MOVIE

CRITIQUE
Submitted by : Don Maxwell A. Bandin
Grade 8 – Serenity

Submitted to : Teacher Jane Enojardo

 A Silent Voice
By: Yoshitoki Ōima
CHARACTERS :

 Shoya Ishida

The main character and narrator. Ishida bullied Nishimiya Shouko in elementary
school and when she transferred away, he was ostracized and bullied by his
former friends. He started to ignore those around him (imagining them with a
large X across their face) and was driven to the point of suicide.

 Shouko Nishimiya
A young, deaf transfer student with an amazingly positive outlook on life. Despite
being a victim of continuous bullying, she always keeps a smile on her face.

 Naoka Ueno

A girl from Ishida and Nishimiya's elementary school and the girl that Ishida was
closest to at school. Ishida remembers her bossing him about and also being his
main helper in bullying Nishimiya. After having separated from him since middle
school graduation, Ueno runs into Ishida years later, herself now working in a cat
café.

 Miki Kawai

Nicknamed "Kawaiichi," Kawai was the school representative at Ishida's

elementary school. She is popular and normally takes charge of situations and is
shown to be kind to everyone; however, all her actions seem to have her academic
reputation in mind. Kawai is also a narcissist who believes that everyone should
love her, as well as wanting to be the victim in every problem she faces.

 Miyoko Sahara
A kind girl from Ishida and Nishimiya's elementary school. She was the only
person willing to make an effort to learn sign language and befriend Nishimiya.

 Yuzuru Nishimiya

Nishimiya's younger sister who is currently a middle school student. She cut her
hair short so their mother would not cut Nishimiya's and has kept it that way ever
since; due to this, she is often mistaken for a boy, with Ishida even thinking that
she is Nishimiya's boyfriend at first.

 Tomohiro Nagatsuka

A short, fat, and lonely boy who is a habitual liar. When someone tries to steal
Nagatsuka's bike, Ishida offers his to be taken instead. Nagatsuka sees this act of
kindness as a unbreakable act of friendship and swiftly becomes Ishida's self-
proclaimed best friend and starts to idolize Ishida. He is shown to be quite
obsessive and protective of Ishida and often dislikes him befriending other
people. However, Nagatsuka is also supportive of Ishida and often offers advice.

 Satoshi Mashiba

A boy who becomes interested in and joins Ishida's group of friends upon
learning they are making a movie. He is eager to be the leading actor and is
considered handsome and talented enough to do so. Mashiba was lonely as a
child and the other children took him for granted and bullied him, now he is
completely intolerant of bullies in any form, and while generally calm and level-
headed, he reacts violently to any random act of bullying he sees.

 Yaeko Nishimiya

A cold woman, who after catching a virus from her husband during pregnancy, left
Nishimiya deaf. Her husband's family quickly filed for a divorce. When her
husband left, she was pregnant with Yuzuru and her mother helped her raise both
her daughters.

 Ito Nishimiya
Shouko and Yuzuru's maternal grandmother. A caring, wise woman, she cared for
Nishimiya and Yuzuru when their father left and their mother was at work. She
bought Yuzuru her first camera and tries to convince Yuzuru that her mother
means well for both her and her sister.

 Miyako Ishida

A kind and loving single mother of Shouya and his older sister who owns a hair
salon. She cares for her granddaughter Maria as well as Ishida and often lets
Yuzuru stay around the house. She became disappointed upon learning that
Ishida bullied Nishimiya and had to pay 1.7 million yen for all the hearing aids
Ishida broke.

 Kazuki Shimada
Ishida's best friend in elementary school. He helped him bully Nishimiya.

 Keisuke Hirose

Ishida's other best friend in elementary school. He is a fat boy who often went
alongside Ishida in his "life-challenging activities."

 Takeuchi

Ishida's teacher at the elementary school. He is a shallow man who finds

Nishimiya's presence in the school unfair on the other pupils.

 Maria Ishida
Ishida's young niece who lives with Ishida and his family. Maria is half-Japanese
from her mother's side and half-Brazilian from her father's side.

