Oh man, finally!
You want to know how long I’ve been wanting to talk about A Silent Voice.
Well the film came out in like last September in Japan so... It's been over a year now.
Thankfully though before the end of this month there will be multiple showings of the film across the
US, and if you're interested in watching it there will be a link in the description so
that you can find a showing near you.
(EDIT: CANADIAN SHOWINGS HAVE BEEN ADDED IN DESCRIPTION!)
This is not a paid advertisement by the way, this is just me who really loves this film
wanting to make sure that you have a chance to watch it if you can.
I recommend watching it because A Silent Voice does something that I love anime for doing.
It tells me a story that I don’t see in other places.
In this case it’s a story that revolves around a young girl who is deaf.
We don’t usually see the deaf represented in anime, at least to this extinct.
But this film isn’t even really about being deaf, but more so a much greater problem
that comes to light as a result of it.
How this is all told, is why you should watch it.
So ladies, Gentlemen and others my name is Arkada and welcome to Glass Reflection.
Today the 2016 anime film directed by Naoko Yamada and produced by Kyoto Animation:
A Silent Voice.
Let’s Jam.
The very rough synopsis for this film can be said in just a few sentences.
Film follows around a young boy Ishida who as a child becomes the class bully to the new
deaf girl named Shoko, eventually he goes a step too far in his bullying and becomes
a target from the rest of his class.
Flash forward to his teenage years and instead of the outgoing charismatic child that he
was, he’s now a quiet withdrawn introvert.
He meets up again with Shoko and over the course of the film needs to come to accept
what he did, and re-build a relationship with this girl who just wanted to be his friend.
That’s the film in a nutshell, but of course in this case I find the deeper meanings, and
the kinds of things that the film implies, to be far more interesting.
Take Ishida’s bullying for example.
For a good while his bullying was tolerated, his friends laughed and agreed with him, his
teachers turned a blind eye to his actions, but as soon as he went one step too far the
whole dynamic changed in an instant.
Suddenly the same people who were laughing along with him are denying that they were
even involved.
“Why would I do something so horrible?”
It’s a cultural response to the problem that’s like an elastic band.
When the elastic is loose that’s when everything is “normal”, start stretching it and
it’s fine, it’s still allowable this is the bullying.
But take it just a tiny bit too far, society snaps back into place.
and that hurts.
Society likes things to be “normal” and anything it views as abnormal it likes to
poke and prod into becoming normal.
Unfortunately no matter how much you poke and prod a deaf person they will not suddenly
gain the ability to hear.
But children don’t get that, they see the problem but don’t know what they should
do about it, and clearly they didn’t get any guidance from the adults in school, possibly
because the adults don’t know what to do either.
So Shouko was ostracized.
Ishida’s problem is that he crossed the line from being one among many, to the
one who stands out.
Its sounds stupid when I say it like that but welcome to society.
Because he suddenly becomes abnormal in the amount and kind of bullying that he does,
This makes the group snap back against him, and he doesn’t know how to handle it.
His world gets turned upside down and he becomes the withdrawn introvert that we see throughout
the latter half of the film.
That’s the beauty about this plot though, it’s not about society.
On the surface it’s about this kid who now as almost an adult has to learn to take responsibility
for his actions, he just doesn’t know precisely how to do that.
But really it is about society because it’s society that’s constantly telling him that
what he’s doing is wrong while at the same time doing the exact same thing.
Just on a smaller scale.
Which is what makes this film special.
Like, older Ishida on his own is almost kind of a stereotypical protagonist, he’s an archetype
that we’ve seen before in drama shows like with Kosei in Your Lie in April or even Yuri from
Yuri on Ice to a point, but it’s his history as this little brat of a kid that ties him
down.
It brings about this idea of passive vs active bullying that makes the audience reconsider what makes
a good or bad person.
Let's take another character for example, Ueno, a girl from Ishida and Shouko’s class who was one of
the many who joined Ishida with the bullying of Shouko early on.
Difference being that she was not affected by the same snap back that Ishida was, so
she went on and grew up thinking that she never did anything wrong in the first place.
Fast forward to when they all meet up later and her first instinct is to once again bully
Shouko.
Sure not in very obvious or malicious ways, she keeps to societal norms, but continues
it when really you’d like to think she would have grown out of it.
