The team behind the live-action sequel movie to Aoi Hiiragi’s Whisper of the Heart (Mimi o Sumaseba) manga has a new video up as of this past Saturday. The video examines the World Emporium movie set, an important location in the original story’s plot and an antique store:

The legendary Baron figurine is only one of the antiquities that are shown in the film. As the video’s Japanese subtitles imply, one might be able to hear the cello upstairs, exactly like in the earlier anime film, because of the background cello music.

The COVID-19 epidemic forced a postponement of the live-action movie’s scheduled October 14 debut from its initial September 18 debut date.

Shizuku Tsukishima is portrayed in the movie by Nana Seino (live-action Kyou Kara Ore Wa!!, After the Rain, Nowhere Girl, Tokyo Tribe films, left in the image above), and Seiji Amasawa is portrayed by Tori Matsuzaka (Hello World, Himitsu – Top Secret,.hack/The Movie, Gatchaman, Ky, Koi o Hajimemasu, Samurai Senta Shizuku and Seiji are portrayed by Runa Yasuhara and Tsubasa Nakagawa, respectively, as they were in middle school.

Shizuku’s childhood buddy and baseball team member Tatsuya Sugimura, played by Yuki Yamada, had feelings for Shizuku.

Played by Rio Uchida, Yko Harada is Shizuku’s closest friend and the middle schooler who had emotions for Sugimura.

As Sugimura and Yko, Towa Araki and Sara Sumitomo portray them in middle school:

Sony Pictures Entertainment and Shochiku will distribute the film, which is being directed by Yichir Hirakawa (live-action The Promised Neverland, ERASED/Boku dake ga Inai Machi, Waiting for Spring, Rookies, and JIN projects). The theme music for the movie is a cover version of “Tsubasa o Kudasai,” a well-known folk song by Michio Yamagami.

Ten years after the events of the original manga, the new movie’s plot takes place. Shizuku, now 24 years old, has given up on her ambition of becoming an author but still puts in a lot of effort every day to sell books as a children’s book editor at a publishing house. Even as the distance between Seiji and Shizuku widens, he continues to pursue his ambition of living overseas.

Yoshifumi Kond and Studio Ghibli’s 1995 animated picture was based on the original manga. Shizuku, a junior high school bookworm, meets Seiji Amasawa, the grandson of the owner of the mysterious antique business, by coincidence. The two meet throughout the course of the narrative. Seiji, a beginner violin maker, has also caught Shizuku’s interest since she’s been observing for a while that his name appears on the checkout cards of the books she takes out from the library. Shizuku is motivated to follow her ambition of becoming a novelist by Seiji’s love of manufacturing violins.

The comic was released in 1989 by Hiiragi for Shueisha’s shjo manga publication Ribon. In 1995, Hiiragi released the manga Mimi o Sumaseba: Shiawase na Jikan as a follow-up, and in 2002, he released Baron: The Cat Returns as a spin-off. Baron: The Cat Returns was released in English by Viz Media. The 2002 film The Cat Returns by Hiroyuki Morita and Studio Ghibli was inspired by the comic.