Koe no Katachi is one of the most highly rated and popular anime to come out this decade. Many people would tell you that it is a masterpiece, and it isn't uncommon to see this film in a high spot on someone's favorites. It is rare to see any criticism for this movie, and so I went into it expecting nothing but the best. Unfortunately, this turned out to be one of the worst, if not the worst, anime that I have ever had the misfortune of watching. This movie left me feeling angry and confused. Angry as to how poorly every aspect of this movie is handled, and confused as to how this movie has received such critical acclaim. In this SPOILER HEAVY review, I will be examining how and why this movie fails at everything that it sets out to do.

The movie begins with our protagonist, Shouya Ishida, attending elementary school on a day like any other. However, to his surprise, the teacher announces a new transfer student: Shouko Nishimiya. Shouko is deaf and has a hard time communicating with the class. Her new classmates are unsure how to treat her, as they are not accustomed to being around someone with a hearing disability. Shouya takes advantage of this opportunity to lead the class in bullying the new girl. At first, he gains clout and becomes popular; however, after he goes too far, the entire class turns on him and he becomes the new target of the bullying.

After Shouya is shown being bullied, the story advances in time to the point in which he is in high school. The bullying that he endured caused him to become isolated and friendless through middle school and into high school. However, this time was not wasted. Shouya spent his time learning sign language so that he could reach out to Shouko and right the wrongs of his past. He finds her, and at first she is afraid of him and runs away. He catches up to her and communicates with her in sign language, successfully asking her to become his friend. This is a good premise; however, this is the point where the plot of the movie ends and yet the majority of the movie still looms overhead.

Nothing happens in this movie. Once the introduction of the movie ends, there is almost two hours of nothing. Herein lies the main problem of the film: numerous plot lines are introduced only to be dropped and left unresolved, leaving one to wonder why they were even introduced in the first place. On a technical level, things do happen in this movie, but half the time they are never addressed and the other half are left unresolved. For example, at one point of the film, Shouko confesses that she likes Shouya, but he doesn't understand what she is saying due to her difficulty speaking properly. After her confession fails due to a typical, "Huh? I didn't catch that." trope, it is never brought up again.

This is true of every single event that occurs in the entire movie. Even as someone who hasn't read the source material, that being the manga, I could tell where plot lines were cut. For example, Naoka Ueno, another girl who bullied Shouko as a kid, still holds a grudge against her. It is implied that this is because she likes Shouya and is jealous of Shouko, but this is never addressed or mentioned. I can infer it, but not in the way that is something subtle, rather I can infer it the same way that you can tell that content has been cut in a video game. It simply feels gutted and unfinished.

There are no character arcs in this movie. You can tell, even without having read the manga, that large portions of the story have been cut. This leaves every character feeling completely undeveloped and consequently insufferable. Each character, other than Shouya and Shouka, feels completely pointless. Their actions are given neither reason nor context. Things just happen and the movie simply moves on without addressing them. This brings me to another huge problem in this film: there is no reason for Shouko to be deaf because it isn't relevant to the plot whatsoever.

The premise of an atonement-seeking bully and the deaf girl who was once his victim forming a new connection, and possibly a romantic relationship, is an interesting concept. However, the fact that Shouko is deaf serves only as a way to explain the bullying in the introduction of the movie. You could replace her disability with literally anything else and the plot, if you can call it that, would remain the same. If she had simply been overweight and got bullied because of it, the movie would remain the exact same. This is because her disability and the struggles that she has with it are completely trivialized, turned into nothing but mere plot devices, such as giving Shouya an excuse to not understand her when she confesses.

Despite being deaf, Shouko can hear everybody perfectly fine with the help of her hearing aides. This renders the fact that Shouya learned sign language completely irrelevant to the plot. After initially showing her that he can speak in sigh language, he never really uses it again. It feels like they did this so that the audience wouldn't have to read subtitles, but it completely breaks the immersion of the movie. Shouko is deaf, yet she doesn't seem to struggle with her disability at all. There is a point in the movie where she visits the doctor and comes home crying with only one hearing aide. This would imply that her hearing is getting worse, but again this is never mentioned again. She is still capable of hearing everyone just as well as she did with both hearing aides, and it makes one wonder why they even included this scene if they weren't going to follow up on it.

Due to the numerous dropped plot lines, total lack of character development, and the trivialization of Shouko's disability, I can say that nothing happens in this movie. It's a complete waste of time. By the time the credits roll, nothing is resolved and nobody has changed besides the protagonist, and his development was finished after the first fifteen or so minutes of the movie. The nonexistent plot is drawn out and left me feeling completely unsatisfied. Not a single question that I had was answered in the entire two hour plus run time of this movie. I can honestly say that I didn't enjoy a single second of this film beyond the initial elementary school arc.

