It’s no wonder why so many anime of all genres and eras focus on the high school setting: It’s an intense period filled with entirely new experiences. And while young people often don’t realize this until later in life, that’s often the time when they learn how to be people and how to understand others without any basic instruction or toolset. . American media about high school often highlights that dynamism in different ways than the Japanese media, often presenting students as precocious, self-assertive, and talkative students. they seem like particularly petty adults. (Just look at Bad girls — Rachel McAdams was 26 when she played Regina George in that film.)
But the high school animated series is more likely to exploit the uncertain aspects of adolescence — especially the awkwardness of managing emotions and deciding what’s safe or smart to reveal. others. Naoko Yamada’s emotional 2016 movie A silent voice, which leaves Netflix on June 4, focuses on specific areas that most high school stories won’t touch. It’s a particularly crude look at the damage young people can do to each other without knowing it at all and without any way of predicting the scope of their actions. A lot of the high school media deals with bullying, but Yamada’s adaptation of Yoshitoki Oima’s manga moves away from the familiar and lighthearted stories, and delves into the emotions of adolescence. almost astonishingly old.
In a slow and thoughtful opening that switches quickly between past and present, elementary school student Shoya Ishida hangs out with his friends in an enviable casual, happily running in the middle of an adventure. This childhood adventure and other childhood adventures. Then a deaf girl, Shoko Nishimiya, joins his class. Mesmerized by her and repulsed for reasons he doesn’t understand, Ishida relentlessly bullies her, as the rest of the class laughs or looks passively, refusing to interfere. Nishimiya, a meek and smiley girl who just wants to be friends, only apologizes to Ishida for all the cruel things he did to her, which angers him even more.
The tension peaked in various surprising ways, but one of them resulted in Nishimiya being sent to another school, while Ishida was held solely responsible for torturing her. His friends shun him and he withdraws into guilt and confusion. At the present time, the high school-age Ishida is a self-loathing defiant who refuses to look anyone in the eye and imagines everyone in his school walking around with giant X-es. on their faces, showing how he considers them difficult to approach. . He’s so deep in his feelings of worthlessness that he doesn’t even try to communicate.
When Ishida meets Nishimiya again, it’s his chance to learn how to reconnect. He really regrets the way he treated her, but that doesn’t mean he understands why he did it or that he knows how to communicate with her after years of social isolation. festival. From that, A silent voice spiral outwards in some surprising ways, as many of the two teenagers’ former classmates come to life with their own interpretations of what happened in high school and their own emotional conflicts to navigate.
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Image: Kyoto Animation
What makes A silent voice It’s remarkable the thoughtful ways it takes into account all of those different characters’ perspectives and needs. Without a doubt, it’s a melodrama, to the point where the characters sometimes feel overblown in their beliefs: Ishida’s forgetfulness and Nishimiya’s kindness both disappoint after a while. , until the story reveals what’s really going on underneath the two. But the story is not just about the two of them. It’s about how people have various reasons for being nice or cruel to one another, and about how struggles in high school are often far more complex and nuanced than their versions on the Internet. TV and movies.
A silent voice can be highly emotional: The film makes no mention of suicidal behavior and even suicide attempts, and a number of different characters burst into tears at the stress of what they’re going through. Yamada contrasts all the dark impulses and sombre moments with a bright, sunny palette that often captures the glitter of light on the water and the bright koi fish swimming up to it to be fed. Everything on the screen in A silent voice shining with the energy of the sun — even in moments of despair and heartbreak. It’s almost eerily beautiful as it explores human ugliness. Even small details, such as the way Ishida’s t-shirt tags always roll up from under his collar, are used to tell the story.
But all of those big emotions are also purifying and engaging, especially on the level of nuance this story gives them, and it radically rejects simple black-and-white thinking about childhood. and youth misconduct. Left alone together, Ishida and Nishimiya can easily overcome their past and find a balanced future. But their choices – and the places where they weren’t chosen – affected everyone around them, and those traumas also had to be navigated so anyone could move on.
A silent voice is a strange film to watch for those who have been bullied, given how sympathetically it looks at its central bully and empathically explores the ways in which people cry called to explain how his behavior caused him suffering. But it also openly suggests that everyone is capable of atonement if they do, and the causes of bullying are far more complex than “some kids are just spoiled and need to be beaten.” . The filmmakers here understand that the road to becoming an emotionally fully grown adult is bumpy for everyone, and the film celebrates young people who have made a real effort to navigate the path. there. This is a unique and outstanding film that is well worth watching while it is still easily available.
