Aedonerre
I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.
Grimossfer
Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%
qingruivic-25161
Interpersonal relationship is a really popular subject to discuss for Japanese anime, by which the point that Japanese culture does value social connections is shown.Apparently this anime is not just a romance in a traditional sense, it also reveals bullying as a serious issue existing in Japanese schools. A pitiful and lonely girl because she is deaf-mute, bullied by a boy in elementary school. Dramatic changes also happen to the boy, turning him into the bullied because of his wrong behavior, which makes him begin to understand the girl's misery and drown in guilt for his own mistakes. Then he makes his effort for redemption.However, for me this movie does not give a thorough enough discussion on the bullying topic as a youth problem. It instead focuses more on the emotions. Even a subtle emotional change can affect hugely on the relationships among the friends and they have to work hard to fix it. Youth is a delicate stage, where everything is in the process of growing up, especially learning to deal with relationships and emotions. Therefore, this movie offers a worth-watching lesson of Japanese perspective in this aspect.
sarap1300
There is seldom a movie with such complexity and nuance as Naoko Yamada's Koe No Katachi, known in English as A Silent Voice. Right off the bat, the English title loses much in translation. A direct translation would actually be The Shape of Voice, which, as the movie progresses, is a much more descriptive and meaningful title.
At its most basic plot point, it is the story of two young people who are dealing with the ramifications of bullying, self-hatred, and a search for redemption and acceptance. In the opening scene, teenager Shoya Ishida is climbing the ledge of a bridge, intending to commit suicide. He's interrupted by the sound of children playing with fireworks. He stops what he's doing, and then the film launches into a series of flashbacks. As a 6th-grader, Shoya is a rambunctious kid, easily bored and always looking for action. Then one day, a new student, Shoko Nishimiya, comes to class. Shoko happens to be Deaf, and carries a notebook with her so that she can communicate with her hearing classmates. The class accepts her with curiosity, eager to be her "helper" as she goes through the school day. But as children are wont to do at that age, the classmates soon tire of their new responsibility and their interest and curiosity soon wanes. Students slowly begin to take frustration out on Shoko, including Shoya. In fact, Shoya becomes relentless in his bullying, ripping out Shoko's hearing aids and tossing them into the water. The bullying becomes so bad, in fact, that Shoko's mother complains to the school, and the teacher demands someone be punished. Naturally, all fingers point to Shoya. His mother, a single mom, has to dig into her savings to repay Shoko's mother for the lost hearing aids, and to beg for forgiveness for her son's behavior.
From then on, Shoya becomes the brunt of everyone's ire. He has become a pariah, labeled the school bully. Meanwhile, Shoko tries desperately to befriend him and teach him Sign Language. He wants nothing to do with her. Shoko's mother removes her from the school and has her placed in a different school.And so begins their journey. As time passes, Shoya does what he can to make amends for his behavior in the past. He takes Sign Language lessons. He searches for Shoko to see if she can ever forgive him. He isolates himself from everyone at school and refuses to look anyone in the eye. He works to earn money to pay his mother back. It is at this point he had made that decision to end his own life, luckily stopping to reflect. What he doesn't know is that Shoko has her own demons to fight, part of which has to do with her family's reaction to her hearing loss. She is the one deaf child in her family. Her sister and grandmother learn signs, but her mother does not. And Shoko is continually made to feel inferior. She keeps a pleasant smile on her face, trying desperately not to cause anyone unhappiness. Secretly, though, she is filled with self-loathing and wonders if the world would be better off without her.When the two finally reconnect, they are still hampered by their own self-recriminations. Their journey has only begun.Yamada is a master at using symbolic references. Everything in this movie has layers of meaning. Shoko's notebook is a physical representation of her desire to be accepted. A koi pond figures prominently in the movie, referencing our two protagonists' harsh journey to find meaning. Daisies grow defiantly through the cracks in cement, literally demonstrating the blossoming of their self-discovery and the resilience of youth.It's a beautifully orchestrated movie, utilizing sight-and sound-to convey all the complexities of life. In fact, there are several scenes where the music is discordant and slightly muted, almost mechanical. Maybe it's a way of demonstrating the way that Shoko hears. But it's also a way of demonstrating how both Shoko and Shoya feel about themselves.Without a doubt, this is one of the best movies made in 2017. While it is a fantasy of sorts, it is well grounded in the realities of adolescence, and should be considered for serious review. It is certainly a coming of age movie, encompassing all of the angst that teenagers go through as they navigate relationships. At first glance, several of the characters seem almost flat-or like a caricature. There's the pretty girl, the mean girl, the tom boy, the cool kid, the wannabe. These are the typical roles kids take on in school. But Yamada reminds us that no one is a caricature. We are all multifaceted beings with our own personal hopes and fears, and within this film we see those hopes and fears played out again and again, sometimes as comic relief. Sometimes with tragic consequences.At the heart of this movie is this desire to be heard. But before one can be heard, one has to stop and listen. Both Shoya and Shoko are trying to communicate and find forgiveness, but before that can happen they both need to learn how to forgive themselves and they both need to learn how to listen to each other. Really listen. Really see. Because voice isn't always audible. Voice takes shape in a number of ways. And part of growing up is finding that voice and sharing that voice with others. Yamada asks us "What do you sound like to others? What shape is your voice?"
