by Kiri Forrester
A Silent Voice is a 2016 animated film directed by Naoko Yamada and written by Reiko Yoshida, which tells the coming-of-age story of a high school boy named Shouya, a former bully who struggles with internal guilt and thus has difficulty building relationships. He seeks to repair the past by befriending Shouko, the deaf girl whom he bullied in elementary school. Netflix displays the title of the movie as A Silent Voice; however, the actual Japanese title is “聲の形” (Koe no Katachi), which literally translates to “The Shape of a Voice.” In addition, this kanji character for “voice” is different from the typical kanji used for voice in the everyday Japanese language. Nowadays, “声” is the more commonly used character for voice. However, the character used in the title of this movie is older: 聲. For those who know or have studied Japanese, a closer examination of the kanji for “voice” reveals a set of components ––“声” “耳” and “殳”–– which mean voice, ear, and hand, respectively. The picture contains more meaning than just the words themselves. These three components––voice, ear, and hand––all correspond to different elements of communication: speaking, listening, and doing. A Silent Voice conveys the importance of communication and does so in an artistically beautiful way that connects with the audience emotionally. Roger Scruton, a scholar who has specialized in aesthetics, wrote a book titled Beauty: A Very Short Introduction, which explored the nature of beauty, saying, “Art moves us because it is beautiful, and it is beautiful in part because it means something. It can be meaningful without being beautiful; but to be beautiful it must be meaningful” (99). A Silent Voice is a beautiful movie because it tells a meaningful message about human relationships and redemption. The same might be said for kanji. When spoken it means something, but it is also a picture, a work of art, and in this case, derives some of its beauty from its depth of meaning. Although A Silent Voice deals with a heavy subject, it exhibits beauty in relationship and redemption through the voice, the ear, and the hand.
For human beings, the voice is the main means of communication; however, Shouko is unable to speak normally because of her deafness, and thus her ability to communicate with others is hindered. Because of this disability, she struggles to connect with others who immediately label her as odd and different. Nevertheless, she strives to find an alternative means of communication. Shouya, Ueno, and the other students in the class bully Shouko because of their inability to understand her. Rather than using their voices to communicate with her, they use their voices to speak ill of her. Despite everything she suffers, Shouko is persistent in her desire to make friends with her classmates and continues to extend forgiveness in hopes that they will accept her. Even after Shouya rips out her hearing aids during class, causing her to bleed, she seeks him out after school and writes, “I’m sorry,” to him in her notebook. Even though Shouya should be the one apologizing, Shouko seeks to bridge the gap between them out of her own initiative. Together, they work to bring together their old elementary school classmates as well as new high school classmates to build new friendships. In addition, when Shouko breaks her arm during her attempted suicide at the end of the movie, she can no longer rely on her hands for sign language and is forced to rely on her notebook and her voice to communicate with others. The group has a falling out over past grievances, but after the incident, she seeks to bring the group back together by going to each of them in person asserting, “I want to restore what I destroyed.” Her kind and gentle character as well as her dedication and patience to building relationships is beautiful.
The ear is important to relationships because communication cannot occur merely through speaking, but also listening. Ironically, though Shouko cannot hear through her ears, she is a lot more attuned to what others are trying to communicate. Compared to her, the other characters are deaf, because they are not making an effort to listen to what other people are saying. There is a difference between listening as hearing sounds versus listening as actually paying attention to what is being said. From the film’s beginning, Shouya is tuned out of everything that is happening around him. Fearing rejection, he chooses to ostracize himself rather than be ostracized by others. He becomes a social outcast, always by himself, never looking anyone directly in the face, never truly listening to what people are saying. The compositional choices of the animation visually emphasize this theme of deafness and listening in unusual but creative ways. Every time the film shifts to Shouya’s first-person perspective, the viewer is only able to see people’s legs and feet, because Shouya is not brave enough to look anyone directly in the face. In a scene where Shouya is walking down the hallway of the school, the faces of everyone around him are covered in big purple x’s, as a way of expressing his inability to connect with and understand them. He covers his ears, blocking out the sounds of the people’s voices around him. It is not until he begins to listen to the people around him that he can make friends.
The ear is important to relationships because communication cannot occur merely through speaking, but also listening.
The first instance of this is when Shouya, leaving from school, overhears a bully trying to take a bike away from a short and slightly overweight boy. At first, he tries to ignore what is happening and keeps walking past the scene. After all, it does not concern him––he had never even talked to the boy before. However, in the end, he cannot ignore the boy’s pleas for help, and he confronts the bully and appeases him by offering his own bike. Though this was a one-time act, it led to the eventual friendship between Shouya and the boy, who he comes to know as Tomohiro. Part of what hinders Shouya’s ability to make friends is his lack of understanding about the nature of love and friendship. At one point, Shouya asks Tomohiro what it means to “be friends.” He wants to know what is required to earn a friendship with another person and maintain it. However, Tomohiro replies, “Friendship lies somewhere beyond things like words and logic. You don’t need such things as qualifications.” Shouya is convinced that friendship must be transactional; he has a hard time comprehending why someone like Shouko, whom he abused repeatedly, could forgive him every time and still want to be friends with him. Tomohiro knows that this is not the point of friendship. Friendship is not an equal ‘I give’ or ‘you give’ relationship. True friendship loves unconditionally––whether times are good or bad, sad or happy. Even if friends fight among themselves, love will bring them back together again, because it is stronger than anger and grudges. By listening to the voices of the people around him, Shouya learns how to connect with people and what true love and friendship mean. At the very end of the film, there is a scene where he goes to the festival, he finally uncovers his ears, and suddenly all the x’s fall off of the people’s faces. All at once, he is aware of dozens of snippets of conversation––people enjoying food, making plans, being judgmental, asking questions, laughing, making memories––just humans being human. This moment marks the change in Shouya, a visual representation of his champion moment in which he has overcome his fear of rejection and opened up the world around him––a world full of laughter and sadness and joy and pain. It is a beautiful, emotional moment in the film, in which the main character has emerged from the darkness into the light. Shouya himself recognizes the significance of this moment and is suddenly overcome by tears, for he is no longer deaf to his surroundings, but able to truly listen and connect with the people around him.
