A Silent Voice (2106) anime
Eiga Koe no Katachi, also read as The Shape of Voice.
Kyoto Animation
| Directed by | Naoko Yamada |
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Usually, if I see an anime that is about 12 or 13 year old schoolkids, I immediately shut the damn thing off. Social awkwardness, coupled with such anime staples as bleeding noses, magic steam, and innuendo that has all the subtlety and grace of a Three Stooges short gets very old very quickly. There are exceptions, of course: Your Name, 5 CM per Second and Erased come to mind. But usually, 99 times in a hundred, they are boring, and dumb, and the poorly-written kids are excruciatingly lame in their awakening sexuality.
A Silent Voice is none of those things. It tackles squarely such issues as disability, bullying, and suicide. Other very real issues as social ostracization and family deaths are also integral to the plot, and how the characters react.
This is warm, intelligent, and deeply humane, a film in which the kids are people and not stereotypes, and the problems and anguish they experience is real, and not just for comedic effect. Real enough that my wife, who understands the difference between cartoon and real life, howled “no!!” when a scene showed one of the characters standing on a five-storey high balcony, preparing to jump. Yes, the characters are that well done.
It’s impossible to watch anything by Kyoto Animation without feeling a stone in the pit of your stomach over the horrific events of last July. A arsonist, Shinji Aoba, set fire to the building with some 70 people in there working. Thirty-six died, and another thirty-three were injured severely enough to require hospitalization. Yamada, who directed Silent Voice, was hospitalized with burns, but has recently been released. Shinji remains hospitalized in an ICU with flame damage to his throat and lungs. Police have issued a warrant for his arrest, but between the permanent nature of his injuries and his mental condition (he believed Kyoto Animation had plagiarized him through novels he never wrote), it’s unlikely he’ll face justice. Among the dead: legendary director Yasuhiro Takemoto.
This is a sophisticated, caring story, the children are real people with real problems and real resources in addressing those problems. A worthy example of Kyoto Animation’s work, it is one that should be near the top of your ‘to watch’ list.