A Silent Voice Anime’s Staff Poured Their Youth Into Making the Movie, KyoAni Director Reveals

Kyoto Animation director of photography Kazuya Takao looked back on the production of the anime film A Silent Voice during a commemorative stage greeting held at the Marunouchi Piccadilly Dolby Cinema in Tokyo on Nov. 8, 2026.

The event was held as a part of the movie’s 10th-anniversary theatrical re-release and first ever Dolby Cinema run.

Speaking at the greeting, Takao shared how the studio’s young staff members poured their youth and energy into creating the adaptation of Yoshitoki Oima’s manga under director Naoko Yamada.

“A Silent Voice is very much a film of youth for us on the Kyoto Animation staff,” Takao said.

“Looking back at that time, staff members who were still in their 20s and 30s worked with everything they had and clashed with one another to make it, so my heart swelled with emotion when I rewatched it. Everyone was truly fired up and wanted to make something genuinely good. I am really happy that it is being screened again for an occasion like this.”

Takao noted that the original team wanted to build a work that would reach audiences around the world, adding that he feels they succeeded in doing so.

At the stage greeting, Takao also recalled having differing opinions with Yamada on certain scenes and noted that those creative clashes produced strong results.

Additionally, talking about the behind the scenes stories from the movie, Takao revealed that animators initially struggled to capture the exact demeanor of protagonist Shoya Ishida, so the team recorded reference video of a staff member whose natural posture resembled Shoya’s, which guided various scenes of the character in the movie.

Takao also praised character designer Futoshi Nishiya’s work for not aging over the past decade.

Takao and Yamada both joined Kyoto Animation in 2004 and worked together on multiple anime series and films including Lucky Star, Nichijou, Free!, and Sound! Euphonium before collaborating on A Silent Voice.

The movie follows sixth-grader Shoya Ishida, who leads his elementary school class in bullying Shoko Nishimiya, a deaf transfer student. After Shoko transfers to another school, Shoya’s classmates and teacher make him the sole scapegoat, leaving him isolated through middle and high school until he contemplates taking his life, before he reunites with Shoko to make amends and rebuild their lost relationships alongside former classmates and new friends.

Originally released in Japan in 2016, the film opened in 120 theaters and earned 2.3 billion yen domestically and USD 30.8 million worldwide.

A Silent Voice movie’s Dolby release was spearheaded by sound director Yota Tsuruoka after he rewatched the 2016 5.1ch version in theaters and noticed the opening piano lacked back surround sound.

Believing the film should be preserved for its 15th and 20th anniversaries, Tsuruoka consulted with the production team, which led to the movie’s full Dolby Cinema and native Dolby Atmos remaster featuring sound effects by Hiromune Kurahashi and music mixing by Kenichi Furukawa.

Yoshitoki Oima first created A Silent Voice as an award-winning rookie work in 2008 and published it as a one-shot in the February 2011 issue of Kodansha’s Bessatsu Shonen Magazine with support from the Japanese Federation of the Deaf.

The manga was then serialized in Weekly Shonen Magazine from August 2013 to November 2014, with its chapters compiled into seven tankobon volumes with over 3 million copies in circulation.

Source: Comic Natalie