A Silent Voice

THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN HEAVY SPOILERS, CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Introduction
When I first watched A Silent Voice, I was in a very dark place mentally, being a socially anxious teenage boy who worried a lot about things. I really felt like this film spoke to me. I love everything about it, the art is spectacular, the soundtrack is phenomenal, and the plot is near perfect, which is the aspect I will be mostly focusing on in this review. While I will try to keep the review concise, in my classic writing style, things tend to get lengthy and wordy. I hope you read through my thoughts and analysis of the best anime film I've ever seen.

Visuals
The visuals are outstanding. I feel I can pause at any moment and have a beautiful piece of art in front of me. The colours were absolutely amazing. Almost every scene popped with a beautiful vibrancy, but to contrast, the starting montage where Shouya is getting ready to kill himself, the colours look a lot more muted with shades of gray in the pallet. It was an amazing way to get into the world view that Shouya has at that moment. The overall drawing quality is fantastic as well. None of the character designs were compromised even during movement. The visual effects team also did an amazing job. While I can find blur quite distracting in other shows, this film knows how to use it. Despite it having a lot of it, I never found it distracting and thought it added a lot to the overall experience. While it is a character drama meaning it doesn’t really have many moments of intense movement which did allow them to focus more on raw image quality, I really loved the animation on Nagatsuka, who's more bubbly, comic relief personality was really aided in his additional animation, His hair often bounces with his movement, and he seems a lot more fluid with his motion compared to the rest of the cast, again in aid of him being a comic relief character.

Music
Kensuke Ushio is one of my favourite composers of all time, probably my second favourite in the anime industry, only beaten by Kevin Penkin, and this is easily his best work. The sparing instrumentation of the tracks, letting the sound of each note have its room to breathe to let the emotion of it aid the scene, focusing mainly on reversed synths and piano with a significant use of reverb and light piano presses on some tracks. I particularly love tre, Ivs, lit and (i can) say nothing, but honestly all the songs would be a standout track on any other piece of media. While the music is incredible, I need to also praise the willingness to not play a song and instead let silence be the soundtrack. It is aided by the sparing notes, almost having the soundtrack be a 2 hour piece of science interrupted by occasional notes punctuating what is happening on screen. I can gush about this for longer, but, again, the main focus of this review will be on the story and themes.

Bullying
The portrayal of bullying is second to none, even beating out March Comes In Like A Lion Season 2. Seeing Shouya act as a child really brought me back to that age. The way he talks, the way he is constantly seen jokingly picking on the 'fat friend' Keisuke, the way his playful teasing devolves into ruthless bullying. The way the teacher, who is clearly understanding and wishes to teat Shouko like he does the other children but does not really understand the bullying that is growing against her. They way all the other children begin to start saying things and avoiding her. The way her one friend, Sahara, begins to be ostracized along with her. Even the way the children react when they are caught bullying, a mix of awkwardness and growing condemnation from the rest of the class when things go too far. The over apologetics of Shouko despite her being a victim. I could go on forever. A lot of bullying stories typically have less than half of the authenticity of this, portraying it as a one-sided slaughter with an evil bully, in this example however, despite how obvious it is that Shouya is being horrible, I never felt hatred towards him. The humanity portrayed in the earlier arc of the narrative, and the rest of the story, really help push everyone above the peak of a standard anime character. Even when the bullying is flipped on him, all I felt is that it all needed to stop. I didn't feel as if anyone deserved what was happening to them.

Trauma
It's refreshing to see not just Shouko's trauma, but Shouya's too. Shouya's authentic reaction to seeing Shouka for the first time in years was brilliant. Seeing her switch from shock, to a fake smile, to anger, to eventually being so overwhelmed that she runs away. Without dialogue, we communicated the rollercoaster of emotions she is going through, a masterclass in writing. We obviously can't ignore Shouya's trauma either. The film opens with a montage of him going day by day, slowly ticking things off before he attempts to take his own life. I absolutely adore this portrayal of suicide. For someone who was once in this state, it was gut-wrenching to watch. A lot of media portrays suicide as a snap decision that people make in the moment, which certainly does happen, but what is less represented is the slower forms, where one has decided they will take their lives, marked the day, goes through everything they need to prepare, then finally doing it. Even the way he stops himself at the end, seeing people playing with fireworks, was brilliant. While it may seem silly to people who haven't experienced feelings like this before, it can be something as simple as seeing a person, noticing an animal, something slight that sets your mind off things. I don't wish to go through every scene but when Shouya's mother confronts him over breakfast, and I know I'm reiterating myself here, it felt so real. Not knowing the right place and time to talk about something like this, so casually bringing it up over a meal, felt very much like a family struggling to broach the topic of someone's suicide attempt.

Lots been said about the depiction of Shouya's social anxiety in the film, simply, it is brilliant. Not even acknowledging people's faces and blocking them out in his mind with a large X, unable to even acknowledge what they look like. Even the way the camera is framed in some dialogue scenes, with the shot of a person's face half cut off, even if they are being nice to him. The irrationality of social anxiety shining through. In class, he looks at people talking to each other and imagines them talking about him, and remembering his past. We even see some of his classmates try and get his attention to see something interesting, but because he doesn’t look at them, he never notices. It's absolutely astonishing, the level of detail here. Not only depicting what Shouya is thinking, but also how he is wrong, It's a very good message to people like him that people don't hate you, most people are actually quite kind. The way the cross on Nagatsuka's face fell off him when Shouya noticed him smiling at him is great, despite the audience seeing many people smiling at him, the situation forces Shouya to look him in the eyes and make him realise that he doesn’t hate him. Sometimes, just something as small as making eye contact with someone is enough to break the cycle. There are a million examples I can point to with little subtle things that show a deep understanding from the author and director, but if that was the case, I don't think Anilist would let me upload a review that long.