The hand is how people communicate through their actions. Shouko is unable to talk like normal people do, and thus she uses her hands to communicate with other people through sign language. Shouya takes time and effort to learn sign language so that he can communicate with Shouko. In contrast, Ueno flatly refuses to learn sign language and insists that Shouko write out everything she needs to say because she has no desire to truly get to know her. Even after learning sign language, Shouya must work hard to be able to communicate with Shouko, because her deafness is not the main obstacle in their ability to connect, rather their past trauma creates a wall between them, which they must overcome. In a movie review in The Hollywood Reporter, Jordan Mintzer describes them as “two damaged souls searching for some kind of solace in each other’s company.” Shouya and Shouko are redeemed through each other by working out their relationship together. The hand also evokes the image of the helping hand, tied to communication through action. The most striking example of this is Shouya’s act of saving Shouko’s life. Shouko attempts suicide by jumping off the balcony of her apartment, but Shouya, who has been in her position before when he too tried to take his own life by jumping off a bridge, knows that she is making a mistake and runs after her to keep her from jumping. A close-up shot of Shouya’s hand gripping Shouko’s shows the only thing keeping Shouko from plummeting to her death. At this moment, Shouya is communicating more with his hand than he has ever communicated by speech or sign language––that Shouko is a valuable person in his life and that she is worth saving.
At this moment, Shouya is communicating more with his hand than he has ever communicated by speech or sign language––that Shouko is a valuable person in his life and that she is worth saving.
The hand can also be associated with the handcrafted composition of the film itself. A Silent Voice is an animated film, which sets it apart in style from other movies as a hand-drawn art. Scruton in his section on artistic beauty writes, “Style enables artists to allude to things that they do not state, to summon comparisons that they do not explicitly make, to place their work and its subject-matter in a context which makes every gesture significant, and so achieve the kind of concentration of meaning” (91). The animation of A Silent Voice universalizes the film, making it available to a wider audience and communicating more effectively the emotions of the story. People will listen to the movie more because there is a large international interest in Japanese anime films. Robert Ito wrote an article about the great popularity of anime in The Los Angeles Magazine. He reports, “anime in Hollywood is big business. In October, Miramax released Princess Mononoke. . . after the film grossed a record-breaking $163 million in Japan. Two weeks later, Pokemon: The First Movie cashed in on the grotesquely lucrative Japanese video game/ TV show/trading card franchise, earning $52 million in five days” (20). By the nature of the film being animated, it can communicate to its audience even if it is in Japanese. People can relate more to anime characters than they would be able to if a Japanese person appeared on the screen. Thus the handcrafted medium of the film adds not only to the visual beauty of the film but also expands the accessibility of the film, allowing viewers to connect with the characters on an emotional level even if they are unable to understand the Japanese language.
In order to convey feelings, ‘voice’ and ‘sign language’ alone are not enough; you must ‘Listen to the other person’s opinion from the heart.’
A Silent Voice deals with heavy topics including depression, guilt, and suicide, which might seem inappropriate for a cartoon; however, the animated form allowed for the story to have a wider reach of influence among viewers. The film emphasizes the importance of communication in relationships through the voice, the ear, and the hand, just as the title conveys. A Japanese review discussing the title of the movie commented, “気持ちを伝えるには「声」「手話」だけでは届かず「心から相手の意見を聞く」=「聲」が重要だと考察,” which translates to: “In order to convey feelings, ‘voice’ and ‘sign language’ alone are not enough; you must ‘Listen to the other person’s opinion from the heart.’ That’s why he used 聲 instead of 声.” Shouya learns this lesson and resolves that he will change, saying, “I won’t run from things I don’t like anymore. Starting tomorrow, I’ll look everyone in the face properly. Starting tomorrow, I’ll listen to everyone’s voice properly. Starting tomorrow, I’ll do things right.” Ultimately, A Silent Voice is a story of redemption. Through Shouya’s conversion, others are also saved––Tomohiro, Yuzuru, Sahara, Kawai, Mashiba, Shouko, and Shouko’s mother. There is even hope for Ueno’s future despite her stubbornness to change. The beauty of the film lies in its meaning––its portrayal of the struggles and triumphs of relationships. The struggles addressed in this movie are real struggles that many experience daily, and through the characters’ redemption, the film calls for viewers to take their eyes off of themselves and to look to other people––to listen from the heart. A Silent Voice is truly a beautiful masterpiece that has and will impact its viewers for years to come.
The struggles addressed in this movie are real struggles that many experience daily, and through the characters’ redemption, the film calls for viewers to take their eyes off of themselves and to look to other people––to listen from the heart.
Kiri Forrester is a senior studying Art and English.
Works Cited
Ani Tree.【聲の形】タイトルの意味は？作者が伝えたいことを結末のシーンから考察.
Last modified July 27, 2020. https://zundad.com/koenokatachi-title-mean/.
Ito, Robert. “The Anime Underground.” Los Angeles Magazine 45, no. 1 (January 2000): 20.
Mintzer, Jordan. “‘A Silent Voice’ (‘Koe no Katachi’): Film Review.” The Hollywood Reporter,
June 15, 2017. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/a-silent-voice-review-1013787/.
Scruton, Roger. Beauty: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Hillsdale Forum 