat, Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, Kin-iro Mosaic, Akebi’s Sailor Uniform, Makura no Danshi, Azumanga Daioh, Oresuki, Seitokai Yakuindomo, Gabriel DropOut, Spy x Family, A Couple of Cuckoos, Märchen Mädchen, Healer Girl, Smile of the Arsnotoria the Animation, Smile Pretty Cure!/Glitter Force, A Good Librarian Like a Good Shepard, A Place Further Than The Universe, Teasing Master Takagi-san, Myself ; Yourself, Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War, Stars Align, Tokyo Mew Mew New, Skip and Loafer, Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible, Violet Evergarden, Somali and the Forest Spirit, Aharen-San wa Hakarenai, Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, Chitose Got You, Clannad, Cue!, Encouragement to Climb: Next Summit, Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro, Gabriel Drop Out, Kin-iro Mosaic, K-On!, Noir, Otherside Picnic, The Rising of the Shield Hero, and Re:Zero, and four films: I Want To Eat Your Pancreas, Calamity of a Zombie Girl, Your Name, and Josee, the Tiger and the Fish. Later posts this year will focus on series such as Ouran High School Host Club, Is the Order a Rabbit?, Kiss Him, Not Me, The Demon Girl Next Door, The Executioner and Her Way of Life, YuruYuri, Library War, Maria Watches Over Us, Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka, and Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu (Haruka Nogizaka’s Secret), to name a few.
[2] “Whisper of the Heart,” IFC Center, accessed Jun. 6, 2023; Russo, Lee. “How Whisper of the Heart Explores the Fear of Failure,” CBR, Jun. 13, 2020; Graeme. “The Best Films I’ve Ever Seen: Whisper of the Heart,” Film School Rejects, Jun. 15, 2018; “Whisper of the Heart,” Studio Ghibli, accessed Jun. 6, 2023; Faith. “Whisper of the Heart,” Studio Ghibli Movies, Nov. 28, 2014; Toole, Michael. “Whisper of the Heart Blu-Ray + DVD Review,” Anime News Network, Nov. 29, 2014; Osmond, Andrew. “Whisper of the Heart Review,” Anime News Network, Jan. 11, 2012; Mindus, Jay. “Why Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart Is the Perfect Movie for Young Artists,” CBR, May 12, 2022; “Whisper of the Heart (Mimi wo sumaseba),” Harvard Film Archive, accessed Jun. 6, 2023; Cyrenne, Randall. “Whisper Of The Heart,” Animated Views, Mar. 7, 2006.
[3] Alix, Francis A. “The History and Current Challenges of Libraries in Japan,” SLIS Connectings 10(1): 10.
[4] Graeme, “The Best Films I’ve Ever Seen: Whisper of the Heart,” 2018; Toole, “Whisper of the Heart Blu-Ray + DVD Review,” 2014; Osmond, “Whisper of the Heart Review,” 2012; “Tracing Shizuku’s Steps: Visit ‘Whisper of the Heart’ Locations in Real Life,” tsunagu Japan, accessed Jun. 7, 2023; “Visiting ‘Whisper of the Heart’ Movie Location,” justa-fangirl, 2014.
[5] “Whisper of the Heart,” Ghibli Wiki, accessed Jun. 7, 2023; Cyrenne, “Whisper Of The Heart,” 2006; “Whisper of the Heart (Mimi wo sumaseba,” Harvard Film Archive; Mindus, “Why Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart Is the Perfect Movie for Young Artists,” 2022; Pineda, Rafael Antonio. “Live-Action Whisper of the Heart Sequel Film Delayed Due to COVID-19,” Anime News Network, Apr. 20, 2020. The live-action sequel, also named Whisper of the Heart came out in October 2022 in Japan, but it was received badly if the reviews from Japan Times and Crunchyroll listed on the “Whisper of the Heart (2022 film)” Wikipedia page are any indication. Apparently, there is even a library scene in the film. I haven’t watched the film, so I can’t confirm that completely, however.
[6] Brooks, Katherine. “There’s A Japanese Word For People Who Buy More Books Than They Can Actually Read,” HuffPost, Apr. 19, 2017; Tobar, Hector, “Are you a book hoarder? There’s a word for that,” Los Angeles Times, Jul. 24, 2014; “Tsundoku: The art of buying books and never reading them,” BBC News, Jul. 29, 2018; Crow, Jonathan. “‘Tsundoku,’ the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves, Should Enter the English Language,” Open Culture, Jul. 24, 2014; “A QUOTE ON BIBLIOMANIA,” Language Hat, Feb. 7, 2008; Popova, Maria. “Umberto Eco’s Antilibrary: Why Unread Books Are More Valuable to Our Lives than Read Ones,” The Marginalian, Mar. 24, 2015; Stillman, Jessica. “Why You Should Surround Yourself With More Books Than You’ll Ever Have Time to Read,” Inc., Dec. 5, 2017; McDonough, Lauren Smith. “Everyone Is Obsessed With the Trend of Antilibraries Right Now,” House Beautiful, Dec. 19, 2017; Boyd, Rebecca Lowry. “The book trend everyone is talking about right now,” Better Homes & Gardens, accessed Jun. 27, 2023.
#AllThePresidentSMen #AnimeNewsNetwork #antilibrary #AscendanceOfABookworm #barcodes #BibliophilePrincess #bibliophilia #BlackLibrarians #BlackWomen #BluRays #books #booksAreNotSacred #ethics #femaleLibrarians #IWantToEatYourPancreas #JapaneseLibrarians #JapaneseMen #JapanesePatrons #JoseeTheTigerAndTheFish #KOn #libraryCards #librarySlips #magic #NationalDietLibrary #NavyBluesFilm #RODTheTV #ReadOrDieLightNovels #ReadOrDieManga #ReadOrDieOVA #ReadOrDream #readerConfidentiality #ReelLibrarians #SeitokaiYakuindomo #Simoun #students #studying #teachers #TheCatReturns #tsundoku #WhisperOfTheHeart #WhiteLibrarians #WhiteWomen
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Barcodes, library slips, bookworms, and book deliveries in “Whisper of the Heart”
Shizuku’s father is a librarian in this film. He later says that he would like the card catalogs to stay too, like her.When I watched Whisper of the Heart, a romantic drama anime film which came out over 29 years ago (on July 15, 1995), on Max, I never expected that libraries, and librarians would be such a central part of the film! I was aware that the film was listed on Jennifer Snoek-Brown’s list of “Foreign-Language Films” on Reel Librarians. The latter list notes films reportedly with librarians and/or archivists alphabetically by title”. She warns that she can’t confirm that “every film on this list actually includes a librarian and/or archivist” as her primary focus is on examining English-language films. While that is a laudable goal, I don’t limit myself in that way, personally, and happily cover anime on this blog time and again. In fact, I have written about over 70 anime series, four films, and various manga, with my first post in August 2020. [1] This review will focus on the role of libraries, and librarians like the protagonist’s father, in the story, while relating it to other fictional examples and real-life library concepts.
