After reading the manga, I decided to give the movie a chance. If you wish to hear my thoughts on the choices the producers made to keep some things out of the movie, I'm adding an extra paragraph to this review at the end. For the review though I'm not going to compare the two, because there are some differences... So I'm going to review the movie as though I didn't read any material beforehand.
The story is good and endearing. Did it make me cry? Yeah, I dropped some tears towards the end. Could they have made some of the scenes shorter/more impactful? Yes. The content was good though. My only gripe is the lack of romance. There were a couple of times near the end where I thought "this is it" and it never happened.
The art is outsanding. Animated by Kyoto Animation, there was fantastic art and animation in this movie.
Sound was also great. Soundtrack was good, special fx were synced, and even the opening song choice was perfect.
The characters were almost perfect. Some people didn't like the characters, but I believe that the "mean" ones were like that on purpose, and that some people don't change. I really liked that actually. It makes the story much more realistic. Believe it or not, the only reason it's not a 10/10 for characters is Shoko herself. Even though she's bullied, she has to have a breaking point. There were a few times where she reacts or says something and you sorta squint and don't believe that that's how someone would react to a difficult situation like that.
It is an enjoyable movie, but I gave it a 7 because of a sort of lack luster ending.
Overall the movie was great. It did justice to the book I believe. I understand the producers had to cut out some major side plots, and actually 70% of the book is an inner monologue from Shoya, but having monologues in a movie is difficult to have. My only issue that could have been put into the movie is how mean Shoya was as a child. He was a real bully. I mean REALLY harsh. Way worse than what they made him seem in the film. Also the ending isn't even the ending in the book, there are a few chapters after that go a bit further than after the festival, but I thought it was an appropriate ending to the movie because the ending to the manga was a bigger let down.