A Silent Voice talkie spoiler review

Today will tackle one of the most under watched movie of that year being shutout by Your Name. Didn’t really have a big name director attached and I don’t even remember ads for this one. I only found out by a Youtuber The Anime Man Joey who recommended in one of his videos that year.

Going to spoiler and talk about some serious stuff like suicide and bullying. You have been warned.

When do you forgive someone? Is there such a debt you can repay to completely pay off someone you hurt in the past? How about someone you used to bully. Is it ever enough, should there be an enough? A Silent Voice tackles this question head on.

Our main Shoya Ishida at the start of this movie tries to commit suicide, he changes his mind and tries to make up to his wrong doings to Shoko Nishimiya who is deaf. Shoya and a few classmates used to bully Shoko so bad that she transferred schools. Shoya was labeled the main bully and was scapegoated which left me ignoring everyone around him.

There are a lot of parallels in this movie. We have the similar names to the leads. Shoya was the bully but shortly becomes the target for everyone after Shoko transfers out. Shoya almost commits suicide but thinks of amending his past to Shoko. Shoko tries to commit suicide towards the end but is stopped by Shoya.

Shoko’s action is pretty much the norm in Japanese culture. Group mentality and not being a bother. We learn Shoko blames herself for not being the normal one. She thinks Shoya’s problems will go away once she does.

While Shoya actually was selfish at the beginning. But as he was ostracized he got in line with the status quo to the point of shutting everyone of his classmates out.

But you can see the contradiction above, was Shoya’s actions right? Was Shoko in the right? In a society where they value normality it seems like they were both acting in what they seemed deemed to be the correct approach. Can we actually blame the actions of the individual in theses values? In a sense they were both scapegoated. The teachers and parents did nothing to stop the bullying and Shoko kind of let it happen to her. Then Shoya became the next victim to the bullying and the status quo was achieved. Shoko transferring was just a band aid to an open wound.

I don’t think there will be a panacea to the problem any time soon. But I think the movie isn’t trying to come up with a solution, more like an objective point of view of people being people. Theses are real problems kids face and logically thinking patterns. We can relate to Shoko wanting to take her own life because she sees herself as the burden. We can see how Shoya shuts everyone out because of the past problems he went through.

Ultimately suicide is not the answer. Moving on and forgiving someone is a hard journey but it doesn’t mean being alone. Actually being with others is the first steps taking the good and bad people bring with them.

A quick aside: Depression and anxieties hit everyone differently, please speak with someone if you need help. Suicide is a long term solution to a short term problem.