Notice of Re-Examination

(Originally Workshopped: 12/25)

• — — — — — — — — — — — — -+ — — — — — — — + — — — — — — —-+ | Name: Lily Meline | Date: 12/08/25 | Gender: Man, I don’t know. |
• — — — — — — — — — — — — -+ — — — —— — — + — -— — — — — — -+ | Examined Films: Whisper of the Heart (1995) & The Graduate (1967) + — — — — — — — — — — — — -+ — — — — — — — — + — — — — — —-+

Chief Concern:

So, it’s my last semester of college, right? And I’m really stressed about having to enter the job market and possibly move my girlfriend across states and plan what I want the rest of my life to look like and all that jazz. During times of stress, I’ve always been able to turn to fictional characters that, in some way, relate to me or my experiences. In my last semester of high school, two of these characters were Shizuku Tsukishima from Whisper of the Heart and Benjamin Braddock from The Graduate, mainly because they were also both experiencing transitional periods based on graduations. Now that I’ve reached my next big graduation… I don’t know. Which character should I rely on more: Shizuku or Benjamin?

Pre-Existing Ailments:

• ADHD, which I blame both for its impact on my general lack of motivation as well as how much I latch onto and hyperfixate over certain pieces of media. So, if I didn’t have ADHD, I’d be a more efficient writer, but I wouldn’t be crazy enough about movies to write a whole-ass essay about two movies that I first saw three-and-a-half years ago.
• Anxiety, albeit anxiety that’s been nullified by Lexapro since I’ve been in college. It’s nice not being as stressed about things like deadlines and my worth as a human being, but it also means that I don’t care about big life decisions that I reasonably should.

School History:

My final semester of high school was pretty shitty, all things considered. I had no friends, I hated all of my classes, and my mom was threatening to give away everything I owned that I wasn’t bringing to college. A college, mind you, where I knew absolutely nobody going in.

During this semester, I watched a lot of movies and TV, hoping to grasp onto anything that might help me feel less alone. On a cold, snowy February night, I found a sense of contentment watching Shizuku Tsukishima fall in love with writing, antique stores, geodes, and a cute violin carpenter. But just when I thought Whisper of the Heart was going to be another standard feel-good Ghibli flick, it hit me with personal dilemmas that I’d been purposefully neglecting. Is being a writer a worthwhile dream? What if your significant other is more equipped for the future than you are? How can you tell if your family secretly resents you or not? What really stood out to me, when I was all huddled in front of my dad’s 30” flatscreen, was that none of these questions were answered by the end of the film, and yet Shizuku ended up happy anyway. She didn’t have all the answers yet, but she was sure she would someday.

I watched The Graduate a couple months later with my dad. While he was busy ogling Anne Bancroft, my mind affixed on certain images: Benjamin lazily laying in the pool, Benjamin angrily hopping into bed with Mrs. Robinson, Benjamin sweatily banging on the glass of the church windows… The film does technically have a plot, that being Benjamin Braddock entering and ending an affair with his crush’s mother while doing whatever he can to win over said crush. For the next three years, though, the film would appear in my memory as images accompanied by Simon & Garfunkel songs and an acute sense of dissatisfaction. Many of the same doubts and concerns that haunt Shizuku’s narrative are present in Benjamin’s and amplified tenfold, for while Shizuku still had all of high school and possibly secondary school to figure herself out, Benjamin was a college graduate with zero job prospects. The film induced a sense of dread as I saw my own insecurities for the future reflected back to me from the old Vizio TV set.

I found a lot of comfort in Whisper of the Heart for its assurances that everything would eventually work itself out as long as I did what I loved. With The Graduate, I found a sick reassurance from being told the exact opposite, that going to college and becoming more “experienced” would not make me more confident about my future. I had nothing to look forward to after college except student loan debt and more depression.

Now, I’m in Benjamin’s shoes. I’m graduating early, I have no shot at getting a job within the next year, and, while I’m not moving in with my parents, I might have to if I can’t decide where I’m living by the end of the summer. Early into the film, Benjamin tells Mr. Robinson that he’s “a little worried about his future.” It’s a bluff to explain away the nerves caused by Mrs. Robinson’s come-ons, yet it was still pertinent enough to be made into the movie’s main tagline. After all, even if he doesn’t seem all too worried about finding a job or a purpose in life, this feeling of meaninglessness is pervasive and engulfing. I’m a little worried about my future too, Ben.

