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A Silent Voice Anime Film Sells 1 Million Tickets for 1.3 Billion Yen

Kyoto Animation's anime film of Yoshitoki Ōima's A Silent Voice (Koe no Katachi) manga has earned over 1.3 billion yen (about US$12.7 million) and sold 1 million tickets. The film ranked #3 in the Japanese box office in its third weekend.

The "Eiga 'Koe no Katachi' Special Book," which contains a new chapter of the manga for filmgoers, will have a second distribution run at screenings from October 8 to 14. Ōima drew the manga, and it portrays a story not in the original manga nor in the film. The manga goes deeper into Shoko's family life, and her mother and grandmother appear in the story. Theaters originally gave the Special Book to filmgoers during the movie's first two weeks of release.

The film opened on September 17 on 120 screens and ranked #2 at box offices in Japan. The film earned 283,000,000 yen (about US$2.8 million) and sold 200,000 tickets in its first two days. By comparison, Kyoto Animation's 2011 K-ON! film earned 316,310,000 yen in its first two days on 137 screens.

Starting last Saturday, people who see the film have been receiving a 35-millimeter four-frame film strip from the movie at participating theaters, while supplies last.

The film's cast includes:

Miyu Irino as Shōya Ishida
Saori Hayami as Shōko Nishimiya
Aoi Yūki as Yuzuru Nishiya
Kenshō Ono as Tomohiro Nagatsu
Yuki Kaneko as Naoka Ueno
Yui Ishikawa as Miyoko Sahara
Megumi Han as Miki Kawai
Toshiyuki Toyonaga as Toshi Mashibasa
Mayu Matsuoka as Shōya Ishida as an elementary school student

Naoko Yamada (Tamako Market, Tamako Love Story, K-ON's two anime seasons and anime film) directed the film at Kyoto Animation. Reiko Yoshida (Non Non Biyori, K-ON!, Yowamushi Pedal) wrote the script, and Futoshi Nishiya (Free!, Hyōka, Nichijō) designed the characters for animation. kensuke ushio (Space Dandy, Ping Pong) composed the music at Pony Canyon. AIKO performed the film's theme song "Ai wo Shita no wa" (Loving Is). Shochiku is distributing the film.

Crunchyroll describes the original manga's story:

I wish we had never met. I wish we could meet once again.
A boy who can hear, Shoya Ishida, and a transfer student who can't, Shoko Nishimiya. One fateful day, the two meet, and Shoya leads the class in bullying Shoko. But before long, the class shifts its target from Shoko to Shoya. Years later, Shoya feels strongly that he must see Shoko once again.

Source: MoCa News