"If you want to say something to me, say it!"

This movie's opening was very good. It did to me perhaps exactly what it intended to do. It:

• Established a self-centered boy who is clearly the center of attention for others in not only his class, but perhaps the whole grade. The audience recognises this almost immediately, from his grandè entrance into the school that shows many students' almost-surreal familiarity with him, waving at him as if they've known him his whole life and they simply cannot wait to be surrounded and engulfed in his godly presence.

His lack of attention paying in class and prioritising playing with something as trivial as the lead in his pencil just screams at the audience that this kid is literally too cool for school, and he places himself on a pedestal that reaches into the very heavens themselves. He attempts to be the class clown, trying to impress others by acting like a dick towards others, and won't do anything unless he knows he will be receiving social validity from his peers for doing it. In turn, this leads to a loop of negative feedback where there's a never ending cycle of him being a dick to whoever bites the short end of the stick that day and ending up getting praised for putting others down. With that said, the movie does not actually portray him being a dick to anybody but his "friend" and the new girl, but it would not be a stretch to extrapolate that this one of his traits from the behaviour he displays towards those two, in addition to his behaviour in class and his already existing aforementioned stance as the "cool kid". He must have got there somehow, right?
Even before the new girl comes, we see him "play fighting" with his "friend", a situation where it is obvious he holds a favorable position compared to his friend (has him in a choke hold on one occasion, giving him a wedgie the floor on another, etc), but I'm sure the other guy just goes along with it at risk of stopping being his friend and as a result becoming the laughing stock and being condemned by the whole class for a childish reason such as being the sole child in the class which our main character is "not friends" with. Or maybe he does not even acknowledge that he is merely the main character's play-toy, and instead to him it has become a normalised daily occurrence to be treated in this fashion. He does not seem very worried about it, as expressed by the several shots we see portraying them as the best of friends, fist-bumping and such.

• Established an innocent girl, compassionate and extremely forgiving, who so happens to be deaf. She radiates nothing but positivity wherever she goes, and it is clear she has nothing but good intentions towards all her classmates. She introduces herself and, with her, her notebook. A special tool which is (for the most part) the only way others can communicate with her at that time. Her early attempts at making friends goes fairly smooth, with others taking interest in this unique style of communication they are not familiar with, and attempting to get to know the new girl. For example, she is helped out in music class by a girl when she starts singing prematurely, and even our protagonist's right hand (wo)man ends offering up to take notes for her. However, it was only going smooth until it wasn't. Eventually, her note taker had gotten so tired of taking notes she expressed her fatigue and tiredness from such energy-draining actions to her friend in such a manner that it prompts her friend to offer her notes to her. It goes without saying it did not take long for our main character and his right hand (wo)man to reduce the gap between discrimination for the sake of discrimination and bullying.

They had dipped their toes in the water, and the water was warm. The severe case of negligence and ignorance from their home room teacher meant a clean green light for them and, the positive reinforcement received from the class when committing such childish behaviour as mocking her speech when it was time to read meant they could go ahead tormenting this girl without risking being socially shunned by the others. Who knows, they might even join in themselves.
For me, assisting the main character in his quest to make this girl feel bad about herself for no other reason than just that she was deaf was disappointing behaviour for someone who showed so much promise towards that very same deaf girl earlier. Someone who once went to incredible lengths to try and understand her now becomes the same person who tells her friend group to head home once she approaches. But I guess a girl will do anything to try and gain attention from her crush, right? Even if that's putting down another human being.
This behaviour towards her started off as something only really done by our protagonist and his right hand (wo)man, but it lead the pathway to:

• Establishing the setting. An elementary school with a sixth grade class with a teacher which obviously notices signs of bullying and uneasiness in his class, but he decides to take no precautions to try and eliminate it, and chooses to ignore it until it is obviously too late to do anything, and only then does he end up showing signs of built-up frustration. Why he didn't decide to stop it while it was running its course one can only hypothesise. Did he think they were merely childish jokes, and the girl was fine with it? The only reason I can think of as to why he decided to only display the pent up irritation he had inside of him at the moment at which he did is because he tried to save face in front of the school principal, trying to prove that he is worthy of his job as a teacher by acknowledging that the principal was in the right, and that some sort bullying does in fact take place in his classroom, and he is somewhat angry at that. However even this backfires because, for better or for worst, his gross incompetence leads to the majority of perpetrators being let off the hook at the first chance they got to dump all the blame on one scapegoat. Our main protagonist, Ishida.