One of the first conversations in the film is between the 14-year-old protagonist Shizuku Tsukishima, living in the Tokyo suburb of Tama New Town, who learns the local library is going to the bar code system, and her father. She tells him that she likes the library slips instead. He actually agrees with her, but decides to go with the library’s change anyhow. Thanks to the library slip, she learns that one man’s name is in common on all the books she has checked out: Seiji Amasawa. This piques her interest. This major plot point is mentioned in many summaries and reviews of the film, noting that Seiji is on every single one of these checkout slips and how she is slowly drawn to him as the film goes forward, with their feelings growing. Shizuku is also drawn toward these books because she loves fantasy books, and meets Seiji at an old antique shop somewhere in town. Other reviewers have noted that the checkout cards are an interesting narrative device, which “lends itself well to romantic daydreaming.” It is worth noting that Shizuku is spending his summer vacation, last one she has at Mukaihara Junior High School, translating and reading “popular foreign music into Japanese” like John Denver’s Country Road. [2]
At one point, Shizuku checks a book out of the library, which was never checked out before, and even though she somewhat ends up disturbing the job of the librarian (or the teacher standing in as a librarian), she comes across Seiji. Then, not longer after, he is curiously reading the book she checked out and she takes it from him, surprised to see him. And he even knows her name from the book. So much for reader’s privacy! Although some may see a sense of relief and kinship at seeing these library check-out cards, looking at these cards would run afoul of existing ethics, as outlined by the ALA. Those ethics state that libraries will “protect each library user’s right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted.”
Such cards are sometimes known as borrowing cards. They had/have an equivalent inside the library: a circulation card. Such cards may include the name of who borrowed the book and name of the book. There are also slips/cards which remain in a book only listing the date a book is due to be returned, known as date due slips. I’m not sure why I haven’t gone into this much detail on this before, but better late than never. In the case of this film, it would be a borrowing card, rather than a date due slip, which was stuck in the back of book, and then the book would be shelved, a way to record who borrowed a book before computer systems supplanted this system. Paper can still be used in today’s libraries, even to write down call numbers for books. The latter has also been shown in the films Dangerous Minds and Regarding Henry.
I am reminded of a scene in All the President’s Men, in which Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein go to the Library of Congress, and a Black male librarian gives them the slips for who checked out certain books, as opposed to an interaction with a White female librarian. I described this all in a post on this very blog in February of last year:
…In the classic 1976 political thriller, All the President’s Men, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein travel to the Library of Congress after their research seems to be stalled and having a librarian have a strange conversation with one them. They go to one librarian, who declares that the records they want are confidential, and that he can’t fulfill their request of library card checkout slips since July 1971. The other, the image of which is shown above, fulfills their request. Voiced by Jaye Stewart, he tells them “I’m not sure you want ’em, but I’ve got ’em.” Woodward and Bernstein proceed to go through perhaps thousands of check-out slips in the Reading Room of the Library of Congress. Unfortunately, the work is for naught, as it doesn’t confirm if a White House staffer checked out books on Ted Kennedy…Snoek-Brown…[said] hat it is not ethical to “give out checkout slips or records without a court order” as librarians have an “obligation to protect the privacy rights of our patrons.” I agree with Snoek-Brown entirely on that point
Coming back to the film, I would think that such borrowing cards would weaken the commitment of the library to reader confidentiality. As it presently stands, almost every U.S. state has laws “protecting the confidentiality of library records”. The Japan Library Association in a statement published in 1980, states that librarians should respect the privacy of each library user, and should not “divulge his/her name or details of books or other library materials used to third parties”. A more recent statement notes library privacy and confidentiality, among other virtues, as important. This film came out before the economic downturn in Japan, in 1997, which unfortunately lead to privatization of libraries through “outsourcing of staff to reduce costs and provide a flexible workforce”, with privacy of user information is at stake because private management companies are “not obligated to protect users’ privacy and routinely gather their data”. [3]
Shizuku says card catalogs are better than digital recordsMoving on from that, and back to the film, Shizuku soon follows a cat to an antique shop and is drawn to a cat statue named Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, with the shop’s owner, Nishi, telling her about him. She barely makes it to the library in time, is annoyed by Seiji, and is embarrassed in the process, as he delivers “her” lunch for her, with the fat cat (she had followed to the shop) riding on the back of the bike. The lunch is actually for her dad, who works in the library! This library is a fictional place created for the film itself, as no such library exists at that location (Irohazaka Sakura Park). [4]
This fantastical nature of the library is not unique. However, this library is more akin to something that exists in reality, rather than in a magical realm by itself. This makes the series unique. Surely, there are public libraries akin to those in real-life in Josee the Tiger and the Fish or I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, to give two examples, apart from the many within school buildings that I’ve often written about. This library is clearly a place of knowledge, but it is not a place or refuge. Rather, it is a place of learning and development.
As the movie goes on, Shizuku learns who donated a book at the library: the father of Seiji. She is later called a “bookworm”, which she accepts happily. After all, she often goes to the library, a fantasy reportedly depicted in The Cat Returns, a 2002 film. She takes out books in the public library, so she can learn more for her story. At one point, she remains one of the last people there, writing away, and Seiji visits her in the library, while she writes her story. As a writer, she becomes more than a bookworm, and Seiji is more than a novice violin maker. Both characters are not exceptional, but have proven that they have what it takes to ensure their work can become “exceptional”, with their romance blossoming by the film’s end, even without a kiss. [5]
There is much more to this film than what I’ve noted so far and ending the article here would be selling it short, to say the least. For Shizuku to be called a bookworm as an insult, and turning it into a positive, is not limited to this film. There is an entire series entitled Ascendance of a Bookworm, which focuses on Myne and her quest to provide free books to the populace, building her previous life as a college librarian. In his quest, she even becomes a church librarian with some magical powers. The series has even been cited as an example of when an outsider from another world “usher systematic change in their adopted one.” The term was even alluded to in the series Bibliophile Princess, as a bibliophile, someone who frequently reads or collects books, and loves books, is also known as a bookworm. Bibliophile appears more “positive.”