To put it bluntly, the characters in this movie are as terribly written as they are insufferable. This is largely caused by the aforementioned lack of character arcs and consequent lack of character development. This movie introduces its characters as terrible people, and by the end of the movie, they are still terrible people. Other than Shouya and Shouko, every other character is completely useless to the nonexistent plot and essentially serves as filler. I will break down each of the characters and explain why each one of them was either completely insufferable, completely useless, or both.

Shouya Ishida: The protagonist of the movie. While he isn't completely useless all on his own, the fact that none of his interactions with other characters ever goes anywhere makes him equally as useless as the rest of them.

Shouko Nishimiya: The deaf girl who the movie is supposed to revolve around. Her disability is completely trivialized and irrelevant to the plot. While she starts out okay, she makes a lot of stupid, unexplained decisions that leave her feeling more like a bumbling idiot than the interesting character that she should be. For instance, at one point of the film, she is watching the fireworks with Shouya and her family, only to get up, go home, and attempt suicide for no apparent reason.

Nakoa Ueno: This girl is essentially Shouko's rival. However, due to the lack of character arcs and development, Ueno comes across as nothing more than a typical schoolyard bully. She bullied Shouko as a kid, and bullies her the exact same way after they meet each other again in high school. Due to the fact that the movie never addresses her feelings or motivations, Ueno is left as a completely unlikable character. Her only good trait is her appearance and character design, and I will admit that she is pretty hot. Funnily enough, this is the only thing that I enjoyed about the movie.

Yuzuru Nishimiya: Shouko's sister. She doesn't really have any relevance to the plot, despite taking up the most screen time of any of the side characters. She serves as Shouko's "guardian" when Shouya first tries to reach out to Shouko. However, once the two main characters become friends, Yuzuru ceases to be important. She more or less exists to appeal to the tomboy crowd, but other than that, there's not much to her. There is an arc about her love for photography, but like every other subplot, it doesn't go anywhere.

Tomohiro Nagatsuka: Shouya's best friend. He is supposed to serve as a comic relief character, but he's not all that funny. Tomohiro more or less exists to pull Shouya out of his shell, but he is completely forgettable. After his initial interactions with Shouya leading to Shouya realizing that it's okay for him to interact with others, Tomohiro drops off the plot. Most of the time, he just stands around looking confused as he has no connection to the elementary school drama that keeps unfolding all around him.

Miki Kawai: The troublemaker and the tattletale. Her only purpose in this movie is to tell everyone in high school that Shouya used to be a bully. She has no motivation for doing this whatsoever. She initially befriends him and joins his group, yet randomly rats him out to everyone else, who immediately betray him based on her words alone. She also participated in bullying Shouko, so her actions are both pointless and hypocritical.

Satoshi Mashiba: The pointless character. There is literally no reason for this character to exist. He joins Shouya's friend group to fill out some imaginary character quota, but has at most four lines in the entire movie. He exists for the single purpose of betraying Shouya based solely on Miki's testimony, despite the fact that he had no involvement with the elementary school drama and the fact that he has seen Shouya being good to Shouko on several occasions.

Kazuki Shimada: Shouya's best friend in elementary school who betrayed him and lead the bullying against him. This character is almost as pointless as Satoshi. Shouya runs into him several times, but they barely speak, and the movie doesn't even begin to explore the conflict between them. Most of the time that Shouya sees him, he just runs away. Whenever Kazuki speaks, he just says something vague and mean only for nothing to happen because of it.

The art of an anime isn't something that often influences my opinion or rating of it in a negative way. However, sometimes really good art or a really unique art style can improve my opinion of an anime. That didn't happen here. There's nothing wrong with the art of Koe no Katachi, in fact it looks pretty good, but there's nothing unique about it. If I were to show you a screenshot of this anime without any characters, you probably wouldn't be able to tell me what it's from. Actually, even if I included some of the side characters in the screenshot, you probably wouldn't be able to tell either. That's because the art style of this movie is far too safe to be memorable.

Koe no Katachi is an interesting premise that completely fails in its execution. The story is riddled with abandoned and unresolved plot lines that leave the movie feeling like a long, drawn-out set of images that depict nothing happening. The characters received no development as a consequence of their character arcs being completely absent from the story, leaving them feeling pointless and insufferable. The art is alright and looks pretty good, but the art style is bland and unrecognizable. The music is poorly placed and often feels completely out of place with the scenes that it is being played over. Overall, Koe no Katachi is a complete waste of time that doesn't deserve the praise it receives.