A Silent Voice
While A Silent Voice had been shown in Japan for a long time, it was only yesterday that I was able to watch in my country. Back in its air time, A Silent Voice clashes against Your Name in a competition to entice audiences, which ultimately was won by Shinkai's latest work. Consequently, Your Name was able to shine here in my homeland long before A Silent Voice arrived.
I saw A Silent Voice with my friends in the morning in the day when I also watched Totoro for the second time in the evening alone. Compared to Your Name, the promotion for A Silent Voice was arguably more traditional, depending on mouth to mouth rather than obsessive aggressive messages in social media. In turn, the viewers were also considerably fewer than I expected.
A slight nuisance for me is watching with dual subtitle and the fact that the one in my native language has slight mistranslation of anime jargon, honorific, and pronoun. But, all of those don't deter me from watching what I thought a refreshing anime at that time.
Details
- Japanese: 聲の形
- Hepburn: Koe no Katachi
- Directed by: Naoko Yamada
- Screenplay by: Reiko Yoshida
- Based on: A Silent Voice by Yoshitoki Ōima
- Music by: Kensuke Ushio
- Cinematography: Kazuya Takao
- Production company: Kyoto Animation
- Distributed by: Shochiku
- Release date: September 17, 2016 (Japan); February - May 2017 (WorldWide)
- Running time: 129 minutes
- Country: Japan
- Language: Japanese
Synopsis
From MyAnimeList:Shouya Ishida, a boy always looking for ways to beat boredom, ends up looking for it in the wrong place. Weirded out by his new classmate, a deaf transfer student named Shouko Nishimiya, he deems her as the target of his ostracizing and bullying. Day after day, Shouya picks on Shouko, unaware of the effects of his thoughtless actions. He finally understands the pain he has inflicted on her when one day, his bullying culminates in her leaving the school, and his classmates begin to shun and harass him every chance they get instead. Determined to right his wrongs, five years later, Shouya, now a third year high school loner, meets Shouko again. Thus begins the story of a young man's path to redemption.
Story
Adapted from a manga series, A Silent Voice really does a lot of inexplicable things. First of all, A Silent Voice was able to come in second after Your Name, even if the hype of Shinkai's fan razes all around the globe. Second, Shinkai himself admires the film, admitting that there are things in the film that he wouldn't be able to think off or recreate.Just like Your Name, A Silent Voice has its own merits and issues. Let's start with the good news. I love the social issues that are being brought up by this film. I mean, how many of you know that Japan's bullying is one of the worst in the world? I mean in my country, bullying is almost always either physical or verbal. They are both bad, I know. Yet in Japan, we saw another form of bullying, which is social. In my humblest opinion, that is the harshest of them all.
The immense exposure on realism in the film is also fantastic. Disabled characters are often shown just as supporting ones, rarely as main protagonists. The writing and dialogues are very deep, often painfully staring at one's soul and eating our conscience while we think of ourselves. It's not that often I find an animation that with its penetrating gaze makes me reflect on my wrongdoings in the past.
Even though I love not to speak ill things about the film, the storm is coming abound. I found a lot of things that make me question about the film. As the plot thickens and the scenes unfold, I realize that the pacing of the film itself is not stable. It's too slow most of the time but the whole thing felt like too short. That results in a half-boiled egg, which doesn't really show a point. Sure, many messages are hinted and can be picked up along the lines. Right from the start, we are shown the cruelty of childhood and life. But, the way that it was ended and abruptly stopped makes me wonder if the film itself just a glimpse of an another work to come?
Subtle yet crucial differences from the original manga series don't help much to give an invigorated image to the viewers. Although the film itself can be watched without previous exposure of the original manga, the intended message and complexity were greatly diminished. What ensues is unnecessary drama-filled conflicts which only serve as a plot device but don't really develop the characters' relationship.
If you read the manga before seeing the film, you will find many crucial things that are not shown or events that occur not in a chronological order. Either she was intentional or not, Naoko Yamada has crafted a different thing from the existing source. My main concern about this trouble lies on the characters which I will talk in the subsequent section. Overall, it is kind of okay to me for the plot, but there are some cliched scenes which can be cut and replaced with more character development or even different things.
Visual
My god. Two words that came out from my back of mind right after the opening credits. Reflecting its unbelievable artistic style, A Silent Voice clearly defines what a modern animation should be. It is graceful, peaceful, calm yet at the same time emotional, enraged, and flowing rapidly. I was amazed by its cinematography, particularly the lighting and the blocking. There are scenes that I usually would rather skip but discourage me because of their striking composition. Truly wonderful, there are no noticeable flaws in regarding the visual aspect. If I want to stretch, it's the character design that bothers me, which I will talk in the respective section.With a big name such as Kyoto Animation behind the film, you can expect only good quality art. This is quite amusing to me because I don't usually watch KyoAni's series. They are filled with mushiness and softness that are comparable to eating a jar full of sugar. With that being said, they deliver a remarkable film that is making me reconsider my opinions on them.
Audio
Finally, a real enjoyable unobtrusive rock song! While in the past I have complained about the usage of rock songs in a certain film, the opening rock song is perfectly fit in its own place. The soundtrack is also amazing, exerting a constant stream of emotions that entwines with the visual style.And the acting... By the goddess... I felt so many emotions and realism coming from Saori Hayami, the voice of actress of Shoko. I mean, I didn't expect such glorious performance coming from the voice actress of Shinoa in Seraph of the End, a character which I deemed as uninteresting because of her passive-aggressive typical approach. Hard as lightning, soft as candlelight. Miyu Irino, who also voiced Takao in The Garden of Words, brings out the best of his performance. I can feel the lingering sadness and loneliness from his tone. While I don't really enjoy the presentation of Nagatsuka, I do love his little entertaining acts.
Characters
Unfortunately, having a great combination of both visual and audio aspect won't affect how the audiences reacting if the characters are flawed. It's like being in a hot morning on the top of the mountain. Quite contradicting with how each characters played out their role.How blatantly obvious that Naoka was redesigned to resemble a certain character in K-On!, the series which she had directed (starts with a big M and ends a small o). I mean just seeing her on the screen really makes me kind of disappointed. I don't know if it's intentional or not but the representation of Ishida and his mother are also kind of remind me of Ryu and his mom in Toradora. There are also minor things such as different style and degree of realism in each character. For example, the cartoonish style of Nagatsuka contrasts heavily with the bishounen-ish style of Mashiba that are amplified even more in the film.
Last but not least, the character development. Nagatsuka and Mashiba are not properly introduced and explained, making their presence kind of pointless. It's such a shame that Shoko's side of the story isn't truly expressed. In the two hours worth of running time, Shoko's character is more undeveloped than Ishida while he managed to convey his resolve and inner turmoil splendidly. Unsurprisingly, Kawaii in her multi-facade charade and Ueno with her antics are lost along the way. In the original manga, all the characters are forced to examine their actions and choices. These kind of revealing moments are clearly not shown in the film.