Otherwise, there was a British comic from 1978-1985 entitled Bookworm about a young boy who always has a book and his parents tell him to do more “boyish” things, but it results in disaster. There’s also an 1850 painting entitled The Bookworm by Carl Spitzweg. A variation of this piece was even named The Librarian! Pu Songling published a romantic short story, in about 1740, entitled The Bookworm, while there are characters known as bookworms in Tiny Toon Adventures and most infamously in the campy 1960s Batman series. There are many other bookworms in fiction, like in Wonder Man (1945), Navy Blues (1937), and even Wong in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, to an extent.
There is also the Association internationale de bibliophilie, which is called International Association of Bibliophiles or AIB in English. It is dedicated to bibliophiles. Russia has its National Union of Bibliophiles (formed in 2010), while there are is a book club in Detroit, a former group for female bibliophiles (Hroswitha Club), and the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles. There is even a 15-minute film, which I haven’t seen, entitled The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, about a man who is writing his memoir, but is blown off a balcony, writing out of a library,and even becomes a librarian with the city suffering from impact of a storm. There’s also books such as The Great Book-Collectors about book-collecting practices of the British Library, Bodleian Library, and Ashmolean Museum, along with a physical archive named Library of the Printed Web dedicated to “web-to-print artists’ books, zines and other printout matter.”
All of this is related to the concept of tsundoku, which means acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in your home without actually reading them. It can refer to books ready for reading later, as well, when those books are on a bookshelf. It is related to what A. Edward Newton wrote about in 1921, and stands in opposition to the term antilibrary. The latter, coined by Lebanese-American author Nassim Nicholas Taleb means a “collection of unread books”, which make people curious and humble. [6] He further stated that the older someone gets, the more they know, the larger is their “accumulation of unread books” and those who focus on such unread books are antischolars, i.e. those who do not “care about how much you know, but how much you don’t know” and how to find information you need.
When it comes to libraries, I would think people would side more with idea of antilibrary than the idea of tsundoku, as the latter seems to imply that having unread books is “bad.” Having books you haven’t read should not be seen as a negative. It is inevitable there will be books you haven’t read in your lifetime, no matter what. And libraries hold the books so they can be read by others, and shared, to spread knowledge, and understanding. This doesn’t mean that every book is right, immutable, or correct. Rather, the books can help you understand more about the world, at their best, and at their worst, promote misinformation. The latter can be prevented with careful weeding to ensure that patrons have the best information available.
Shizuku is studying in the library with a stack of books sitting on the table next to her. The man she likes is across the table from her, I believe.As I’ve noted on this blog various times, libraries serve many important functions in society. One of those is providing a place to study. This is shown clearly, as indicated in the above screenshot. You don’t have to be a bibliophile/bookworm for that. In fact, not all bookworms are librarians, and not all librarians are bookworms. Some are, but due to the many tasks during the work-day, often librarians don’t have time to read a book on the job, as some people might think.
When it comes to Japan, I’ve noted this before on here, but there are over 3,000 public libraries in this island nation, and remain an important part of the country’s society. In fact, there is even an entire Wikipedia page listing them, entitled “List of libraries in Japan” (not to be confused with the page “List of archives in Japan“). Some probably still have card catalogs. These libraries, known as toshokan in Japanese, are centered by the National Diet Library. The only series, I know, to date to directly feature this library is 26-episode early 2000s R.O.D. the TV anime series, which features characters from the Read or Die light novels, manga, and OVA, and the Read or Dream manga.
Academics have noted that information commons/learning commons which provide various materials, facilities, and services, in one place, originally appearing in North America, has also appeared in Japanese universities and college. Such spaces are reportedly in an ” the early stage of development”, and there is a need for such spaces to rebuild their own services because of student needs. Furthermore, many libraries in pre-modern Japan were arguably private and have been called bunko, meaning “storehouses of books.” Currently, most have been subsumed into larger national, prefectural, university, or research library institutions. Some have even covered this in books such as Youth-Serving Libraries in Japan, Russia, and the United States.
It is also said that Japanese academic libraries are well-resourced and support the country’s research capacity, while reflecting the country’s “strong bureaucratic culture.” I’m not sure if this is also the case for the country’s public libraries as well, to be perfectly honest. I can say, with certainty, that libraries are an important part of the country, especially considering that the Imperial Library (forerunner to the National Diet Library) was established in the latter 19th century, and in 1947, the National Library Act created Japan’s sole national library (National Diet Library). This was followed by the landmark 1950 Library Act. The law states, in part, that the country’s libraries are aimed to promoting “sound development…[and] the enhancement of the education and culture of the nation”. It goes onto say:
…libraries shall endeavor to accomplish…[collection of] nooks, archives, audio-visual materials and other necessary data and materials…with suitable attention paid to the acquisition of local materials, art works, materials on local administration, gramophone records and films…library materials shall be properly classified and processed…efforts shall be made to ensure that library personnel acquire sufficient knowledge of library matters…close communication and cooperation shall be maintained by…inter-library loans between libraries…reading circles, seminars, appreciation groups, film showings and exhibits of data…shall be sponsored and encouraged…close contact and cooperation shall be maintained with schools, museums, community centers and research institutes, etc….professional personnel of libraries shall be called librarians and assistant librarians.
And that’s only part of Chapter 1! There is no comparison to this in U.S. law. The legislation, which passed the U.S. Congress in April 1800 (see page 56), only mentioned that the purchase of books “as may be necessary for the use of Congress at the said city of Washington, and for fitting up a suitable apartment for containing them and for placing them therein, the sum of five thousand dollars shall be…appropriated.” That same law went onto say that a library catalogue shall be furnished by a joint congressional committee, with books “placed in one suitable apartment in the capitol in the said city, for the use of both…houses of Congress and the members thereof”. That is it. It wasn’t until 1802 that a law defined the functions and role of this library, the Library of Congress (LOC), and even made the appointment of the Librarian of Congress a “presidential responsibility”! Still, this was nothing like the Library Law in Japan, which was much more extensive.