eric-lovelock
Yeah, this is a "pretty" movie. The animation is nice, the character designs are pretty solid, and the voice actors are all good in their own right. The problem with this movie isn't technical, because from a Visual aspect it's all very good. The issue is in it's main story, scratch that, it's with the main characters.The central plot device here is following the main character, Shoya, who ruthlessly bullied a deaf girl in elementary school until she was forced to switch schools. There are other characters too, a lot of other (to the movie's credit, believably written) characters who also partake in this cruelty, in what is a very well done portrayal of the escalation of torment for kids. The issue is what comes after, in which suddenly Shoya is supposed to be this sympathetic character. That's the chief problem, this movie tries to make you feel badly for someone who has no right to be pitied. It's about him trying to make amends, like that will undo everything and make the world all pretty again. Other characters are there too, and overall they all fall into this central theme, and problem, in that the film seems to assume that just because you feel "Bad" about something, that makes it okay.These characters go around acting like feeling bad because they were cruel justifies it, that just because they're "sorry" they're suddenly absolved of sin. The film milks this dry and keeps trying to kick you in the gut, but it fails because there's no way this mentality can be sympathized with. Feeling sorry for yourself because you were a bully doesn't render your actions void, it doesn't make everything better, and the damage they've caused never goes away. As much as the film wants you to think that everyone is secretly good, it never gives me reason to believe as such. They haven't learned anything, they're just as selfish and mean as they used to be, they just learned how to make it SEEM different. One of the characters hates Shoko (The deaf girl), slaps her repeatedly, tells her that she hates her TO HER FACE, blames her for her problems, and then suddenly at the end we're supposed to think she's good just because she feels bad later. In conclusion, it's a visually engaging film, but it's skewed perspective of "redemption" drags it down and makes it impossible to empathize with anything it presents.
salmanalfarisi-81574
When Kyoto Animation announced "A Silent Voice's" adaptation as an anime movie, I was a bit surprised. Indeed manga itself isn't too long volume, only 7 volumes, but is it enough to be a movie only? Apparently, Kyoto Animation does not half-hearted to work on adaptation. They adapted the manga into a film that lasted 130 minutes."A Silence Voice," tells about Shoya Ishida, a teenager in elementary school who often perform bully to a transfer student named Shoko Nishimaya who turns out to be a deaf. Due to an incident, Shoya is caught and then his classmates begin to do the same to him, bullying. After this incident, the time was accelerated into high school and Shoya began to close his heart and always felt guilty. But one day, Shoya meets Shoko again. This meeting also made Shoya start to change.For this film version, Kyoto Animation made many changes so that the story can be finished in 1 movie. Maybe some of you are disappointed because of this change, but I feel this is a good thing because the story becomes more solid and does not feel wordy.Many people say that this movie has many shortcomings. One of them is the story that is too flat. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with this movie. Although, this is also a drama genre film is not action or whatever. Maybe some people are not used to the drama movie. Make the audience bored and sleepy. In addition, many also say that in terms of depiction is less. And for anime films like this, this is the best for anime films. If in terms of opening and ending, KyoAni brings back the legendary band named The Who with the song "My Generation" as opening and ending hosted by Aiko "Koi wo Shita no wa".Some of the anime series done by Kyoto Animation lately have different character designs from different series, just look at K-ON!, Tamako Market, and others. The scene for "A Silent Voice", Kyoto Animation is still faithful to the character design that is still similar to its manga series. Not only from the design alone, how to use the color was similar to the original work.For "A Silent Voice", Kyoto Animation has chosen various famous seiyuu such as Miyu Irino as Shoya Ishida, Saori Hayami as Shoko Nishimiya, Aoi Yuuki as Yuzuru Nishimiya and others. So the performance of each seiyuu it no doubts. But for me, the performance of Saori Hayami in this film really shines. Because Shoko is deaf, Shoko certainly can not speak fluently because he never heard his words. Here, Hayami manages to play Shoko perfectly.Overall, although some people think this movie is still a lot of disappointing even extent of regret for watching it, fuck off. Literally, nothing wrong with this movie. Perhaps based on people's perceptions. But, A Silent Voice is a movie you should not miss. You can enjoy the sad story of this drama.