Shoko’s deafness ended up shining a spotlight on some of the aspects that they as children
and even as young adults communicated with one another, but couldn’t really address.
They get faced with the problem of “well this girl can’t hear anything” and instead
of listening in other ways and learning how to work around the problem they start to shift
blame onto more tangible things, such as the actions of others without really understanding
how they think.
They aren’t listening to their SILENT VOICE. [/RollCredits]
The film’s title can be attached to many different things.
It’s a description of the conscience, it’s the desires of the characters.
Its Shoko’s entire being that she can’t quite communicate properly with the rest of
the cast, and by extension, the film doesn’t always communicate with the audience.
As an adaptation of a source material there are things that the film cannot explain or
adapt properly and it just sort of fits in with how the show is being presented.
There are several characters and minor events that occur or in some cases don’t occur
that lead to some confusing interactions, if you haven't read the source material,
but largely they don’t distract too much from the overall story.
Now people, myself included, will praise the visuals of this film.
The visuals play a very important part in the story itself, they have more significance
in this film about not being able to listen to others.
There are a lot of flashbacks and moments that felt like they were edited in the vein
of a music video.
Courtesy of Naoko Yamada who worked on Kyoto-Ani’s music focused series K-ON! and developed a
knack for Music videos.
Of course that’s not to say that the visuals are the be all and end all, and the audio
can go off and cry quietly in a corner or something.
No, even the music is very concept driven, the concept of perceiving sound presented
with the films odd approach to recording and mixing.
Really though the thing about the visuals and the score and sound mixing in this film
is that you get a lesser idea of it when someone like me is trying to explain it to you so honestly the
best way to experience it is to just go watch the film and take it all in yourself.
After which you can have someone explain some things in more depth.
Which I’m not going to, because
a good friend and part-time editor of mine Abhi has a full video on this very subject so I recommend
you to go check that out when you have the time
ALSO SUBSCRIBE TO HIS CHANNEL AND FOLLOW
HIM ON TWITTER AND STUFF HE’S A GOOD DUDE.
Now for a while before I actually watched this film I was worried about the constant
comparisons that were made between it and and another film from the same year Your Name,
comparisons made by people trying to determine which film was “objectively” better.
Having been a fan of the source material I worried that it wouldn’t hold up, and while
there are...some bumps in the road, perfection being difficult and all, this did
end up being a far better adaptation of the original material then I expected.
And really?
Not to knock Your Name or anything because that on it's own is a fantastic film, I think
I prefer this one.
There are just particular ways that the story moves along that I enjoy, various things about
its characters that I can relate to, and just the whole package was wonderfully enjoyable.
So, as such I’d like to present A Silent Voice with the Glass Reflection rating of Certified
Frosty, a rating for only the best of the best and those anime too important to ignore.
It’s a fantastic film that really reminds me why I love Kyoto Animation as a studio,
and why I enjoyed the original material so much.
As I mentioned at the start there are a number of showings happening shortly after this video
will be released so check that out.
Especially since there’s no solid word on a home video or streaming release of the film.
Anime Limited has it up on Itunes in the UK, and Madman has picked it up for Australia
and New Zealand but I haven’t found anything for North America besides this Theatrical
run done by Eleven Arts, so if this video has made you at all interested in it, and I hope it has,
please go and check it out.
Now, for alternate anime recommendations!
Well first off because the two keep getting intrinsically linked the first one should
be fairly obvious due to it notoriety as another big anime film of that year and that
is Your Name, again another fantastic film that’s worth checking out and thankfully
that’ll be out on Home Video next month for you to pick up if you haven't seen it yet.
Second recommendation if you are in the mood for a romance series that has
less of a personal anxiety bent of it's main protagonist then try
Ore Monogatari, it’s a romance so sweet and delicious it might just
kill you.
With love.
Really though watch it it's really good.
Hopefully between those two you should find something to your liking.
and that's it from me, thank you for taking the time to watch this video, I hope you enjoyed it!
Again, please go and watch A Silent Voice! It is a really REALLY good film and I want more people to see it.
As always I’d like to thank my patreons for supporting these videos as without you
they would not be possible.
In particular I’d like to thank Robert Chumsae, Calhounboy, Siri Yamiko, Viktor Ekmark, Joshua
Garcia, and Yunru Dovaqueen for being especially awesome.
So until next time ladies, gentlemen and others, stay frosty.