the m0vie blog

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney and with special guest Graham Day, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.

This year, we are proud to continue the tradition of Anime May, a fortnight looking at two of the animated Japanese films on the list. This year, we watched a double feature of Hayao Miyazaki’s Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta and Hauru no ugoku shiro. We’ll also be covering a bonus on a recent entry on the list next week, Naoko Yamada’s Koe no katachi.

This week, the third and final installment of this year’s Ani-May, Koe no katachi.

Teenager Shoya Ishida finds himself haunted by guilt over his merciless bullying of his deaf classmate Shoko Nishimiya six years earlier. Coming back from a suicide attempt, Shoyo makes an awkward attempt to reconnect and reconcile with Shoko, but are either of them prepared for the strong emotions that this reunion will provoke and the consequences that it will have for their friends and their families?

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Show notes:

• Recorded 11th May 2020.
• Anime May is an annual tradition on The 250, picking up from Anime April, with our anime experts Graham and Bríd Martin. This was Graham’s idea, and prompted in large part by our satisfaction with the episode that we recorded on Your Name. 2018’s installments were Isao Takahata’s Hotaru no haka and Hayao Miyazaki’s Tonari no Totoro. 2019’s installments were Hayao Miyazaki’s Kaze no tani no Naushika and Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s Akira.
• Note: Due to the COVID-19 situation, this episode was recorded remotely. We suspect, going forward that a lot of our episodes will be until the crisis resolves.
• Koe no katachi at The Internet Movie Database.
• Read Graham’s reviews at Scannain.
• Hear Graham on Speaking Geek.
• Read Graham’s guide to Irish Gaming at Gameir.
• Follow Graham on Twitter.
• Mike Baker at The New York Times on the resurgent threat posed by the giant Asian hornet (“murder hornet”), May 2020.
• Macaulay Culkin talks to Esquire about the adult life of a child movie star, February 2020.
• Kevin Burwick at MovieWeb on Macaulay Culkin’s second life on Red Letter Media, December 2018.
• Scott Johnson and Patrick Brzeski at The Hollywood Reporter discuss the horrific arson attack on Kyoto Animation, December 2019.
• Julia Jacobs at The New York Times reflects on the output from Kyoto Animation, July 2019.
• The Artifice celebrates “slice of life” anime as a genre, December 2017.
• Okamoto Takeshi discusses Kyoto Animation at Nippon, October 2019.
• Michael Moore at The Verge celebrates Kyoto Animation’s work on A Silent Voice, October 2017.
• Ollie Barder at Forbes celebrates Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, January 2020.
• Petrana Radulovic at Polygon celebrates the anime Fruits Basket, May 2020.
• Karen Ressler at Anime News Network discusses the box office battle between Your Name and A Silent Voice at the Japanese Box Office, September 2016.
• Nassrine Azimi at The New York Times on the culture of shame in Japan, June 2010.
• Sam Louie at Psychology Today on shame and honour in Asian cultures, June 2014.
• Callum Fox at Limping Chicken discusses A Silent Voice as an exploration of what it means to be deaf, October 2014.
• Casey Baseel at Japan Today on the international distribution of A Silent Voice, September 2017.
• The Japan Times on the aftermath of the horrific Kyoto Animation arson attack, July 2019.
• Ciara Kenny at The Irish Times explores Rene Duignan’s efforts to tackle the suicide rate in Japan, July 2013.
• The BBC reports on the high rates of teenage suicide in Japan, November 2018.
• Angely Mercado discusses the handling of mental illness in A Silent Voice at Anime Feminist, June 2018.
• Naoko Yamada talks to Picturehouse Blogs about working on A Silent Voice, March 2017.
• Sakuga Blog transcribes an interview with Naoko Yamada at the Glasgow Film Festival, February 2017.
• Jennifer Robertson at The Conversation on the history of androgyny in Japan, March 2017.
• Scott VonSchilling at The Anime Almanac discusses androgyny and genderbending in manga and anime, January 2008.
• Cailee Spaeny talks to Collider about playing a teenage boy on Devs, April 2020.
• Emily Rand offers the first of three posts looking at the flower language in A Silent Voice at Atelier Emily, May 2017.
• Emily Rand offers the second of three posts looking at the flower language in A Silent Voice at Atelier Emily, May 2017.
• Emily Rand offers the third of three posts looking at the flower language in A Silent Voice at Atelier Emily, May 2017.
• Dave Afshar at Culture Trip offers a brief introduction to the Japanese concept of “mono no aware”, May 2018.
• Follow The 250 on Twitter.
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• Listen to The 250 on Spotify.

Filed under: This Just In | Tagged: a silent voice, animated, bullying, culture, graham day, Guilt, japan, kyoto animation, mono no aware, podcast, regret, Shame, suicide |