These past few days I have been interested again in good anime stories. One good recent movie that I haven't watched before was A Silent Voice. This is a touching drama movie about the lives of several children and teens, but especially about 2 of them, a deaf girl and an immature boy.
I had read this film was even more touching than Your Name but for me this wasn't the case. The story has some touching parts, that's for sure, but I felt it lasted too much for the type of story it wanted to tell, and sometimes after a point was made the story returned and repeated the same type of events. I felt a deja vu at least 2 times while watching this movie.
The drama begins when the deaf girl arrives at a new school. There are some difficult situations that are easy to avoid like not including her in a chorus or in singing lessons given the fact she cannot hear or speak properly. The same can be said when the class was reading a book and it was her turn to read, since she cannot speak properly maybe the best decision was to give her some free time and avoid this public reading? Because these situations facilitated the emergence of bullying.
After the deaf girl begins to suffer some bullying one guy really seems to begin to resent her and even hate her. The situation quickly escalates and the girl ends up deciding to move to another school, while the immature boy suddenly finds himself in a very difficult situation because now everyone is solely blaming her for the bullying, which wasn't entirely true.
This will put him in a tough psychological spot and with time this will force him to mature a lot, grow, and become a completely different person ready to be a source of positivity instead of negativity. But this won't be as easy as it sounds because a lot of damage has been made.
This isn't a romantic story but rather one about redemption, maturity, and ultimately about emotional pain and even depression. It was good but some parts of the story didn't feel as fluid, spontaneous, and authentic as I would have liked. The examples I shared above where the deaf girl is trying to sing or read out loud were very silly in my opinion, it is like making a kid that uses a wheelchair or crutches participate in some sports or running competition with the kids that are all healthy. It doesn't make sense.
If you are looking for an anime belonging to the drama genre, this would be a perfect choice to watch. Nevertheless, I have found 4 movies from Makoto Shinkai that are also from the drama genre to be more enjoyable: Your Name, Weathering with You, The Garden of Words, and 5 Centimeters per Second. The last 2 would be the most similar to A Silent Voice because these are the only Shinkai's movies without scifi or fantasy. Nevertheless, A Silent Voice is another perfect example that anime can tell serious, important, and touching stories.
The best
- The movie has a positive message, especially for young children and teens in school.
- It does have touching moments.
The worst
- The story is too convoluted.
More information: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5323662/ Review: AAA In numbers: 7.5/10