Such a law in the U.S, would be unthinkable, even at this current time, despite the fact it could have extreme value in ensuring the institution’s mission and objectives. On the other hand, LOC has broadly defined that on its own, and has a bit of autonomy, as it is only the de facto national library. This makes it different from the many across the world, coupled with any state-established libraries serving as preeminent information repositories for specific regions.
When I watched Whisper of the Heart on Max, with my mom and dad, I never expected libraries to be as big of a part of the film from the get-go. I am truly grateful that I came across this film, and would surely watch it again if I get a chance. That;s all for this post. Until next week! As always, comments are welcome.
Shizuku looks at library slips and finding out some man checked the SAME book out before her© 2023-2024 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.
Notes
[1] Since then, I’ve written about (I don’t recommend you watch all of these, though, and some of the following I would not watch again) over 80 anime series: Revolutionary Girl Utena, Wandering Son, Ice, Kuttsukiboshi, Paradise Kiss, Macross Frontier, Classroom of the Elite, Gargantia, Kandagawa Jet Girls, El-Hazard, Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, Ascendance of a Bookworm, R.O.D. the TV, B Gata H Kei, Bloom Into You, Little Witch Academia, Yamibou, Whispered Words, Aoi Hana / Sweet Blue Flowers, Strawberry Panic!, My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, Manaria Friends, Kampfer, Lapis Re:Lights, Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, Blue Drop, The Mystic Archives of Dantalian, Cardcaptor Sakura, Venus vs. Virus, Otherside Picnic, My-Hime, Simoun, Riddle Story of Devil, Ms. Vampire who lives in my neighborhood, Dear Brother, Library War, Girl Friend Beta, Kokoro Library, Attack on Titan, Let’s Make a Mug Too, Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra, Bernard-jou Iwaku a.k.a. Miss Bernard said, Komi Can’t Communicate, The Ancient Magus Bride: Those Awaiting a Star, Gosick, Laid-Back Camp, As Miss Beelzebub Likes, Bibliophile Princess, Love Live! Sunshine!!, Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie, My Roommate is a Cat, Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, Kin-iro Mosaic, Akebi’s Sailor Uniform, Makura no Danshi, Azumanga Daioh, Oresuki, Seitokai Yakuindomo, Gabriel DropOut, Spy x Family, A Couple of Cuckoos, Märchen Mädchen, Healer Girl, Smile of the Arsnotoria the Animation, Smile Pretty Cure!/Glitter Force, A Good Librarian Like a Good Shepard, A Place Further Than The Universe, Teasing Master Takagi-san, Myself ; Yourself, Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War, Stars Align, Tokyo Mew Mew New, Skip and Loafer, Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible, Violet Evergarden, Somali and the Forest Spirit, Aharen-San wa Hakarenai, Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, Chitose Got You, Clannad, Cue!, Encouragement to Climb: Next Summit, Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro, Gabriel Drop Out, Kin-iro Mosaic, K-On!, Noir, Otherside Picnic, The Rising of the Shield Hero, and Re:Zero, and four films: I Want To Eat Your Pancreas, Calamity of a Zombie Girl, Your Name, and Josee, the Tiger and the Fish. Later posts this year will focus on series such as Ouran High School Host Club, Is the Order a Rabbit?, Kiss Him, Not Me, The Demon Girl Next Door, The Executioner and Her Way of Life, YuruYuri, Library War, Maria Watches Over Us, Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka, and Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu (Haruka Nogizaka’s Secret), to name a few.
[2] “Whisper of the Heart,” IFC Center, accessed Jun. 6, 2023; Russo, Lee. “How Whisper of the Heart Explores the Fear of Failure,” CBR, Jun. 13, 2020; Graeme. “The Best Films I’ve Ever Seen: Whisper of the Heart,” Film School Rejects, Jun. 15, 2018; “Whisper of the Heart,” Studio Ghibli, accessed Jun. 6, 2023; Faith. “Whisper of the Heart,” Studio Ghibli Movies, Nov. 28, 2014; Toole, Michael. “Whisper of the Heart Blu-Ray + DVD Review,” Anime News Network, Nov. 29, 2014; Osmond, Andrew. “Whisper of the Heart Review,” Anime News Network, Jan. 11, 2012; Mindus, Jay. “Why Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart Is the Perfect Movie for Young Artists,” CBR, May 12, 2022; “Whisper of the Heart (Mimi wo sumaseba),” Harvard Film Archive, accessed Jun. 6, 2023; Cyrenne, Randall. “Whisper Of The Heart,” Animated Views, Mar. 7, 2006.
[3] Alix, Francis A. “The History and Current Challenges of Libraries in Japan,” SLIS Connectings 10(1): 10.
[4] Graeme, “The Best Films I’ve Ever Seen: Whisper of the Heart,” 2018; Toole, “Whisper of the Heart Blu-Ray + DVD Review,” 2014; Osmond, “Whisper of the Heart Review,” 2012; “Tracing Shizuku’s Steps: Visit ‘Whisper of the Heart’ Locations in Real Life,” tsunagu Japan, accessed Jun. 7, 2023; “Visiting ‘Whisper of the Heart’ Movie Location,” justa-fangirl, 2014.
[5] “Whisper of the Heart,” Ghibli Wiki, accessed Jun. 7, 2023; Cyrenne, “Whisper Of The Heart,” 2006; “Whisper of the Heart (Mimi wo sumaseba,” Harvard Film Archive; Mindus, “Why Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart Is the Perfect Movie for Young Artists,” 2022; Pineda, Rafael Antonio. “Live-Action Whisper of the Heart Sequel Film Delayed Due to COVID-19,” Anime News Network, Apr. 20, 2020. The live-action sequel, also named Whisper of the Heart came out in October 2022 in Japan, but it was received badly if the reviews from Japan Times and Crunchyroll listed on the “Whisper of the Heart (2022 film)” Wikipedia page are any indication. Apparently, there is even a library scene in the film. I haven’t watched the film, so I can’t confirm that completely, however.
