A Silent Voice returns to cinemas for its tenth anniversary

A Silent Voice is going back to the cinema for its tenth birthday. Kyoto Animation's 2016 film returns to Japanese screens from Friday 30 October 2026, and for the first time it will be presented in Dolby Cinema.

The film opened in Japan on 17 September 2016, so this is a genuine ten-year anniversary rather than a repertory booking, and the official site is marking it with a nationwide re-release and a stage greeting on the opening night.

The first Dolby Cinema screening, and the opening-night stage greeting

Dolby Cinema pairs high-dynamic-range Dolby Vision projection with Dolby Atmos object-based audio. Few major animated releases lean on that second half as heavily as this one, and the anniversary run will be the first time the film has been presented in the format.

The anniversary run begins on 30 October and the film's first Dolby Cinema presentation sits at the centre of it. The opening-night stage greeting takes place before the 18:30 screening at the Marunouchi Piccadilly Dolby Cinema auditorium in Yurakucho, Tokyo.

Miyu Irino and Saori Hayami, who voiced Shoya Ishida and Shoko Nishimiya, are currently listed to appear. The site notes that guests can change without notice.

Tickets, prices and how the ballot works

Every seat is reserved and priced at 3,200 yen including tax, with booking fees on top. Tickets are sold through Lawson Ticket under L code 36060, and the opening-night greeting is ballot-only.

The advance lottery opened on 17 September at 18:00 and runs until 4 October at 23:59. Results and ticket issuing begin on 17 October at 15:00, with payment accepted until 20 October at 23:59. Whatever is left goes on general sale from 21 October at 18:00 until 28 October at 23:59. There is a limit of two tickets per person, and the site warns that general-sale stock is finite.

The run is a Japanese theatrical event. The film's site points to a domestic cinema schedule for the screenings, and no international showings have been announced, so anyone outside Japan is waiting on a distributor rather than a ticket ballot.

What the film is, and who made it

The film adapts Yoshitoki Oima's manga, which ran in Weekly Shonen Magazine and collected a shelf of awards. It follows Shoya Ishida, a boy who bullies a deaf transfer student, Shoko Nishimiya, and then has to live with the damage he caused when they meet again years later.

Naoko Yamada directed, Reiko Yoshida wrote the screenplay, Futoshi Nishiya handled character design and Kyoto Animation produced, with a score by Kensuke Ushio and a theme song, "Koi o Shita no wa", by aiko. Shochiku is the distributor.

Ogaki gets its own anniversary event

The re-release is not the only anniversary project. The film's site has also announced a collaboration with Ogaki, the Gifu city that supplied the setting, running from 10 October 2026 to 9 January 2027, with further detail to follow.

Our opinion

A tenth-anniversary re-release is normally a commercial footnote, but the Dolby Cinema detail is what makes this one worth writing about. A Silent Voice is a film about sound as much as image, built on a girl who cannot hear and a boy who spends years learning to listen, so a format sold on audio fidelity is unusually well matched to the material rather than a random premium upsell.

The pricing is harder to love. 3,200 yen for a reserved seat sits well above a standard Japanese cinema ticket, and a two-and-a-half-week ballot for the opening night turns a celebration of a much-loved film into a lottery. Even so, ten years on, this is a film that deserves a room built for it, and a Dolby Cinema full of people who already know exactly what is coming is a good way to mark the decade.