Reviews Anime / ASilentVoice

Anime Well-made, but not for everyone

This review mainly covers the manga

School bullying is a sensitive topic, especially in a country like Japan, which tends to take a laissez-faire approach to it. A Silent Voice is a manga that tackles the subject in a surprisingly tasteful manner, but it's also not for the faint of heart or unforgiving.

The story is about a boy named Shoya Ishida, who bullied a deaf classmate named Shoko Nishimiya, resulting in the rest of the class joining in. After being scapegoated for the bullying, Shoya eventually sees the error of his ways, and, years later in high school, tries to make amends to Shoko.

I'd like to take a moment to ask the most obvious and important question- do you think that a long campaign of cruel bellying (to the point of the victim becoming suicidal) for no better reason than to relieve one's boredom makes a person irredeemable no matter how hard they try to change or make amends? If your answer is yes, this series is not for you.

Shoya's likeability or lack thereof aside, most of the rest of the cast is flawed, with most being well-intentioned but misguided at best and horribly cruel at worst. On the plus side, though, some initially unlikable characters can turn out to be more sympathetic, especially once you see things from their perspective, and/or undergo positive Character Development. This was true for me, and I personally hoped there had been more scenes from Shoko's POV (to be fair, a deaf girl's perspective is challenging to show).

The art is fairly good. The gimmick of X-ing out the faces of people Shoya hates can be a bit distracting at times, but it effectively shows his disdain and detachment from those individuals.

I haven't seen the movie, but from what I understand, the plot is mostly the same, albeit with some changes to how characters are portrayed and cutting out some scenes, including ending earlier than the manga did.

Without spoiling too much, the ending is a bit inconclusive, as while the characters have grown a fair amount, some plot threads are left hanging, such as the nature of Shoko and Shoya's relationship.

A Silent Voice is an important work that tackles the issue of bullying- particularly the disabled- in Japan (albeit with Values Dissonance), but while it's well-made, it's also not for those who can't sympathize with a repentant former bully or endure a great deal of angst. If you can, though, then by all means check it out.

Anime

Fan-flipping-tastic easily one of the most heartfelt and humanely beautiful animated films of this era. Although the manga is a bit better.