Whisper of the Heart -- Country Roads [Japanese Full Version]

Whisper of the Heart -- Country Roads [Japanese Full Version]

What: Song
Movie: Whisper of the Heart
By: Studio Ghibli -- Hayao Miyazaki
Genre: Anime
Type: Slice of life, comedy, romance, first love
Based on the Japanese manga by Aoi Hiiragi

I've recently watched a very dear and great anime movie after many years since I first saw it, and I noticed for the first time the powerful song that ties together the story (it is a song that plays as the movie starts, and ends. It also plays in one of the important scenes in the movie). I watched the original dub version in english, but the end of the movie kept the japanese version of the song. After listening to it I felt so inspired and happy that I looked it up on Youtube to find the original, full japanese version of the song. I found it, and I've been listening to it many times over. You have to watch the movie either in dubs/subs before you can fully understand the story behind the song, but if anyone knows of a singer named 'John Denver', he is the original person that wrote this song from America. The reason his song is in a japanese movie is because he went over to Japan for some time during his singing career and sang this song back during the times of WWII or just after it I believe. It was sucha heart-warming and moving song that reached out to many people, that it became a sort of 'american' hit in Japan, which led to people using it in movies such as the anime, Whisper of the Heart.