Kimi no na wa and Koe no Katachi was shown around the same timing (about a month different?), and so there were many people who actually mistook Koe no Katachi as Kimi no na wa's 2nd season. So I thought I would do a little comparison of the two.
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Firstly, they are both made by very popular anime studios. CoMix Wave Flims (kimi no na wa's studio) is very famous for producing many breath taking movie animations like Kotoba no niwa, and Byousoku 5 cm (please do check them out if you haven't already watched them). They are usually known for their distinct art style with beautiful sceneries, and very touching story lines. They are also known for producing animation commercials. In this aspect, Kyoto Animation (Koe no Katachi's studio) is also very similar. However, unlike Kyoto Animation, CoMix Wave Flims do not produce animation series, and only limits to movies, short OVAs and single episodes.
Kyoto Animation is also known for their distinct art style, and recently, the realistically of their 'camera' work (which CoMix Wave Flims lacks in). Kyoto Animation is known for producing a lot of many popular anime series like Lucky Star, K-ON!, Hyouka, Kyoukai no Kanata, etc. Majority of their works were huge hits. Unlike CoMix Wave Flims, they do not have any specific set of types of works they produce, and range over comedy works like Nichijou, to mysteries like Hyouka, and action shows like Kyoukai no Kanata. Although Kyoto Animation focuses more on animation series, their movies are all very well received. Most of their movies are sequels to their animation series, but Koe no Katachi is a stand alone movie, which makes things a little different from their usual.
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While the two studios are known for their artistic backgrounds, and animation, the two are very different from each other. For me, CoMix has nicer backgrounds with more refined background effects and angles. However, if you are talking about more realistic-looking backgrounds (especially water effects), it's Kyoto Animation. There were times during the movie that I found myself staring at the background and wondering if it was real or not. Kyoto Animation also has a better animation of camera angles, and they add in scenes where the angles follow the character's line of sight, it gives it a very 3D effect.
CoMix makes backgrounds looking more towards the fantasy side, and focuses more on the beauty of the animation as a whole. You would wish backgrounds in the movies exist in real life. The animation of the mentor in Kimi no na wa was really beautiful and you could only wonder how is it possible to produce such backgrounds.
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The casting of the two movies are also different. In Kimi no na wa, most characters are not voice actors but actual actors. Although Taki's voice actor - Kamiki Ryunosuke - has voiced in many popular movies like Piano no Mori, Summer Wars, etc. Some regular voice actors were also included in the movie (Shimazaki Nobunaga, Aoi Yuki, Ishikawa Kaito, Hanazawa Kana), but didn't quite play a big role in it. Which kind of follows studio ghibli's style. They try their best not to find voice actors to act in movies because they feel that voice actor's voices are too nice, which makes it less natural than non-voice actors.
On the other hand, Koe no Katachi was made up of popular regular voice actors. Of course Koe no Katachi was a lot harder to act because Nishimiya is deaf and can't really speak properly.
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As to which one is more popular...
The number of tickets sold in the first 2 days of release is as follows:
1. Kimi no na wa - 800,000+ Tickets sold - 1.76 Billion yen Box-office
2. Koe no Katachi - 200,000+ Tickets sold - 283 Million yen Box-office
Although some argue that Koe no Katachi didn't screen in as many theaters as Kimi no na wa, it is true that Kimi no na wa was more well known by both anime-watchers and non-anime-watchers. There was many information and social media coverage for Kimi no na wa because many people where talking about how good Kimi no na wa was, and many went to watch it a few times. For Koe no Katachi, however, was very popular amoung the anime-watchers. Many, like me, have been eyeing the movie since the day the PV was released (and we had to wait for like a year).
Kimi no na wa had a story line that makes people excited, while Koe no Katachi touches your hearts deeply (although it leaves you with a very heavy heart). Which also explains why Kimi no na wa was more well spread than Koe no Katachi.
Kimi no na wa's story line was more light hearted, while Koe no Katachi was more mature and had very deep contents. So Kimi no na wa catered to a wider range of audiences, both young and older, while Koe no Katachi was best related to the people above 16 years old, and the duration of Koe no Katachi was long so people who don't like long stories would probably find Koe no Katachi hard to sit through.
But for anime-watchers, Koe no Katachi seems to be a lot more popular.
After watching both shows, I feel that at first I preferred Kimi no na wa. But after awhile, I feel that Koe no Katachi left a stronger impression as some goes by. I found myself thinking a lot about the plot lines and meanings behind the different scenes, while Kimi no na was was just a 'very nice and touching story'.
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Kimi no na wa won many many different awards, their voice actors even won awards in the annual voice actor awards.
Compared to Koe no Katachi who was overshadowed by the release of Kimi no na wa.
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In the end, different people have different impressions and opinions on the 2 animes. Although they maybe similar in terms of their outlook, but they are 2 very different works which are both very well-loved.
Which one was your favorite?
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