[6] Brooks, Katherine. “There’s A Japanese Word For People Who Buy More Books Than They Can Actually Read,” HuffPost, Apr. 19, 2017; Tobar, Hector, “Are you a book hoarder? There’s a word for that,” Los Angeles Times, Jul. 24, 2014; “Tsundoku: The art of buying books and never reading them,” BBC News, Jul. 29, 2018; Crow, Jonathan. “‘Tsundoku,’ the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves, Should Enter the English Language,” Open Culture, Jul. 24, 2014; “A QUOTE ON BIBLIOMANIA,” Language Hat, Feb. 7, 2008; Popova, Maria. “Umberto Eco’s Antilibrary: Why Unread Books Are More Valuable to Our Lives than Read Ones,” The Marginalian, Mar. 24, 2015; Stillman, Jessica. “Why You Should Surround Yourself With More Books Than You’ll Ever Have Time to Read,” Inc., Dec. 5, 2017; McDonough, Lauren Smith. “Everyone Is Obsessed With the Trend of Antilibraries Right Now,” House Beautiful, Dec. 19, 2017; Boyd, Rebecca Lowry. “The book trend everyone is talking about right now,” Better Homes & Gardens, accessed Jun. 27, 2023.
#AllThePresidentSMen #AnimeNewsNetwork #antilibrary #AscendanceOfABookworm #barcodes #BibliophilePrincess #bibliophilia #BlackLibrarians #BlackWomen #BluRays #books #booksAreNotSacred #ethics #femaleLibrarians #IWantToEatYourPancreas #JapaneseLibrarians #JapaneseMen #JapanesePatrons #JoseeTheTigerAndTheFish #KOn #libraryCards #librarySlips #magic #NationalDietLibrary #NavyBluesFilm #RODTheTV #ReadOrDieLightNovels #ReadOrDieManga #ReadOrDieOVA #ReadOrDream #readerConfidentiality #ReelLibrarians #SeitokaiYakuindomo #Simoun #students #studying #teachers #TheCatReturns #tsundoku #WhisperOfTheHeart #WhiteLibrarians #WhiteWomen
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Barcodes, library slips, bookworms, and book deliveries in “Whisper of the Heart”
Shizuku’s father is a librarian in this film. He later says that he would like the card catalogs to stay too, like her.When I watched Whisper of the Heart, a romantic drama anime film which came out over 29 years ago (on July 15, 1995), on Max, I never expected that libraries, and librarians would be such a central part of the film! I was aware that the film was listed on Jennifer Snoek-Brown’s list of “Foreign-Language Films” on Reel Librarians. The latter list notes films reportedly with librarians and/or archivists alphabetically by title”. She warns that she can’t confirm that “every film on this list actually includes a librarian and/or archivist” as her primary focus is on examining English-language films. While that is a laudable goal, I don’t limit myself in that way, personally, and happily cover anime on this blog time and again. In fact, I have written about over 70 anime series, four films, and various manga, with my first post in August 2020. [1] This review will focus on the role of libraries, and librarians like the protagonist’s father, in the story, while relating it to other fictional examples and real-life library concepts.
One of the first conversations in the film is between the 14-year-old protagonist Shizuku Tsukishima, living in the Tokyo suburb of Tama New Town, who learns the local library is going to the bar code system, and her father. She tells him that she likes the library slips instead. He actually agrees with her, but decides to go with the library’s change anyhow. Thanks to the library slip, she learns that one man’s name is in common on all the books she has checked out: Seiji Amasawa. This piques her interest. This major plot point is mentioned in many summaries and reviews of the film, noting that Seiji is on every single one of these checkout slips and how she is slowly drawn to him as the film goes forward, with their feelings growing. Shizuku is also drawn toward these books because she loves fantasy books, and meets Seiji at an old antique shop somewhere in town. Other reviewers have noted that the checkout cards are an interesting narrative device, which “lends itself well to romantic daydreaming.” It is worth noting that Shizuku is spending his summer vacation, last one she has at Mukaihara Junior High School, translating and reading “popular foreign music into Japanese” like John Denver’s Country Road. [2]
At one point, Shizuku checks a book out of the library, which was never checked out before, and even though she somewhat ends up disturbing the job of the librarian (or the teacher standing in as a librarian), she comes across Seiji. Then, not longer after, he is curiously reading the book she checked out and she takes it from him, surprised to see him. And he even knows her name from the book. So much for reader’s privacy! Although some may see a sense of relief and kinship at seeing these library check-out cards, looking at these cards would run afoul of existing ethics, as outlined by the ALA. Those ethics state that libraries will “protect each library user’s right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted.”
Such cards are sometimes known as borrowing cards. They had/have an equivalent inside the library: a circulation card. Such cards may include the name of who borrowed the book and name of the book. There are also slips/cards which remain in a book only listing the date a book is due to be returned, known as date due slips. I’m not sure why I haven’t gone into this much detail on this before, but better late than never. In the case of this film, it would be a borrowing card, rather than a date due slip, which was stuck in the back of book, and then the book would be shelved, a way to record who borrowed a book before computer systems supplanted this system. Paper can still be used in today’s libraries, even to write down call numbers for books. The latter has also been shown in the films Dangerous Minds and Regarding Henry.
