A Story of The Deafening Silence of Teenage Melancholy, Depicted in an Animated Japanese Flick: A Silent Voice (2016)

A Silent Voice is a Japanese animated drama film based on a manga with the same name and is directed by Naoko Yamada. A Silent Voice was produced and animated by Kyoto Animation Studio, which has produced animes such as Clannad, K-On!, Violet Evergarden, and so much more. A Silent Voice, being a psychological drama, tackles a lot of sensitive topics, such as disability, bullying, mental health, depression, suicide, regret, forgiveness, and the complexity of friendship. 

The film follows two main characters, Ishida and Nishimiya. Ishida, a former bully turned outcast who now has very low self-esteem and bad mental health, and Nishimiya, a girl who was born deaf and faced bullying in her early life as a kid. Ishida, who bullied Nishimiya as a kid for being born deaf and who had just transferred from another school, has now grown up to regret everything that he has done as a kid. One of the reasons for this sense of regret was because when Ishida and his friends got caught bullying Nishimiya, Ishida was the one who was solely blamed, and only he was the one that got consequences from bullying Nishimiya, effectively being the new outcast and being bullied back by his friends who had previously bullied Nishimiya also.

Ishida, now in high school, is currently at his lowest point, getting a job purely for the reason that the money he gets will be his parting gift for his mother when he ultimately kills himself. The day that he has set as “last day” on his callender has arrived. Going to the bridge that he often goes to, he imagines himself leaping off the bridge to end everything, but he is suddenly startled by the sounds of fireworks being set off by children nearby, putting that thought to a hold. This train of events eventually leads to Ishida deciding that he still wants to live.

His sense of regret and an act that shows he is trying to turn a new leaf is shown when he goes to a sign language class in his area, which he has been taking lessons for. He goes to the class bringing a notebook that Nishimiya gave to him back in grade school to teach him about conversations in sign language. As he goes into class, he hears a familiar name coming from the class beside him—a name that bears a lot of weight on him—a name called “Nishimiya” is mentioned right behind him. Turning his head, he sees her, the girl that he had been wanting to say sorry to all this time. He rushes to her, calling out her name and eventually grabbing her. Ishida mentions if Nishimiya remembers him; no response was given other than Nishimiya running away from Ishida. Having no ill intentions, Ishida runs after her to return the notebook he had been holding on to all this time. When he catches up to her, Nishimiya is shocked by the fact that Ishida knows how to do sign language, showing the fact that Ishida has been trying to make up for all the bad things he has done in the past. This conversation ends with Ishida wanting to be friends with Nishimiya again, which is a reference to when Nishimiya asked Ishida to become friends with when they were back in grade school.

The story after this develops into seeing everyone's own struggles and hardships; we see more deeply into Ishida’s perspective, Nishimiya’s perspective, and we even get to see more into the perspective of all Ishida’s friends who had actually bullied Nishimiya in the past also. The only downside I can think of from the film, is the fact that Nishimiya falling in love with Ishida felt odd and a bit forced, considering the fact that Ishida had bullied Nishimiya relentlessly when they were still kids and has only made contact with him again recently. This may be because of the fact that this is a movie and not a full fledged anime where they can develop this romance between them more deeply, hence making it feel forced. Other than that, this film conveyed every topic that it tackled quite perfectly. The film captures all of these complex feelings so well; each character is written to the point where we can empathize with almost every single one of them; the dialogues never feel like a waste; every single conversation in which the characters partake in dives deeper into what the character personalities are like. We can see who has also regretted the actions that they’ve done, who feels like they were never in the wrong, and who is still trying to change for the better.