 Pedro

Maria's Brazilian father.

THEME :
The movie of A Silent Voice is all about drama, romance, slice of life , bullying
and depression.

MAIN IDEA :
As a wild youth, elementary school student Shouya Ishida sought to beat boredom
in the cruelest ways. When the deaf Shouko Nishimiya transfers into his class,
Shouya and the rest of his class thoughtlessly bully her for fun. However, when
her mother notifies the school, he is singled out and blamed for everything done
to her. With Shouko transferring out of the school, Shouya is left at the mercy of
his classmates. Now in his third year of high school, Shouya is still plagued by his
wrongdoings as a young boy. Sincerely regretting his past actions, he sets out on a
journey of redemption: to meet Shouko once more and make amends.

SUMMARY :
A boy named Shoya Ishida sets his affairs in order and walks to a bridge,
intending to commit suicide. Coming to his senses at the last minute, he recalls his
days in elementary school, and the events that have led him to this point in his
life.

In those days, Shoya was an indifferent child, one who viewed his fellow students
as a way of staving off his boredom. The entry of a new student named Shoko
Nishimiya into his class piques his interest ; she informs the class, through writing
in a notebook, that she is deaf. In spite of her disability and her inability to speak
well, she tries her best to live normally and mesh with the class, but the other
students, and the teacher as well, come to believe her presence is upsetting the
social balance; they feel she is imposing on them through her handicap. Shoya,
who already considers her odd, begins to bully and harass her without end; the
class, more amused than shocked, does not intervene in the situation.

One day, Shoya yanks out her hearing aids, causing her ears to bleed; soon after,
the school's management is made to realize what is happening, and the principal
confronts the class about it. The teacher, suddenly infuriated, singles out Shoya as
the culprit; Shoya, cornered, truthfully names his friends as accomplices, but they
turn on him, vehemently denying their involvement. Soon, the class's bullying is
directed toward him; they subject him to the same treatment he gave to Shoko.
Coming to blame Shoko for his situation, the two fight in their classroom after he
finds her doing something to his desk; following this, she is transferred to another
school, and he discovers that she was erasing hateful messages his classmates left
in chalk on his desk. Shoya finds himself alone in his predicament, relegated to
the role of a tormented outcast. One day, after being thrown in a pond by his
classmates, he finds Shoko's notebook, which he had thrown there some time
earlier.

Now in high school, Shoya remains a social reject; his past is often brought up by
his former friends, something he has grown to accept as just punishment. Full of
guilt, shame and anxiety, he blocks out the faces of those around him, unable to
look them in the eye. He works hard to repay his mother for the money she had
to pay the school to replace the numerous hearing aids he destroyed. He visits the
sign language center to return Shoko's once-waterlogged notebook in the hopes of
making amends; when he tells her that he wants to be friends, he remembers that
she once made the same hand gestures to him, finally understanding that, through
his torment of her, she had only wanted to be his friend.
Yuzuru, Shoko's younger sister, introduces herself as Shoko's protective, young
boyfriend; she strongly doubts Shoya's intentions, knowing his history, and acts to
prevent him from meeting Shoko. At school, Tomohiro Nagatsuka, another
loner, befriends Shoya and quickly comes to considers him his "big friend"; he acts
against Yuzuru, aiding Shoya in his efforts. Shoko and Shoya begin meeting at a
bridge to feed bread to koi; one day, while Shoya and Shoko feed the koi, the
waterlogged notebook accidentally falls into the river, and Shoko jumps in after it,
as does Shoya. Watching from a distance, Yuzuru photographs Shoya jumping,
which happens to be prohibited, and posts the photo online.

When the photo reaches the school management, Shoya is suspended, and
Yuzuru reveals that she posted the photo; instead of getting angry, Shoya brings
Yuzuru to stay at his house after he sees her sleeping in the park, appearing
homeless. When Yuzuru leaves in the middle of the night, Shoya goes after her
and tells her that he is genuinely remorseful for the way he treated Shoko, and
Yuzuru reveals her true identity to him. Shoko and Yuzuru's mother, Yaeko,
realizes her daughters are meeting with Shoya and demands that they stop, but
they refuse to do so.

