When someone asks for an Anime movie recommendation, the top three recommendations I see are: (1) Anything by Ghibli (2) Your Name (3) A Silent Voice.
I watched some Ghibli moves but I haven't watched Your Name yet. The movie I watched and keep coming back to is A Silent Voice movie! It's a story of redemption and self-acceptance that I think everyone should watch at least once in their life!
While I will describe the story below, I think it's best if you go into it not knowing anything, what I would say is that it's very emotional and will make you tear up of happiness and sadness, at more than one point through the movie.
A Silent Voice is one of the most realistic anime movies ever & all characters in the movie are like people you must have met in your real life. I believe anyone would relate to at least one character of the main cast.
A Silent Voice is on Netflix if you have Subscription
The Story
The story follows Shouya Ishida. In grade school, he was a bully who constantly targeted Shouko Nishimiya, the deaf girl in his class that wasn't treated well even by his other classmates.
Now in High School, Shouya can't look at people's faces anymore. He plans to commit suicide, believing that there's no forgiveness for what he has done. Before he dies, however, he wanted to apologize to Shouko so he starts looking for her.
They meet again, and after learning how Shouya regrets what he had done, and learned Sign Language for her, she forgives him. So, their story of redemption and learning to accept oneself begins.
The movie poster in Japan...
What sells the story though is not its premise, but the characters and how well their development is executed! All of them, even supporting characters are all multi-layered and feel human, which lets the emotional parts of the story hit harder.
I've got to mention Some of them didn't have time to be fleshed out in the movie version compared to the manga.
Why A Silent Voice is a Great Entry Point to Anime?
The movie has everything you need to know about anime to start watching longer shows.
- It's short: Only 2 hours long, and offers a complete experience.
- Great art direction: The art itself looks like any normal slice-of-life anime would look like but the great animation, use of colors & captivating backgrounds (based on real-life locations,) make A Silent Voice a joy to look at.
- It doesn't have a lot of anime tropes: Some anime expects you to be familiar with anime tropes. You can understand this movie without knowing any. Though some understanding of the Japanese society works could help.
- Relatable characters: A strong point of anime stories is the reliability. A Silent Voice characters have real struggles.
- Emotional voice acting: That goes for all anime series in Japan, even if you don't understand the language you can feel the emotions just from the voices. (Not sure about the Dub, I didn't watch it.)
- The topic matter is difficult: It's hard to make a live-action movie about this since children are involved. The story is showcased in a beautiful way that people of all ages can learn and understand. (I don't recommend this to children though, the topic is difficult.)
The movie also depicts people with psychological disorders very realistically, which is rare for anime. As someone who has some social anxiety, I can tell you it's depicted surprisingly accurately with one of the characters in this movie!
Shouya & Shouko as children
Some Nice Things to Know
- The Japanese title Koe no Katachi means: The Shape of Voice.
- Because of the sensitive topic matter of the story, the author of the Manga struggled to get it published.
- The Movie adapts most of the Manga story (7 Volumes/62 Chapters) into a two hour animated film. Many things were left-out but the result is still nice. As good as the Manga or better in my opinion.
- If you watched the movie and loved Mashiba, YOU MUST READ THE MANGA! His character arc isn't adapted in the movie version.