I am reminded of a scene in All the President’s Men, in which Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein go to the Library of Congress, and a Black male librarian gives them the slips for who checked out certain books, as opposed to an interaction with a White female librarian. I described this all in a post on this very blog in February of last year:
…In the classic 1976 political thriller, All the President’s Men, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein travel to the Library of Congress after their research seems to be stalled and having a librarian have a strange conversation with one them. They go to one librarian, who declares that the records they want are confidential, and that he can’t fulfill their request of library card checkout slips since July 1971. The other, the image of which is shown above, fulfills their request. Voiced by Jaye Stewart, he tells them “I’m not sure you want ’em, but I’ve got ’em.” Woodward and Bernstein proceed to go through perhaps thousands of check-out slips in the Reading Room of the Library of Congress. Unfortunately, the work is for naught, as it doesn’t confirm if a White House staffer checked out books on Ted Kennedy…Snoek-Brown…[said] hat it is not ethical to “give out checkout slips or records without a court order” as librarians have an “obligation to protect the privacy rights of our patrons.” I agree with Snoek-Brown entirely on that point
Coming back to the film, I would think that such borrowing cards would weaken the commitment of the library to reader confidentiality. As it presently stands, almost every U.S. state has laws “protecting the confidentiality of library records”. The Japan Library Association in a statement published in 1980, states that librarians should respect the privacy of each library user, and should not “divulge his/her name or details of books or other library materials used to third parties”. A more recent statement notes library privacy and confidentiality, among other virtues, as important. This film came out before the economic downturn in Japan, in 1997, which unfortunately lead to privatization of libraries through “outsourcing of staff to reduce costs and provide a flexible workforce”, with privacy of user information is at stake because private management companies are “not obligated to protect users’ privacy and routinely gather their data”. [3]
Shizuku says card catalogs are better than digital recordsMoving on from that, and back to the film, Shizuku soon follows a cat to an antique shop and is drawn to a cat statue named Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, with the shop’s owner, Nishi, telling her about him. She barely makes it to the library in time, is annoyed by Seiji, and is embarrassed in the process, as he delivers “her” lunch for her, with the fat cat (she had followed to the shop) riding on the back of the bike. The lunch is actually for her dad, who works in the library! This library is a fictional place created for the film itself, as no such library exists at that location (Irohazaka Sakura Park). [4]
This fantastical nature of the library is not unique. However, this library is more akin to something that exists in reality, rather than in a magical realm by itself. This makes the series unique. Surely, there are public libraries akin to those in real-life in Josee the Tiger and the Fish or I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, to give two examples, apart from the many within school buildings that I’ve often written about. This library is clearly a place of knowledge, but it is not a place or refuge. Rather, it is a place of learning and development.
As the movie goes on, Shizuku learns who donated a book at the library: the father of Seiji. She is later called a “bookworm”, which she accepts happily. After all, she often goes to the library, a fantasy reportedly depicted in The Cat Returns, a 2002 film. She takes out books in the public library, so she can learn more for her story. At one point, she remains one of the last people there, writing away, and Seiji visits her in the library, while she writes her story. As a writer, she becomes more than a bookworm, and Seiji is more than a novice violin maker. Both characters are not exceptional, but have proven that they have what it takes to ensure their work can become “exceptional”, with their romance blossoming by the film’s end, even without a kiss. [5]
There is much more to this film than what I’ve noted so far and ending the article here would be selling it short, to say the least. For Shizuku to be called a bookworm as an insult, and turning it into a positive, is not limited to this film. There is an entire series entitled Ascendance of a Bookworm, which focuses on Myne and her quest to provide free books to the populace, building her previous life as a college librarian. In his quest, she even becomes a church librarian with some magical powers. The series has even been cited as an example of when an outsider from another world “usher systematic change in their adopted one.” The term was even alluded to in the series Bibliophile Princess, as a bibliophile, someone who frequently reads or collects books, and loves books, is also known as a bookworm. Bibliophile appears more “positive.”
Otherwise, there was a British comic from 1978-1985 entitled Bookworm about a young boy who always has a book and his parents tell him to do more “boyish” things, but it results in disaster. There’s also an 1850 painting entitled The Bookworm by Carl Spitzweg. A variation of this piece was even named The Librarian! Pu Songling published a romantic short story, in about 1740, entitled The Bookworm, while there are characters known as bookworms in Tiny Toon Adventures and most infamously in the campy 1960s Batman series. There are many other bookworms in fiction, like in Wonder Man (1945), Navy Blues (1937), and even Wong in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, to an extent.
There is also the Association internationale de bibliophilie, which is called International Association of Bibliophiles or AIB in English. It is dedicated to bibliophiles. Russia has its National Union of Bibliophiles (formed in 2010), while there are is a book club in Detroit, a former group for female bibliophiles (Hroswitha Club), and the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles. There is even a 15-minute film, which I haven’t seen, entitled The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, about a man who is writing his memoir, but is blown off a balcony, writing out of a library,and even becomes a librarian with the city suffering from impact of a storm. There’s also books such as The Great Book-Collectors about book-collecting practices of the British Library, Bodleian Library, and Ashmolean Museum, along with a physical archive named Library of the Printed Web dedicated to “web-to-print artists’ books, zines and other printout matter.”
All of this is related to the concept of tsundoku, which means acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in your home without actually reading them. It can refer to books ready for reading later, as well, when those books are on a bookshelf. It is related to what A. Edward Newton wrote about in 1921, and stands in opposition to the term antilibrary. The latter, coined by Lebanese-American author Nassim Nicholas Taleb means a “collection of unread books”, which make people curious and humble. [6] He further stated that the older someone gets, the more they know, the larger is their “accumulation of unread books” and those who focus on such unread books are antischolars, i.e. those who do not “care about how much you know, but how much you don’t know” and how to find information you need.
When it comes to libraries, I would think people would side more with idea of antilibrary than the idea of tsundoku, as the latter seems to imply that having unread books is “bad.” Having books you haven’t read should not be seen as a negative. It is inevitable there will be books you haven’t read in your lifetime, no matter what. And libraries hold the books so they can be read by others, and shared, to spread knowledge, and understanding. This doesn’t mean that every book is right, immutable, or correct. Rather, the books can help you understand more about the world, at their best, and at their worst, promote misinformation. The latter can be prevented with careful weeding to ensure that patrons have the best information available.
Shizuku is studying in the library with a stack of books sitting on the table next to her. The man she likes is across the table from her, I believe.As I’ve noted on this blog various times, libraries serve many important functions in society. One of those is providing a place to study. This is shown clearly, as indicated in the above screenshot. You don’t have to be a bibliophile/bookworm for that. In fact, not all bookworms are librarians, and not all librarians are bookworms. Some are, but due to the many tasks during the work-day, often librarians don’t have time to read a book on the job, as some people might think.
When it comes to Japan, I’ve noted this before on here, but there are over 3,000 public libraries in this island nation, and remain an important part of the country’s society. In fact, there is even an entire Wikipedia page listing them, entitled “List of libraries in Japan” (not to be confused with the page “List of archives in Japan“). Some probably still have card catalogs. These libraries, known as toshokan in Japanese, are centered by the National Diet Library. The only series, I know, to date to directly feature this library is 26-episode early 2000s R.O.D. the TV anime series, which features characters from the Read or Die light novels, manga, and OVA, and the Read or Dream manga.
