Curious Manga

Koe no Katachi , Vol. 1 by Yoshitaki Oima

In 2013, Kodansha Weekly Shonen Magazine published a one-shot by a 23-yeard-old mangaka. The first page drowned in the large characters asking "Can we really print this?" and i hesitated reading something that boasted its own controversy.

The 61pg one-shot introduces an elementary school classroom and its new transfer student: a deaf girl named Nishimiya Shouko. The children are apprehensive, but welcome the new girl with a hospitality that is learned and fragile. Nishimiya's difference soon becomes more than the children can handle, and Ishida Shouya is the catalyst to the deterioration of their well-played facades.

This is one of the biggest emotional investments i've experienced in manga. The portrayal of the bullying is concise, effective, and raw, but what astounds me is how incredibly real all the cruelty seems. This story shows bullying from the perspective of the perpetrator and it bares something present in all of us: the fear of isolation and blind self-preservation.

I'll leave it to you to decide why these people acted as they did, and you can judge the accuracy of this story based on your own perspective. I will agree with anyone that Nishimiya's temperament seems crafted to allow this story to continue, for i doubt any bullying survivor would be as indulgent of her attacker as she. However, Ishida also becomes the other extreme as a repentant and self-chastising bully as he frees himself of his self-centered fears and turns his actions towards amendments that are hopeless in their endlessness. Please keep in mind as you read (and i hope you stick with it) that the story doesn't seem to depict any specific or real bullying incident, but rather fantasizes as it poses a difficult question: how far must one go to sufficiently right the wrongs done against others and forgive oneself in the process?