A Really Good Movie!: A Silent Voice
Greetings, ladies and
gentlemen! Turns out I had some time on
my hands after all cause I’ve got a review for you this week. But this review is pretty special. The film I’ll be reviewing was one of the
most talked about anime films of 2017.
Plus given that it’s Autism Awareness Month and this film has
disabilities as a theme, it seemed pretty appropriate to talk about. Granted, autism is not the focus of the film,
but it talks about having a disability.
Anyways, let’s get into this week’s review on A Silent Voice.
The film opens with our main
character Shoya Ishida in what I could describe as a very unusual opening
scene. However, before we get to the
inevitable of what’s about to happen, we get a flashback of Ishida’s
childhood. As a boy, he was very
rambunctious and outgoing. However,
things changed for him in the sixth grade when a new student named Shoko
Nishimiya joined his class. However, the
class is shocked to learn that Nishimiya is deaf. Initially, there are no problems with her in
the classes, but it soon becomes apparent that students are becoming stressed
by her needs. Ishida responds to this by
starting to bully her. From making fun
of her speaking voice to teasing her with her own hearing aids, he manages to
make her school life miserable. However,
the bullying goes too far and is confronted by the principal about it. His friends quickly turn on him even though
they themselves were just as involved.
This results in Ishida being bullied by other students. He confronts Nishimiya about this and starts
a fight with her to vent his frustrations.
This ultimately results in Nishimiya being transferred to a different
school and Ishida to continually being bullied for the next few years. We then cut to the present day to learn that
Ishida has become a social outcast, often casting out many of his peers
(represented with animated X’s on their faces), and that he was in fact
planning to commit suicide in the film’s opening moments. It is also here when we see that Ishida has a
chance encounter with Nishimiya and tries to talk to her via sign
language. The conversation unfortunately
ends very awkwardly.
Later on, a classmate named
Tomohiro Nagatsuka befriends Ishida after he helped him from getting his bike
stolen. The two find each other to be
good companions, which helps him to get into the sign language center where he
last spoke with Nishimiya. Her younger
sister Yuzuru is very combative and refuses to let him see her, but eventually
the two meet on a bridge where the later feeds the koi fish in the river below
so they can talk. The two continue this
ritual for some time. However, this
seemingly ends after an incident at the bridge finds Ishida suspended from
school, thanks to Yuzuru who took a picture of it. After running away from home following a
fight with Nishimiya, Yuzuru is brought back to Ishida’s house to stay for the
night, only for her to leave in the middle of the night. Ishida walks her back home and confesses that
he regrets his bullying of Nishimiya as a child. Ishida later has an encounter with his friend
Naoka, who seems to pick up the bullying of Nishimiya where it left off in
elementary school. As their friendship
continues to bloom, Nishimiya tries to confess her love but it is mistranslated
because she says it rather than signs it.
To make up for the misunderstanding, Ishida invites her and all of his
friends, including old classmates Naoko and Kawai, to a local theme park. Things seem to go well until Yuzuru reveals a
secretly recorded video where Naoko corners Nishimiya and tells her she hates
Nishimiya and blames her for the shattered friendships between Ishida and his
childhood friends. Things only get worse
when Kawai brings up Ishida’s bullying back in elementary school. Eventually his new friendships come to blows
when he calls everyone out for their actions.
The only one to still remain a close friend to him is Nishimiya.
After the death of her grandmother,
Ishida tries to spend more time with her, knowing how much she blames herself
for the fallout of Ishida’s bullying.
However, one night while attending a festival, Nishimiya leaves
suddenly. Ishida follows her with the
excuse of getting Yuzuru’s camera.
Ishida makes a shocking discovery as he finds Nishimya about to take her
own life by jumping off the balcony of her family’s apartment. Ishida is able to save her, but falls off the
edge in the process and ends up in a coma. Nishimiya, during this time, admits her own
guilt and anxiety to Ishida’s friends hoping to make amends for the damage she
supposedly thinks she has caused. After
a dream in which Ishida dies, she rushes out to the bridge where she and Ishida
fed the koi fish, believing he is dead.
