A Silent Voice is a Japanese anime movie based around the story of a boy named Shoya who, when he was younger, bullied a deaf girl who he went to elementary school with named Shouko. This part of the story is told within the first half hour of the movie, while the rest is his path of trying to redeem himself to her. The movie also deals with some relatively heavy topics, so watch at your own discretion. 

Shoya only starts to try and redeem himself after a failed attempt at suicide. What stopped him from jumping was the sound of some people playing with fireworks. After this, his mother confronts him and is pretty upset with him for trying to do so and makes him promise not to do so again. The next day, he visits the local sign language center and finds her and apologizes for everything in the past. 

The next time he visits the sign language center, he is stopped by an androgynous shorter person named Nishimiya, who tells him Shouko is not there (even though he can clearly see that she is in the classroom.). Nishimiya also tells Shoya that they are going out with Shouko. He leaves and makes a new friend named Nagatsuka, who is his only real friend that he has had. Plot-wise, that’s all I will get into in hopes that you go watch it as well.

What I really enjoyed about this movie was how Shoya went from having no real friends to having a nice, solid, strong group of friends who genuinely care for him. Even with his past, he was able to make up for his actions towards Shouko. It shows how someone who did very bad things in his past grew as a person, and regretted those bad things that he did, and so he did everything in his power that may fix or change those past actions. The transition from a bad person to a good person.

This movie is excellent at characterization and letting the audience know who to trust and who not to, such as when Ueno, a girl who used to bully Shouko with Shoya, tries to “rekindle” the fragile friendship that she had with Shoya in elementary school. The audience knows that the friendship was fragile because when Shoya finally has to own up to the bullying, all of his friends who did it with him all focus the blame on him rather than being honest and owning up to it. His trust in anyone was broken, and so everyone except people Shoya builds trust with are shown with a blue X over their face. At the end, when he and his friends are all together again at the school, he looks up and everyone’s Xs fall off of their face, showing he is no longer anxious about speaking to people. 

The movie has a memorable soundtrack as well. In the beginning, “My Generation” by The Who plays over a montage of the younger versions of the characters doing typical elementary-middle school stuff. There is also a tune played on a piano early on in the movie that will certainly get stuck in your head. 

This movie was done quite nicely, and tells an original and interesting story. I am a bit of a sucker for romance stories, so I may be a bit biased, but either way it’s a good movie that is quite enjoyable. This 2016 film can be found on Netflix.