A Silent Voice

interregnum May 23, 2017

3

Forget you ever heard of this film. Go read the manga.  No, seriously: skip…this…movie.  It’s an overwhelmingly minority opinion, I know, but A Silent Voice is a slapdash, choppy, depthless summary of a remarkable, heartrending story of the despairing consequences from the most basic of our childhood stupidities: our ignorance of empathy. It’s a brilliant, brilliant story--and it deserves better than what’s in this film.  A Silent Voice is a series--and I emphasize series--based on character progressions over a period of months. And for a fair number of characters. Is it adaptable? Absolutely. Closely adaptable? No--at least, not as a movie. There are too many moving parts, too many characters with their own intertwining storylines to cohesively tackle in two hours. There just isn’t space for it--at least, not without drastically trimming plot and character alike.  Which it doesn’t.  Rather, what we get is an attempt to faithfully hit all the big story beats and images from the manga, and, in so doing, the movie overlooks its first duty as a movie: tell a good story. Everyone and everything is so undefined, here, that I’m not sure there was even a recognizable arc to the story.  It’s not unwatchable, but it may as well be.

RRRNIER Apr 18, 2017

9.8

This movie may sound like another cliche scenario but it's completely packaged with only original goodness, The animation was one of the key element for the success of the movie each panel used vibrant and different colors to sink that scene into our heads deep. The author made a clear distinction between love and hate characters, what she wanted u to hate and what she wanted u to love and that makes it enjoying this movie, to finish off our destroyed heart the movie finishes off with Aiko, the ending song make you have flashbacks about the movie and I reckon it's a great way to end the movie.  shini taku nata kedo ii tomodachi ga iru kara yameta o(^∀^*)o (not just silent voice but your name as well after you watch this movie u can watch any other anime but u will definitely feel like any other anime that you're watching right now is shit no matter what you watch)

muonsei May 10, 2017

9.8

This review is very late because of one big reason: the release of Koe no Katachi in Philippine cinemas was delayed. Today, May 10, is the first day of its showing in the Philippines and I have no regrets watching it! Story: Realistic. Let's face it, we have people like Nishimiya around us. All of us don't do these things but sometimes we ridicule them, sometimes we ignore them (and ignoring them isn't doing anything good at all, too). The story of Koe no Katachi shows us how to understand people like them. There are only a few animes out there about deaf-mute people and this is a jewel that shows the reality about it: fitting in, being bullied, contemplating on life, thinking about ending one's own life, et cetera. However, I have difficulty understanding some parts of it since I don't know sign language. Animation: I really can't say anything about the animation because to me it's already really, really good. Though it can be annoying sometimes, I really liked the X-marks on the people. Sound: The BGMs in each scene fit really well, but I think they weren't enough to get tears out of me, sadly. Characters: The characters were very relateable. Just like Ishida, I have difficulty looking at people straight for some reason. Maybe it's because I have the tendency to run away (like Sahara)? I also think that I am self-righteous just like Kawai. Anyway, leaving comparisons to myself aside, the characters developed quite well. The scene at the end where they met at Ishida's school festival wrapped everything up. The movie also shows the sacrifices people do for their differently-abled loved ones. Side note: Thumbs up to the voice actors, especially Nishimiya's. For the first time I finally heard a realistic portrayal of a deaf-mute in something that's not live action. Everyone did a great job of letting the characters' feelings reach the audience. This masterpiece definitely deserves to be rewatched in the future!