However, that is not to say there wasn't atleast one teacher who did not have humanely and socially inept qualities, and had the capacity to be a decent and respecting member of society and teacher, atleast trying to create a safe and enjoyable environment for all her pupils. Kita, the music teacher. Did she make any remarks when our joyful girl starting singing prematurely? No. What about when comments were thrown around about potentially losing the upcoming choir competition due to the girl's tone-deaf singing? Also no. But she did try to do something for our girl hero. She tried to get the class to learn sign language. At this point in the classroom, there were 2 adults. One was a high-spirited educator who was trying her best to support a disabled student. Even though she herself may not have been too able in her sign language abilities, I'm sure she must of have been ready to learn along with the rest of the class otherwise she would not have proposed such an idea. The other adult in the room was a person who did not even attempt to support the other's decision because, shortly put, he probably recognized it was not going to be successful. His blatant inability to maintain a proper elementary classroom has lead to a space where the students have almost more power than the teacher, the only thing presumably holding them back from overthrowing the teacher's role of authority and performing some sort of rebellion being their own society-indoctrinated ethics and morals. Had he been more able in his role as a teacher, perhaps he may have been able to direct the children's mentality in a different direction from where it was now, and provided a suitable foundation for something as time-consuming and dedication-required as learning a new language. However, now he has no choice but to lean on the wall, sulking in nothing but his own incompetence, cursed to watch another human's kind actions inevitably come to a screeching halt, resulting in nothing more than an pleasantly ideal failing. Or so he thought.

Cue the music, draw the curtains, in comes our girl hero's temporary ray of light - Sahara Miyoko.

Sahara Miyoko is the sole girl that is open to the idea of learning sign language for the sake of our girl hero. She is, singlehandedly, the only reason the music teacher did not completely embarrass herself when she proposed the idea to the class, and acts as something of a character foil to Ishida's right hand (wo)man. "Isn't using her notebook enough?" she shouts, with no other goal in mind but to carry on shunning girl hero's already slim chances of trying to develop relationships in this crude classroom.
"I will learn sign language", Sahara responds. And thus, her relationship with girl hero begins.

Pause the music, pull the curtains up. The gig is over.

It did not take long for Sahara, by extension of Nishimiya, to also start being bullied. It appears she was not as strong as Nishimiya, because it is conveyed that she switched schools pretty quickly after she started experiencing abuse. And thus, Nishimiya finds herself in darkness yet again.

BANG! That was the sound of the blackboard getting hit. Or rather, that was the sound of the tables turning.

Never in 4 pairs of hearing aids would Ishida have predicted this development occurring.

When it comes down to it, and shit really hits the fan, everybody wants to save their own ass. This is a pretty simple rule of nature, and it applies to all selfish people so, by extension, it applies to most humans. So, what exactly happens when shit hits the fan and the once nonchalant teacher decides to save face in front of his boss? Who bites the short end of the stick on this day? Ishida. What about the others bullies?
Ueno: "He might've messed with her from time to time."
Shimada: "Well, I did tell him to stop, but Shoya didn't listen."
Hirose: ""
Kawai: "You're awful... I would never do that! Why would you say such a thing? You're so mean, Ishida!"

What conclusion can be drawn from this? When shit hits the fan, your so-called "friends" and even the girl with a crush on you will turn on you. And the built up karma hits way harder than the cost of 4 hearing aids. It comes with interest. Interest that costs approximately one ear.

And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. - Friedrich Nietzsche
Alas, the tables finally turn. One who has looked down on others, and bullied them, is now himself at the center of that very same bullying.

