Anime Column] 100 Anime to Watch by Keyword! 100 Anime Movies to Watch vol.11 "Form No Katachi" and more!

Drinking parties among anime fans tend to be a game of association. Whenever someone says, "XXX has XXX scene," someone else replies, "Speaking of XXX scene, don't forget XXX. Anime and animation are connected by invisible threads like this. Let's trace the "anime to watch" using keywords as clues.

Unamplified" is a film adaptation of Yoshitoki Ohimai's comic of the same title, directed by Naoko Yamada of "Tamako Love Story" fame.
The main character, Ishida Masaya, was bullied by a transfer student, Nishimiya Glass, in elementary school. Glass was deaf. He would laugh at the way she spoke, take away her hearing aid, and throw it away. No matter how much he bullied her, she never got angry with him, and he got frustrated and bullied her even more.
Naturally, the bullying became public knowledge. At that time, his friends, who were sympathetic to Shoya, took the attitude that only Shoya was to blame. And now Masaya is bullied by his friends. When he entered junior high school, the story was still brought up, and Masaya was isolated from everyone around him. After entering high school, Shoya decides to commit suicide, and finally visits a sign language club and meets Glass.
Shoya's decision to end it all opens the door to a new struggle.
How bullying robs people of their self-esteem. How will Shoya, who has experienced this firsthand, be able to regain his self-esteem through his reunion with Glass? And what kind of feelings does Glass herself have as she goes about her daily life? The film depicts this heavy story head-on and has been an exceptional hit, grossing over 2 billion yen at the box office.

The film's cinematographic effects, which look as if they were shot with a camera with a cheap lens, give the viewer the effect of stealing glimpses of Shoya and his friends as they worry and hurt each other. And then there is the "jumping off" action repeated at points in the story. It is an action to protect something important, and at the same time, it is a punishment to oneself. Furthermore, the underwater sound after jumping into the river is like jumping into a glass world where one cannot hear the sound well. These unique additions to the film are what make it so profound.

Glass uses sign language. The two signs that have great significance in the film are "friend," in which the left and right hands clasp each other, and "see you later," in which the right hand is held and the fingers are extended in the shape of choki (a Japanese chopstick) as the wrist of the right hand is turned back. Whenever these two sign languages appear, the audience is confronted with the weight and preciousness of their meanings.

Thus, the key word this time is "sign language.

Director Akitaro Daichi's "Mamemasu Iluka! is a film about elementary school students who run a handyman shop "Iluka-ya" in Shonan. The film was originally based on a manga that director Daichi wrote and produced independently. As is typical of director Daichi, it is a small film that makes you laugh at a good tempo and touches your heart.
There are three elementary school students at Ilkaya: Sora, Umi, and Aoi. Each of them has their own family circumstances, and they live apart from their parents as "sisters" (although this is not depicted in the animation). Sora, the second daughter, is the main character, boyish and energetic. Umi, the eldest, is a glamorous looking girl who takes on the job of a "breakup-maker. Heki is a smart and intelligent girl who can even analyze business management. This Heki is a character who is deaf and uses sign language.
The charm of "Let's Do It! is that the presence of Heki, who uses sign language, is portrayed as a matter of course. The dialogue is well done so that the viewer can watch the story without any problems, and the fact that the character is deaf and uses sign language is accepted as a natural part of the story.

The "handyman" in Kosuke's "GANGSTA." also has a character who uses sign language, Nicholas Brown, who was used during the war.
Nicholas is one of the "Twilights," a group of people who, under the influence of a special drug used during the war, have a short lifespan but high fighting ability. Twilights always lack something in return for their abilities, which in Nicholas' case is hearing.
The Tokyo Federation of the Deaf and the Hard of Hearing supervised the sign language for the anime adaptation, and Kenjiro Tsuda, who plays Nicholas, was interviewed by the Federation before acting in the way a deaf person would speak.

Lastly, I would like to introduce "Acorn House," which is usually difficult to see.
Based on Osamu Yamamoto's manga of the same title about a communal workshop for the deaf and hard of hearing. Deaf people with multiple disabilities are those who have both hearing and intellectual disabilities. Naturally, sign language scenes also appear in the film. This film was completed through grassroots cooperation of various people through independent production and screening, and only the VHS version has been released. Currently, the only way to view the film is to subscribe to a voluntary screening or find a VHS copy in the educational video section of a library or the like.
The film was produced by Asia Do, and the staff is magnificent. Yamamoto, who wrote the original story, served as general director and screenwriter, and Takashi "Semi Shigure" Anno directed the film. The storyboards are by Takashi Anno, Tsuneo Kobayashi, Takuya Sato, and Osamu Kobayashi, and the character designs are by Hideo Kawachi and Yoshiaki Yanagida. The original drawings are by Michiyo Sakurai, Shoetsu Hane, and Masaaki Yuasa.

Each of the four works depicted the subject of hearing impairment with their own approach. I think it would be good to see more works tackling this kind of subject matter, not limited to hearing impairment.

(Text by Ryota Fujitsu)
(C) Yoshitoki Ohimah, Kodansha / "Shōnokata the Movie" Production Committee