Academics have noted that information commons/learning commons which provide various materials, facilities, and services, in one place, originally appearing in North America, has also appeared in Japanese universities and college. Such spaces are reportedly in an ” the early stage of development”, and there is a need for such spaces to rebuild their own services because of student needs. Furthermore, many libraries in pre-modern Japan were arguably private and have been called bunko, meaning “storehouses of books.” Currently, most have been subsumed into larger national, prefectural, university, or research library institutions. Some have even covered this in books such as Youth-Serving Libraries in Japan, Russia, and the United States.
It is also said that Japanese academic libraries are well-resourced and support the country’s research capacity, while reflecting the country’s “strong bureaucratic culture.” I’m not sure if this is also the case for the country’s public libraries as well, to be perfectly honest. I can say, with certainty, that libraries are an important part of the country, especially considering that the Imperial Library (forerunner to the National Diet Library) was established in the latter 19th century, and in 1947, the National Library Act created Japan’s sole national library (National Diet Library). This was followed by the landmark 1950 Library Act. The law states, in part, that the country’s libraries are aimed to promoting “sound development…[and] the enhancement of the education and culture of the nation”. It goes onto say:
…libraries shall endeavor to accomplish…[collection of] nooks, archives, audio-visual materials and other necessary data and materials…with suitable attention paid to the acquisition of local materials, art works, materials on local administration, gramophone records and films…library materials shall be properly classified and processed…efforts shall be made to ensure that library personnel acquire sufficient knowledge of library matters…close communication and cooperation shall be maintained by…inter-library loans between libraries…reading circles, seminars, appreciation groups, film showings and exhibits of data…shall be sponsored and encouraged…close contact and cooperation shall be maintained with schools, museums, community centers and research institutes, etc….professional personnel of libraries shall be called librarians and assistant librarians.
And that’s only part of Chapter 1! There is no comparison to this in U.S. law. The legislation, which passed the U.S. Congress in April 1800 (see page 56), only mentioned that the purchase of books “as may be necessary for the use of Congress at the said city of Washington, and for fitting up a suitable apartment for containing them and for placing them therein, the sum of five thousand dollars shall be…appropriated.” That same law went onto say that a library catalogue shall be furnished by a joint congressional committee, with books “placed in one suitable apartment in the capitol in the said city, for the use of both…houses of Congress and the members thereof”. That is it. It wasn’t until 1802 that a law defined the functions and role of this library, the Library of Congress (LOC), and even made the appointment of the Librarian of Congress a “presidential responsibility”! Still, this was nothing like the Library Law in Japan, which was much more extensive.
Such a law in the U.S, would be unthinkable, even at this current time, despite the fact it could have extreme value in ensuring the institution’s mission and objectives. On the other hand, LOC has broadly defined that on its own, and has a bit of autonomy, as it is only the de facto national library. This makes it different from the many across the world, coupled with any state-established libraries serving as preeminent information repositories for specific regions.
When I watched Whisper of the Heart on Max, with my mom and dad, I never expected libraries to be as big of a part of the film from the get-go. I am truly grateful that I came across this film, and would surely watch it again if I get a chance. That;s all for this post. Until next week! As always, comments are welcome.
Shizuku looks at library slips and finding out some man checked the SAME book out before her© 2023-2024 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.
Notes
[1] Since then, I’ve written about (I don’t recommend you watch all of these, though, and some of the following I would not watch again) over 80 anime series: Revolutionary Girl Utena, Wandering Son, Ice, Kuttsukiboshi, Paradise Kiss, Macross Frontier, Classroom of the Elite, Gargantia, Kandagawa Jet Girls, El-Hazard, Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, Ascendance of a Bookworm, R.O.D. the TV, B Gata H Kei, Bloom Into You, Little Witch Academia, Yamibou, Whispered Words, Aoi Hana / Sweet Blue Flowers, Strawberry Panic!, My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, Manaria Friends, Kampfer, Lapis Re:Lights, Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, Blue Drop, The Mystic Archives of Dantalian, Cardcaptor Sakura, Venus vs. Virus, Otherside Picnic, My-Hime, Simoun, Riddle Story of Devil, Ms. Vampire who lives in my neighborhood, Dear Brother, Library War, Girl Friend Beta, Kokoro Library, Attack on Titan, Let’s Make a Mug Too, Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra, Bernard-jou Iwaku a.k.a. Miss Bernard said, Komi Can’t Communicate, The Ancient Magus Bride: Those Awaiting a Star, Gosick, Laid-Back Camp, As Miss Beelzebub Likes, Bibliophile Princess, Love Live! Sunshine!!, Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie, My Roommate is a Cat, Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, Kin-iro Mosaic, Akebi’s Sailor Uniform, Makura no Danshi, Azumanga Daioh, Oresuki, Seitokai Yakuindomo, Gabriel DropOut, Spy x Family, A Couple of Cuckoos, Märchen Mädchen, Healer Girl, Smile of the Arsnotoria the Animation, Smile Pretty Cure!/Glitter Force, A Good Librarian Like a Good Shepard, A Place Further Than The Universe, Teasing Master Takagi-san, Myself ; Yourself, Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War, Stars Align, Tokyo Mew Mew New, Skip and Loafer, Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible, Violet Evergarden, Somali and the Forest Spirit, Aharen-San wa Hakarenai, Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, Chitose Got You, Clannad, Cue!, Encouragement to Climb: Next Summit, Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro, Gabriel Drop Out, Kin-iro Mosaic, K-On!, Noir, Otherside Picnic, The Rising of the Shield Hero, and Re:Zero, and four films: I Want To Eat Your Pancreas, Calamity of a Zombie Girl, Your Name, and Josee, the Tiger and the Fish. Later posts this year will focus on series such as Ouran High School Host Club, Is the Order a Rabbit?, Kiss Him, Not Me, The Demon Girl Next Door, The Executioner and Her Way of Life, YuruYuri, Library War, Maria Watches Over Us, Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka, and Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu (Haruka Nogizaka’s Secret), to name a few.
