A Silent Voice - Koe no Katachi (Naoko Yamada)

[Philip J. Fry]

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[Philip J. Fry]

This is NOT an X-rated film. It might be an X-Men one, though.

A Silent Voice.
Naoko Yamada, 2016.

Original title: 聲の形 (Koe no Katachi). Also known as The Shape of Voice.

Synopsis: Shõya used to be a dickhead in elementary school, bullying a deaf girl he totally had a crush on (this is too obvious to be a spoiler), but that got him ostracized, alone and suicidal. However, his life changes after he meets Shõko, the deaf girl, again and while trying to apologize to her (the last item in his bucket list), out of the blue, he asks her to be his friend. Can he redeem himself? Can he learn to make friends again? And what issues does Shõko have now?

How does it look? Quality anime look. The style isn't fundamentally different from something by Makoto Shinkai (although Shinkai's animation has a little bit more pop, then again, Yamada is only like 32), Anthem of the Heart or most anime series today, but it looks sleek, detailed and beautiful.

What did I like? Despite the fact we spend like 20+ minutes of our main character being an absolute dipshit, we manage to quickly root for Shõya once he's in HS, which is a testament to his characterization. This is accomplished by two things: [

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first, by showing him as a kid crushing at the girl; while this doesn't condone his behavior, it shows where does it come from, which leads us to thing number two, which is that he clearly feels sorry by the kind of person he used to be and that his previous actions did have consequences: he now barely interacts with people, never looks them in the eye, is alone and generally, doesn't have much self-esteem, so when he finally meets Shõko again, it's understandable why he (subconsciously) asks her to be his friend and why throughout the movie you as an audience want them to be even more than that (yup, this is a romance film).

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About Shõko, well, she's a sweetheart throughout the movie [

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(I mean, she very quickly wants to befriend Shõya, and has a crush on him)

] and unfortunately her past experiences took a toll on her psychologically. This brings us a narrative of two fuck-ups trying to let the past go and fit more along with others as they keep crossing paths with people from their ES past... and a love-story that at moments is a little Shinkai-esque.

However, while this review makes it seem as a movie almost only centered on those two, it does have a considerable roster of characters, most of them likable, my favorite being probably [

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Shõko's little tomboy sister, who is very overprotective at first, but quickly warms up to Shõya. Her tomboyish-ness provides a few funny moments, particularly one involving Tomohiro, one of Shõya's new friends. Also of interest is Ueno, a girl who used to be at elementary with Shõya and Shõko who clearly had a crush on Shõya. She is a tsundere and the closest thing to a villain this movie has, however, there might be a little more to her.

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I don't know if this is good or bad, but one of the character looks like a chubby pokemon (my sister compared him to a Snorlax).

What didn't I like? As much as I liked the story and the characters, it does have a problem that I often find in anime's and that is the tendency of sometimes having this overly melodramatic, narmy feel. It's very prevalent at times in this movie and while it's not a deal-breaker, it is nagging sometimes,

Also, seeing a first act where a deaf-girl is bullied constantly is not nice.

Final thoughts: A nice couple of leads and a deep roster of characters make this worthwhile, although this walks on quite a fine line between FEELS and NARM.

[Philip J. Fry]

[Philip J. Fry]