The Movie I Could Not Forget.
A Silent Voice is a charming coming-of-age story, full of redemption and romance. Based on a manga series by 27-year-old Yoshitoki Ōima. This movie contained plethora of emotions and portrayed a psychological disorder which is depression. Oh, for those who don’t know what the definition of depression is, depression means the feeling of sadness and loss of interest that can interfere with your daily functioning. The story is about Shoya, a boy who keeps on bullying a hearing-impaired girl, Shoko, when he was young until he was caught and was ostracised by his classmates EVENTHOUGH the other classmates literally bullied Shoko as well but yeah only Shoya received the cold shoulder. Well, he kind of pushes it further than his other classmates and did many heinous things to Shoko. For example, psychological torture and physical abuse. He grows up feeling unwanted and constantly wanting to end his life. But in high school, he met Shoko again and had to postpone his death that he already set on calendar because before he leaves the world, he needs to make things right. He then attempted to befriend Shoko. Many things happened and they fall in love.
This movie is really, really beautiful. The camerawork, animation, the characters, scenery, everything is beautifully beautiful. Its atmospheric. Its powerful. All the characters are very humans, and you get to feel the emotions the director/ author trying to convey. Shoya’s bullying is a method to make and keep friends. Its really complicated because he did that to Shoko because he wanted to put someone else down so his friends can have a good laugh. Of course, it backfired. Not only did he hurt Shoko, but he also hurts himself too. Well, because his classmates and schoolmates decided to stay away from him because he is bad news. Of course, this happened because if this situation happens in my class, I will also do the same as his schoolmates.
Shoya is… is so alone. And he is in a lot of pain. The clever hattrick of this film is that you sympathise not just with the bullied but also with the bully. The purpose of this film is that the author wants you to feel the uncomfortable feeling in your own flesh for an extended period of time. Feeling unwelcome, being criticised, and having the impression that everything you do just makes matters worse. The film's aim, in my opinion, is to spark empathy. Like, we do have empathy for the bullied, but not for the bullies… In our mind they are the awful people, they don’t deserve any empathy for what they have done, and they just deserve everything that comes after them. This movie wants us, the viewer to see humanity in everyone. The route to atonement is to be willing to suffer discomfort and pain in order to do the right thing.
There is a scene where Shoya met his old classmates and they, well, arguing about the past. Shoya is actually the scapegoat of this bullying incident. Shoya has taken the burden of everything. And that’s how he got the blame at his old school. His classmates throwing him under the bus and said its not them who bullied Shoko. Saying they did try to stop Shoya for keep bullying Shoko when the truth is they were the one who encourage Shoya to that. Ugh, the hypocrisy. And in this scene, he called everyone out for their horrible deeds back in high school. Before this scene happened, Shoya actually wanted to gather all of his old classmates to own up to their mistakes. But of course, it turned sour. His old classmates throwing the blames to each other and ended up making poor, sweet girl, Shoko taking all blames by herself. Thinking that they were all friends and then I came and ruined it.
This movie is, again, really beautiful. It taught that depression does not go away or lift for the majority of individuals. It's something you have to fight with because it's still there. However, there is a capability to feel anew, a capability to experience happiness once again. Although depression and having done bad things are not the same thing, they are intertwined in this film. But connection is the remedy for so many problems. We may believe that no one wants to connect with us, yet all we need to do is discover the right people. Most people who hurt others are hurting themselves. They just want to be loved.