[2] “Whisper of the Heart,” IFC Center, accessed Jun. 6, 2023; Russo, Lee. “How Whisper of the Heart Explores the Fear of Failure,” CBR, Jun. 13, 2020; Graeme. “The Best Films I’ve Ever Seen: Whisper of the Heart,” Film School Rejects, Jun. 15, 2018; “Whisper of the Heart,” Studio Ghibli, accessed Jun. 6, 2023; Faith. “Whisper of the Heart,” Studio Ghibli Movies, Nov. 28, 2014; Toole, Michael. “Whisper of the Heart Blu-Ray + DVD Review,” Anime News Network, Nov. 29, 2014; Osmond, Andrew. “Whisper of the Heart Review,” Anime News Network, Jan. 11, 2012; Mindus, Jay. “Why Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart Is the Perfect Movie for Young Artists,” CBR, May 12, 2022; “Whisper of the Heart (Mimi wo sumaseba),” Harvard Film Archive, accessed Jun. 6, 2023; Cyrenne, Randall. “Whisper Of The Heart,” Animated Views, Mar. 7, 2006.
[3] Alix, Francis A. “The History and Current Challenges of Libraries in Japan,” SLIS Connectings 10(1): 10.
[4] Graeme, “The Best Films I’ve Ever Seen: Whisper of the Heart,” 2018; Toole, “Whisper of the Heart Blu-Ray + DVD Review,” 2014; Osmond, “Whisper of the Heart Review,” 2012; “Tracing Shizuku’s Steps: Visit ‘Whisper of the Heart’ Locations in Real Life,” tsunagu Japan, accessed Jun. 7, 2023; “Visiting ‘Whisper of the Heart’ Movie Location,” justa-fangirl, 2014.
[5] “Whisper of the Heart,” Ghibli Wiki, accessed Jun. 7, 2023; Cyrenne, “Whisper Of The Heart,” 2006; “Whisper of the Heart (Mimi wo sumaseba,” Harvard Film Archive; Mindus, “Why Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart Is the Perfect Movie for Young Artists,” 2022; Pineda, Rafael Antonio. “Live-Action Whisper of the Heart Sequel Film Delayed Due to COVID-19,” Anime News Network, Apr. 20, 2020. The live-action sequel, also named Whisper of the Heart came out in October 2022 in Japan, but it was received badly if the reviews from Japan Times and Crunchyroll listed on the “Whisper of the Heart (2022 film)” Wikipedia page are any indication. Apparently, there is even a library scene in the film. I haven’t watched the film, so I can’t confirm that completely, however.
[6] Brooks, Katherine. “There’s A Japanese Word For People Who Buy More Books Than They Can Actually Read,” HuffPost, Apr. 19, 2017; Tobar, Hector, “Are you a book hoarder? There’s a word for that,” Los Angeles Times, Jul. 24, 2014; “Tsundoku: The art of buying books and never reading them,” BBC News, Jul. 29, 2018; Crow, Jonathan. “‘Tsundoku,’ the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves, Should Enter the English Language,” Open Culture, Jul. 24, 2014; “A QUOTE ON BIBLIOMANIA,” Language Hat, Feb. 7, 2008; Popova, Maria. “Umberto Eco’s Antilibrary: Why Unread Books Are More Valuable to Our Lives than Read Ones,” The Marginalian, Mar. 24, 2015; Stillman, Jessica. “Why You Should Surround Yourself With More Books Than You’ll Ever Have Time to Read,” Inc., Dec. 5, 2017; McDonough, Lauren Smith. “Everyone Is Obsessed With the Trend of Antilibraries Right Now,” House Beautiful, Dec. 19, 2017; Boyd, Rebecca Lowry. “The book trend everyone is talking about right now,” Better Homes & Gardens, accessed Jun. 27, 2023.
#AllThePresidentSMen #AnimeNewsNetwork #antilibrary #AscendanceOfABookworm #barcodes #BibliophilePrincess #bibliophilia #BlackLibrarians #BlackWomen #BluRays #books #booksAreNotSacred #ethics #femaleLibrarians #IWantToEatYourPancreas #JapaneseLibrarians #JapaneseMen #JapanesePatrons #JoseeTheTigerAndTheFish #KOn #libraryCards #librarySlips #magic #NationalDietLibrary #NavyBluesFilm #RODTheTV #ReadOrDieLightNovels #ReadOrDieManga #ReadOrDieOVA #ReadOrDream #readerConfidentiality #ReelLibrarians #SeitokaiYakuindomo #Simoun #students #studying #teachers #TheCatReturns #tsundoku #WhisperOfTheHeart #WhiteLibrarians #WhiteWomen
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My Eureka collection has expanded ❤️
I think this is most of the movies I've had on my wish list, and almost all of the German expressionism ones (besides the last Dr. Mabuse).
So excited to watch even more early movie history 📽️#MovieCollection #Eureka #Blurays #MovieClassics #FilmHistory #Criterion #MastersOfCinema #MovieCollector
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My Eureka collection has expanded ❤️
I think this is most of the movies I've had on my wish list, and almost all of the German expressionism ones (besides the last Dr. Mabuse).
So excited to watch even more early movie history 📽️#MovieCollection #Eureka #Blurays #MovieClassics #FilmHistory #Criterion #MastersOfCinema #MovieCollector
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My Eureka collection has expanded ❤️
I think this is most of the movies I've had on my wish list, and almost all of the German expressionism ones (besides the last Dr. Mabuse).
So excited to watch even more early movie history 📽️#MovieCollection #Eureka #Blurays #MovieClassics #FilmHistory #Criterion #MastersOfCinema #MovieCollector
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My Eureka collection has expanded ❤️
I think this is most of the movies I've had on my wish list, and almost all of the German expressionism ones (besides the last Dr. Mabuse).
So excited to watch even more early movie history 📽️#MovieCollection #Eureka #Blurays #MovieClassics #FilmHistory #Criterion #MastersOfCinema #MovieCollector
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My Eureka collection has expanded ❤️
I think this is most of the movies I've had on my wish list, and almost all of the German expressionism ones (besides the last Dr. Mabuse).
So excited to watch even more early movie history 📽️#MovieCollection #Eureka #Blurays #MovieClassics #FilmHistory #Criterion #MastersOfCinema #MovieCollector
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Later than usual, but more movie-centric than last week, it's the YouTube video of the week 🙂
#YouTube #podcast #podcaster #LikeAndSubscribe #PleaseAndThankYou #oscars #ThirdWindowFilms #CinemaRoom #cinemastodon #filmastodon #mastomovies #cinema #film #movies #blurays #MovieCollection
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Shop for available #DVDs, #Blurays and #Streaming videos featured in this week's #TVByTheDecade!
#television #Amazon #iTunes #Vudu
https://www.hotchkaplus.com/2023/02/tv-by-the-decade-234-shop.html