Work History:

I’ve worked a few customer service jobs, but ideally a future full-time position would involve my passion for writing, thereby putting my English & Creative Writing degree to good use. Due to AI and the general shittiness of the current job market, I’m not terribly optimistic on that front.

That’s why Shizuku’s story resonates with me so much. She realizes that she’s good at writing, and that it’s all she really has going for her, but it’s not a skill with clearly attainable prospects like, say, a violin carpenter. She pushes through her doubt, though, and ends up writing a full goddamn novel in the span of two months, just to prove that she can achieve something worthwhile if she tries hard enough.

This last bit is where she loses me. Don’t get me wrong, if I could, I would pull a Shizuku and ignore all of my responsibilities in order to crack down and write some damn books. Alas, writing what I want requires outsourcing tasks from my crazed, mile-a-minute brain to my unresponsive, lazy body.

That’s why it’s so crazy to me that, despite how ADHD-adjacent Shizuku seems to be, she’s as accomplished as she is. Like, there’s a scene in the movie where she forgets to deliver lunch to her dad because she got distracted following a cat off a train, then has to run halfway across town. That doesn’t seem like the behavior of a girl that can buckle down and read twenty books over the summer or write a book in two months, yet here Shizuku is, making the lazy and annoying bitches of the world look bad.

In this sense, I relate a lot more to Benjamin, who can only ever commit to being a simp and a total bummer. His greatest accomplishment in the year following his graduation is breaking up a wedding and driving to his crush’s college so he can stalk her (yeah, parts of this movie don’t age well). He excelled in school, but when he leaves the comfortable bubble of school’s set deadlines and assignments, he has no ambition to actually do anything. The only thing I’m missing is a backyard pool to dramatically float in when I get really bored.

I don’t think Benjamin has ADHD necessarily, but a lot of his character flaws that I experience too, yet blame on being neurodivergent. He might be lazy, but I have executive dysfunction. He doesn’t know how to treat women well, but I just have social anxiety. When he listens to “Scarborough Fair” on repeat, it’s cringe, but when I do it, it’s cool as hell. If I relate too hard to him, I’ll have to accept that I’m just as awful as he is.

Relationship History:

There’s this line in the English dub of Whisper of the Heart that refuses to leave my head. See, Shizuku has this rivals-to-lovers subplot with a fellow student named Seiji. Seiji’s dream is to be a professional violin maker, so in order to hone his craft, he intends to spend ten years in Italy for a violin fellowship of some sort. He has this whole life for himself planned out, which not only bums out Shizuku because she doesn’t want him to leave, but also because she hadn’t even considered her life that far in advance. He has passion, goals, and a means to achieve them while she’s been too busy reading books and crying into bags of tortilla chips to think about her future beyond the next couple of weeks.

When she vents about her situation to her friend, her friend comments, “The two of you sound like the perfect match!”

Shizuku despondently replies, “No, he’s so much better than me.”

I realize this isn’t a unique sentiment, but something has always stuck out to me in her immediate refusal of personal value because she’s found someone she likes so much that, upon comparison, there’s no way for her to live up to his greatness. She doesn’t deserve him, what with his perfect hair and brilliant mind and cute laugh and strong arms and ability to cheer her up with dumbass Instagram Reels of babies in silly outfits and her nice tits and-

So, yeah, one way I can relate to both Shizuku and Benjamin now that I couldn’t back in 2022 is that I’m actually dating someone. Not only that, but she’s way out of my league. As she makes her way up the corporate ladder and takes on more adult responsibilities, I remain in arrested development, waiting for exterior forces to make my tough decisions for me.

She’s only read some of my writing, yet she loves to encourage me by saying I’ll one day “write the great American novel.” I’ll chuckle and agree with her only because I don’t have the heart to tell her that her faith is misjudged. I mean, come on, how the hell am I supposed to write the great American novel when I can barely write this without crying? She has a future, and I don’t. If she knows what’s good for her, she’ll find someone with a head on their shoulders and a five-year plan.

Benjamin Braddock’s age-appropriate love interest, Elaine Robinson, is also far more sure of herself than he is. Granted, she’s still in college, but she’s smart, nice, and she has enough confidence to call Benjamin out on his shit. Benjamin makes a lot of bad decisions in their relationship, and as nice as it is to see him find some semblance of support, at a certain point it starts to feel undeserved. And sure, I’ve never brought my girlfriend to a strip club on a first date or, you know, had sex with her mom, but I’ve made mistakes with her. How many more mistakes can I make before her love and patience becomes undeserved?