However, Ishida wakes from his coma and runs out of the hospital to find
her at the bridge. Ishida apologizes to
her, tells her to stop hating herself for what happened, admitting that he
himself once contemplated suicide, and openly tells her that he needs her to
help him live. Towards the film’s end,
Ishida attends his school’s festival where he makes amends with most of his
friends and learns that some of his old childhood friends actually helped
rescue him the night he fell. The film
ends with Ishida finally feeling like he can look people in the eye
(represented by the animated x’s on everyone’s face falling off) and with him
crying realizing he has found peace and redemption.
I’ll admit I’ve avoided this movie
on purpose for some time. Even though I
had some doubts, I watched it anyway.
And boy, am I glad I didn’t listen to those doubts! In the longest time ever, I give A Silent Voice a perftect 10 out of 10! Where do I begin with this? Well, let’s start with the very obvious theme
of disability. Deafness plays a huge
part of this movie. It helps establish
the use of sign language throughout the movie as well as bring out some very
true realities with inclusion and acceptance for the disabled. Nishimiya’s deafness causes some issues with
her fitting in and it clearly shows in the beginning there is some
misunderstandings and frustrations between Nishimiya and everyone involved. Mental health also plays a crucial role throughout
the film as it explores the psyches of Ishida and Nishimiya as they deal with
the past and their struggles. As someone
with a disability-or rather disorder- I can say that trying to fit in school,
work, and society as a whole is difficult.
You often feel that no one seems to understand or want to see your
perspective of things. And at times, it
can be very lonely and depressing trying to deal with that on your own. I can’t tell you how many nights I spent crying
cause I felt like I had to work harder
to prove that I could have a normal life because I thought that the rest of the
world thought that having Asperger’s Syndrome was some kind of stigma that kept
me from achieving that. This film
beautifully shows how the disabled person is not the one who needs to change,
but those who aren’t disabled that need to change their perception of how they
view the disabled person as a living, breathing, and thinking individual.
This film also shows how living in
the past can be just as depressing, but that there is a chance of redemption
waiting when you finally let the past go.
This was shown through Ishida and Nishimiya in how they dealt with the
trauma from their elementary school days.
And finally, there’s the one theme that I feel like no one really
mentions in this movie, and that’s the effects of bullying. This is probably the best anti-bullying film
I have ever seen! Bullying is a huge
theme in this film as it not only causes much of the drama in the film’s
beginning, but it also shows how it affects a person, particularly a
child. The more obvious of this is shown
with Ishida and Nishimiya. We see how
Ishida’s harassment causes Nishimiya to switch schools and how that affects her
later on at the film’s climax. We also
see what happens to Ishida after Nishimiya leaves. Ishida’s own bullying and harassment
afterwards molds him into a very depressed young man who becomes an outcast as
a result. This is espcieally apparent as
the beginning of the movie shows him attempting suicide and his attitude
towards his classmates. Another great
way the film plays with the bullying theme is how the events from the past can
turn someone into a bully. This was done
through Naoka. Frustrated with trying to
accommodate Nishimiya’s needs, she started to make fun of her. Eventually this behavior turned her into someone
who continually lives in the past and tries to bring it back. As a result, she lashes out at Nishimiya and
blames her for what happened, making her a bully in almost every sense of the
word. So yeah, this movie was that good.
Ok, if I really had to nitpick at
anything with this film, it would be this: why the heck was it not nominated
for an Oscar?! How did this get passed
over for Boss Baby?! I could make a whole discussion post as to why,
but this post has gone on long enough.
Plus, at least we can be thankful Boss
Baby didn’t win. Other than lack of
recognition with the Academy, this was absolutely flawless!
What more can I say about this
movie? It’s wonderful! It’s moving!
And it’s a beautiful film that shows that having a disability is by no
means a limiter. And that redemption can
be found in well, A Silent Voice! Well, that’s all that I have for this
week! Tune in this Thursday to check out
my first countdown of Autism Awareness with a list of my favorite non-anime TV
shows!
-Hanime
on Anime
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