Shoko expresses a desire to reconnect with Miyoko Sahara, the only classmate
who was kind to her in elementary school; she and Shoya take the train to visit
her. By chance, Shoya also runs into Naoka Ueno, one of his old bullying
accomplices; although Naoka is apologetic toward him for the past, she remains
antagonistic towards Shoko, blaming her for what has happened.

Shoko soon gives Shoya a gift and confesses she has feelings for him, but because
she tries to speak her affections, rather than signing it out, Shoya does not
understand her. Worried that the misunderstanding upset her, Shoya invites her
to go to an amusement park with him and his former friends. There, Ueno finally
voices her sentiments to Shoko. Back at school, desperate to remain blameless,
Miki Kawai, yet another classmate, exposes Shoya's past to the remaining students
who were still oblivious to it, while downplaying her own involvement. Soon after,
the group has a heated confrontation about each member's level of responsibility
which ends with Shoya callously calling out every one of them for who they really
are; one by one, they leave Shoya, Yuzuru, and Shoko behind.
To cheer Shoko up after the death of her grandmother, Shoya takes Shoko for a
visit to the countryside, where he begins to understand how much she blames
herself for everything that has happened to him. Desperate to reassure and
change her mindset, Shoya contrives to meet with the sisters again and again.
Shoko eventually invites him over to her house, where he helps the sisters prepare
for what turns out to be their mother's birthday.

During the fireworks festival, Shoko goes back to their apartment under the guise
of finishing some schoolwork; Yuzuru then sends him there to get her camera.
When he arrives, he finds Shoko standing on the balcony, on the verge of
throwing herself to her death. Shoya succeeds in grabbing her before she falls and
pulls her back up, but he falls over the side into the river as a result. As he slips
into a coma, causing all of his classmates to reach their breaking point.

At the hospital, Yaeko and Yuzuru arrive to see Shoya's mother and instantly fall
to their knees and ask for forgiveness, presumably due to the resentment she had
for Shoya. Yuzuru blames herself for Shoko's suicide attempt. Outside, Ueno
harasses and screams at Shoko, blaming her for Shoya's coma until Yaeko pulls
her off of her daughter while Shoya's mother consoles Shoko.

One night, Shoko dreams of receiving a farewell visit from Shoya. Horrified, she
runs to the bridge where they fed the koi and collapses in tears; Shoya, awakening
from his coma in a state of panic, stumbles to the bridge himself and finds her
there, huddled in despair. He formally apologizes to her for the way he treated
her, and for the many things he did which may have caused her to hate herself; he
asks her to stop blaming herself, and also admits that, while he once considered
giving up himself and ending his own life, he has since decided against it. Shoya
then asks her to help him continue to live.

When Shoya goes to the school festival with Shoko, he finds out how much his
friends from elementary school still care for him - Kazuki Shimada and Keisuke
Hirose were the ones who pulled Shoya out of the river; Naoka took care of him
in the hospital; and Kawai tried to gather a thousand paper cranes for Shoya.
Lastly, Shoko has gone around to apologize to his friends in an effort to rebuild
the group. After Shoya returns to school, finally managing to look at people's
faces, he realizes that he has already found redemption and forgiveness at last.
Positive and Negative Points :
1. What are the negative aspects in the story?
The negative aspects are they’re so bully to one each other and so selfish.

2. What are the positive aspects in the story?

The positive aspects are they will be always at your side they will never
leave you and they will realize their mistakes in the end and will be Sorry.

3. If you were the main character would you follow what she/he did? Why?
Or why not?
 Ishida
No , i will not follow what he did because the person that we bully will
might get hurt and depress.

 Nishimiya
I will do what Nishimiya did because she’s a caring person and even if
she blame herself , she will be sorry even though it’s not her fault and
she still give a smile even if she’s hurting inside.