"A Silent Voice" and "Your Name" have one thing in common: both are gorgeous romantic movies with special twists that drive the plot into a unique and heartfelt direction. "A Silent Voice" by Naoko Yamada, tells the tale of a deaf girl named Shōko Nishimiya who suffered from excessive bullying in elementary school by a boy named Shōya Ishida who made Shōko transfer schools from the amount of trouble he brought on her. Many years later, Shōko is now tormented by his social anxiety and his guilt for his shenanigans in elementary school and is striving to make amends with Shōya.
At the beginning of "A Silent Voice," Shōko is portrayed as the school bully always picking on Shōya for being deaf and treating her unfairly, which results in a bandwagon of kids also picking on her. The movie tackles specific emotions and morals in the most heart-tugging ways, as the main characters go through severe waves of anxiety, self-blame, and empathy. Shōya may have started out as the bully but then goes on to develop his character into a more empathetic individual fighting for amends with Shōko and allowing himself to shed his social anxiety as he gets closer to Shōko. "A Silent Voice" also tackles the struggles of expression when deaf, as characters in the movie go through a series of empathetic moments to try and understand Shōko's struggle, especially with Shōya who walks the extra mile to try and win over Shōko no matter the circumstance. This movie embodies the essence of guilt and empathy with its struggles with social anxiety, conflict in expression, and being deaf and infatuated.
"Your Name" by Makoto Shinkai focuses on Taki Tachibana, a high school student living in Tokyo who works at a restaurant and aspires to be an architect and Mitsuha Miyamizu, a high school student living in a rural town known as Itomori with dreams to move to Tokyo. Taki and Mitsuha embark on a supernatural and magical quest to meet each other after they've been swapping bodies and living in each other's shoes randomly. It's like "Freaky Friday" except with a lot more romance, fantasy, gorgeous visuals, and mystery.
"Your Name" has a completely different plot and setting than "A Silent Voice," but still contains a meaningful twist that carries on till the end of the movie. Taki Tachibana and Mitsuha Miyamizu are two high school students from different cities who are magically switching bodies intermittently whenever they wake up. The story starts out as sort of a mystery, questioning why these two individuals are switching places and what the significance of becoming each other is, but it all plays out by the end of the movie. When Taki switches bodies with Mitsuha, he goes to her school and proceeds to take her out of her more reserved shell and makes her extremely popular in school. When Mitsuha switches bodies with Taki, she makes him be more intact with his emotions allowing him to have a more sensitive side and even be able to talk to girls more comfortably. The two characters communicate by leaving notes in one another's phone, or markings on their hand to keep communication whenever they switch. Although things start to shake once they realize there is more to playing each other's lifestyles, as they embark on a supernatural quest to meet each other through their body switching routine and unravel the mysteries behind the magic. This film may seem more on the fantasy scale, but it will tug your heart so hard, so get a tissue box ready.
Both of these movies are beautifully animated with amazing plots, filled with morals and genuine emotion between all the characters allowing the audience to relate and be able to empathize with them tremendously. It will have you so warm by the end, but it will also have your eyes dried out from the waterfall of tears these movies produce.
