Shoko Nishimiya joins a sixth-grade class and writes in a notebook that she is deaf. Shoya Ishida leads the bullying: shouting in her ear, throwing her hearing aids out of the window, eight of them in five months. When the school investigates, the class turns on Shoya. Shoko transfers out. Shoya spends the next six years alone. A Silent Voice is about the bully, not the victim, and it opens with him planning his suicide.
What Happens When Shoya Finds Shoko
He learns sign language so he can apologise. She has a little sister who photographs dead things. Her mother slaps him. Shoya cannot look at faces, and the film puts an X over every face he avoids, which come off one at a time as he lets people in. He builds a group of friends by accident. The fireworks festival is where Shoko makes her own attempt, and the second half is Shoya in a coma and everyone he hurt talking about him.
Why It Travels Outside Anime Fans
Kyoto Animation made it from Yoshitoki Oima’s manga, and Naoko Yamada’s direction, all feet and hands and avoided eye contact, is unlike anything else in anime. It came out three weeks after Your Name in Japan and was overshadowed, then found its own audience. The ending at the school festival, when the Xs fall off, is the point of the whole film.
Watch A Silent Voice On GoMovies
130 minutes in HD, Japanese with subtitles. Press play above. Free, no account.