And yet, yet still you feel zero remorse for the person who's shoes you're in! You've been in the very lake you've thrown her in, you've seen the very book of hers you've thrown in there, and yet you feel no repentance for what you've done. "What's this?" you tell yourself? Are you an idiot? You don't even remember the very things you treated like less than trash? You take it home, but to do what? To keep a memento of your past insolent actions? Or perhaps one that represents karma in it's whole?
At what point can your actions stop being attributed to merely childish idiocy?
Even when the tables turn, and the bully becomes the bullied, this affectionate and tender-hearted girl that has went to EXTREME lengths to validify her space in a classroom full of loathesome children and got treated like dirt for it has absolutely no feelings of distaste towards Ishida and even when the rest of the class (grade?) turn on their once holy god, she still decides to go and clean his defaced desk. And what does he give her for it? One hell of a fight.

"I am sorry. I never really apologised for what I did in the past. And in addition, what I did after we had met again. So many things I did. Perhaps, I created a convenient image of you in my head. One to suit my interests. Actually, I want to talk with you more. Perhaps that's all. But my selfish behaviour had hurt you, and forced you to choose the worst choice. "

The moment for me that made me tear up was the scene where Nishimya's mum prostates towards Ishida's mum. I'm not too sure why this moment specifically was the moment for me, but I just broke into tears at this point. What could you, as a mother, do in that scenario? Another mother's child was put in hospital, very likely in a critical condition, as a direct consequence of his choice to save your child from being in that very same situation or, even worse, not being there. Of course, there is not much you can do. You have no choice but to give your utmost respect to that mother. Her child may have died so yours could live. You could blame yourself indefinitely for indirectly being the cause of a possible murder, but that would not achieve anything. No amount of grief would ever bring back that mother's child. It'd go without saying that if you were in her shoes, you'd wish for the opposite to be true. So that is why, I think, Nishimya's mum had no choice but to bow her head. Past experiences with Ishida's mum were probably a thing of the past at this point. Not even running through her head at that moment. All she could think about, as a mother, is the situation she has put another mother's child in. And all she could do, as a mother, is give her utmost respects to her. I think, though she does not mention it, Yuzuru also notices this and also prostrates towards Ishida's mum.

Ishida's mum, unaware of what is going on, must have been very confused and even though she may not have shown, deep inside she must have been extremely hurting. I don't think anybody can remain calm when their child is in a hospital, no matter their level of ignorance on the cause. Crazy how this meant Ueno actually showed more distress when she heard about what happened than Ishida's mum herself. Talking about Ueno, she just didn't mature huh. The next time we saw her, I foolishly thought she had matured to the same level Ishida had, but I guess not. I think the writers tried to get across that point that "not every one grows up with time" with this. Though she did show promise towards the end of the movie.

I actually didn't notice it until Ueno pointed it out later but, Shimada actually saves Ishida from his fall from grace. Talk about a change of heart.

"Just before, I talked to you in my dreams. In the dream, it looked like had tried to give up on so many things in my life but I realised that was not right. I'd felt the same way as you had for ever, But, I realised that it still didn't mean I needed to die."

It appears to me both the main bullies in this show only started bullying because the victim could do something they couldn't, no matter how hard they tried they couldn't bring themselves to do it, they absolutely craved her ability to... smile, despite the situation.

For me, this anime is the epitome of "coming of age". And personally, even though I am an extremely into romance guy, romance was out of my mind for most of the show. I was simply so caught up in the events in the movie that I had no time to think about any romantic interactions that may or may not occur between Ishida and Nishimiya.

There's some other stuff I would have liked to talk about, such as the actual start to the movie, the meaning on the Xs Ishida sees on others' faces (including the persistence on Ueno's), Nagatsuka's role in this movie, Ishida's reformation and coming-of-age, and the slightly failed attempt at a perfect ensemble cast (Nishimiya's grandma, for example). But I feel like I'd already talked about every feeling I felt I could make verbose about this movie, so maybe I'll come back and edit this review after a rewatch or something.

So, why 91? Because, to me, this movie is more than just a 9.