An aspect I feel doesn’t get discussed as much as it should is how Shouko acts. Much like all the quirky alt girls, she's not like the others. She acts weird to people, when she tries to confess to Shouya, she gives him a silly gift, can't read the situation and pushes herself when she doesn’t need to. Not to say that this means she is a poorly written character, It's incredible attention to detail. A girl, bullied into social isolation, will naturally find herself not knowing how to socialise as well as others. She doesn't realise that Shouya tried to ask for her number, she seems to just let Ueno begin to bully her again because she wants to be friends. It's another bit of beautiful nuance that is a part of this move.

Characters and Coping
I could ramble on for paragraphs about the depth of these characters, but in order to keep this somewhat concise, I'll go over what I think is the most interesting aspect of them, the way they cope with what's happened. Ueno represents not letting go. The first thing she does when she properly speaks to Shouya and Shouko is immediately try to relive the past by trying to bully Shouko the same way they all did in 6th grade. Even when told to stop and that he is friends with Shouko now, she refuses to accept it and begins to make fun of him for trying to move on. At the theme park, she says she wishes that Shouko never came, that they could all just exist together as they were before, blaming it on her. Miki represents denial. Even when the bullying ends after Shouya gets called out, she denies any involvement, and while we don't know of many terrible things she did to Shouko, she was at least a bystander and knew everything of what was happening to her. Not only is it denial of her own role in the bullying, she places all the blame on Shouya. When her reputation could potentially get bad when Shouya called her out for telling people about the past, she immodestly tried to ruin his reputation. It’s just a human reaction, she simply can't bear to think she might be partially responsible for the bullying. Note how every time it's brought up, she immediately says 'It's your fault', she defects so she doesn’t have to think back on her actions and lack thereof. Sahara represents cowardice. That is a mean way to put it and I don't blame her for how she acted, but instead of sticking it through as Shouya’s only friend, she cut contact and moved schools. The reason I chose to call it cowardice is her regret that she didn't contact Shouya, despite not even trying, and the only reason she got in contact again was because Shouya made the first move. If not for that, she would have kept running. Nagatsuka is worth mentioning too here. While not being there when the bullying happened, he denied it even happened at all. He's often simply lumped as the comic relief character, and while that certainly is his role, he was alone before he met with Shouya. His overly friendly attitude is similar to Shouko’s, he is desperate to keep Shouya his friend and keep the golden image of him in his head clean, denying that maybe he did do something bad in the past. In the scene where Shouya tells everyone to shut up, he says what he said was OK and that it doesn’t bother him, again not wanting to accept that Shouya may not be perfect. He may be a comic relief character, but he is still given an insane level of love and detail.

While I have used this section to talk about the side characters, I'd like to use it to touch on our main character. Shouya is a mixture of all of these people. When they are all at the theme park, Ueno says to Shouya the classic line 'we are the same' and in the same conversation complaining about how she wishes Shouko never came into their lives so they could keep the group they had. Later on, we see Ueno's refusal to move on when Shouya says to Satoshi that he is an outsider, and he should stay out of it. We see Miki's character in his care of what people think of him, constantly imagining all the things others say about him. We see Sahara's cowardice at the start, when he attempts to kill himself, too scared to tell anyone what's happening, leaving money for his mum and attempting to do the ultimate form of giving up. Furthermore, we see Nagatsuka in his sometimes overwillingness to get close to people, seeing this when he takes Shouko out every day of summer break, despite her not being fully interested.

Redemtion
The main theme of the film is redemption, so, as you would expect from this, it is done amazingly. But I'd like to more focus on a question that is posed to Shouya multiple times, who are you doing this for? While the film does not explicitly answer this, we can use its masterful subtlety to answer it ourselves. Ueno brings up that he obviously feels miserable about what he did to Shouko, that he is only doing what he is doing to make himself feel better. Well we certainly can't deny that he does feel miserable about what he did, considering the first thing we see him do is attempt suicide, and the multiple times throughout the film he says he hates himself. When at the theme park he asks himself if he's allowed to be having this much fun, as well as when he invited Shouko out every day during summer, despite the fact he seemed to be forcing it on her, and she was not truly into it. There definitely are moments when he seems to focus on how he feels. However, It's not as one-sided as this. It seems he really did learn sign language for Shouko and no one else, he never once complains about how difficult making things up to Shouko is, he never cries when he is beaten down emotionally or physically, and the biggest thing of all, he didn't think about saving himself when he saved Shouko from her suicide attempt. Honesty, I don't think there is a clear answer either way.

Shouya did it for Shouko. Shouya is a complex character. I'm sure he does want to make himself feel better to some degree, but mostly he is doing this for Shouko, He had his selfish moments, but we don't see any other behaviour that indicates he thinks about how sad he is. We never see him complain about being lonely, we never see him get upset when a social interaction goes wrong, if anything he worries about how to make the other people feel better and apologise to them. Take for example after he went into a coma. He had a big argument with the group, and when returning, the first thing he thought was how to apologise to them. To me, it's what makes this film such a good redemption story. We see when he was fully thinking of himself, bullying Shouko for his own gain, not considering how she felt, into the opposite, trying to make it up to her out of the guilt he feels.

Conclusion
This is one of the best pieces of media I've ever consumed, easily the one that I have felt the most emotional resonance with. If somehow you got to the end of this review (thank you so much if you did!) and haven't seen this film, I implore you to watch it. There are many aspects to the story I did not mention as well as several characters for the sake of not making this review unreadably long. For the final time, I have never seen an anime that had characters that felt as human as they do here, it's clear that the author and director had a deep understanding of the human experience and the subject at hand.

Thank you for reading my ramble and hopefully this review was not as controversial as my last one!