I find it ironic that both Whisper of the Heart and The Graduate end on fairly similar beats. Shizuku and Benjamin are reunited with their love interests, then throw caution to the wind, (possibly) sacrificing their futures in order to be together. Benjamin steals Elaine away from her wedding, hopping the first bus out of town. Seiji returns home early, and although his and Shizuku’s reunion is heartfelt and adorable, the elephant in the room is that he’ll either have to go back to Italy for the next ten years or give up on his dreams to be with her.

Seiji, in the last minutes of the film, asks Shizuku if she could see herself marrying him someday. I’ve always scoffed at this moment because for fuck’s sake, they’re only fifteen! I would also scoff when my girlfriend mused about our hypothetical future wedding when we first started dating, mainly because I couldn’t fathom ever having the money for one. We’ve been together long enough, though, that I do think I would marry her if I could.

The real reason why we can’t get married is because I’m afraid I’d be a Benjamin to her. Seiji and Shizuku share a love that makes them want to aspire to be better, but Elaine would undeniably be better off if Benjamin never re-entered her life. Their most iconic scene together is the long, awkward final shot of the two of them quickly coming to regret their choice to be together. I never want her to regret being with me, even though I know it’s inevitable.

Like Shizuku, I can see myself marrying her. Like Benjamin, it’d be better for her if I didn’t.

Life Goals:

This is a weird section to be here, right? Like, the rest of the shit I was filling out had to do with my behavior and shit, so I don’t know where you get off throwing me a curveball.

Haven’t I made it clear already that I have no fucking idea what I’m doing? Why not go ahead and ask “Are you scared of AI taking all the writing jobs?” or “Do you have a backup plan in case writing doesn’t work out?” while you’re at it?

That’s kind of the main appeal of Shizuku and Benjamin. Neither of them know what they want to do, so the audience feels less bad that they don’t either. They both end off in indecisive states, like the one that I’ve been in since I was ten.

Who cares that Benjamin and Elaine will likely break up, leaving Benjamin at a hopeless dead end? Who cares that Shizuku will likely have to go to high school alone and be separated from her new boyfriend for ten years?

We’ll never know how the lives of Shizuku and Benjamin progressed. As much as I’d like to believe that Shizuku grew up to be an established novelist and Benjamin found his calling as a poolboy or a hotel manager, the truth is that they’re characters trapped in time. While I grow older, they’ll never age. I’m already older than both of them are.

I used these characters as motivation for growing up and finding purpose at the tailend of high school, but once I figure out what I want to do with myself, I fear my connective tissue with them will be lost. They never had to decide on their future, but I will.

Assessment & Plan:

Lily Meline provided these responses to decide if, at this point in their life, it would be more beneficial to base their personality and life decisions around Shizuku Tsukishima or Benjamin Braddock. My professional opinion, upon thorough analysis of this data, is that, frankly, I don’t know if they should be using either character as a model for their life. Although Lily certainly shares beliefs and interests with both characters, there’s more evidence that suggests they are too old to be like Shizuku and too respectful towards women to be like Benjamin. It would be unrealistic for them to fully relate to a Japanese 15-year old with a thriving work ethic or a Californian man from the 1960s fucking his girlfriend’s mother.

Although connecting to fiction on a personal level can be beneficial in understanding the behavior of others, it can be troubling to use the situations and experiences of unreal people to justify unhealthy traits. Just because Shizuku got a full book written by bombing her grades and ruining her sleep schedule doesn’t necessarily mean doing so was worth it. In addition, the continuous failings of Benjamin Braddock should be taken as a cautionary tale, not an excuse for one’s own failings.

Maybe this is for the best, though. Shizuku and Benjamin suffer from youthful naivetë that, once a person becomes an adult, shouldn’t necessarily be idealized. As different as their presentations are, both films showcase dwindling childhoods that, to some extent, must be abandoned to become an adult. We’ll never know the kind of adults that Shizuku and Benjamin become after their respective films. What kind of adult, I wonder, will Lily Meline become?

With all of this being said, I do recommend that Lily keeps these films in their life going forward. As Maya Angelou once said, “You can’t really know where you are going until you know where you have been.” Lily will become a fundamentally different person as they grow older, but even if they one day look back at these movies and think, God, I hate that I acted like that, there will be small aspects of their being that will still relate to their struggles.

Shizuku will still be there as a beacon of what having motivation to write can accomplish, and Benjamin will be there in every moment of self-doubt. Hopefully, though, they’ll be able to find some adult characters to relate to as well.