A Silent Voice

Plot

In sixth grade, Shoya Ishida leads the class in bullying Shouko Nishimiya, a prelingually deaf classmate who is new to the school. When Shoya's actions are finally condemned by the principal, all of his friends and teachers turn against him, socially isolating him well into high school to the point that he eventually considers suicide, which he believes would absolve him of his bad deeds. He was going to kill himself on April 15 but stopped since he swore not to. Shoya tried to end it all to make himself feel better thinking it wouldn’t affect the people around him. But did it? To make amends, he reunites with Shouko, who is still lonely due to her shyness. Realizing that both are …

Manga

A Silent Voice began as a manga written and illustrated by Yoshitoki Ōima and was originally published as a one-shot in the February 2011 issue of Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine. It was later turned into a full manga series and began serialization in the combined 36-37th issue of Weekly Shōnen Magazine, released on August 7, 2013, and ended its run on the 51st issue of the magazine on November 19, 2014. The series was compiled in seven tankōbon volumes which were published by Kodansha in Japan between November 15, 2013, and December 17, 2014. Kodansha USA licensed the series for an English release in North America with the first volume being released in Q2 2015 and with subsequent volum…

Film

The final chapter of the manga, published in the 51st issue of Weekly Shōnen Magazine in 2014, announced that an anime project for the series was in its planning stages. The seventh volume of the manga revealed that the project would be a theatrical film. It was later revealed in early October 2015 that Kyoto Animation would be producing an anime film based on the series, directed by Naoko Yamada and distributed by Shochiku. It was announced on the adaptation's official website that Reiko Yoshida is writing the film's scripts, Futoshi Nishiya is designing the characters. The film was released in Japan on September 17, 2016.

The English language adaptation features a deaf voice act…

Reception

The first tankobon volume sold 31,714 copies within the first week of release, ranking number 19 on the Oricon manga chart. Its second volume ranked 12 selling 60,975 in its first week. As of March 2014, the tankobon volumes sold 700,000 copies in Japan. In France, A Silent Voice sold 131,000 copies in 2015 and 85,000 copies in 2016, adding up to 216,000 copies sold in France as of 2016.

Awards and nominations

A Silent Voice received an award for "Best Rookie Manga" in 2008. The vector of the content made it difficult for publication on any manga magazine until it was picked up after months of legal dispute by the February edition of Bessatsu Shounen Magazine, where it won f…