As Adam puts it, this is a really messy part of life and this story captures it to such an uncomfortable degree. There are a few things I'll share from the manga that might give a bit more context to things. - The teacher is horrible. He laughs at one of Shoya's jokes about Nishimiya, AGREES with Shoya's sentiments of looking down on Nishimiya and only half-heartedly tells Shoya off so he doesn't embarrass or cause him trouble (like getting the principle involved), mocks the other teacher for suggesting they learn sign language, and when he and Shoya reunite (manga-only), the teacher called Nishimiya a "stepping-stone" for Shoya to become "the fine young man" he is today, that Shoya was just unlucky among everyone in the class because he drew the "short straw", which Shoya obviously rejects. The teacher never cared and only called Shoya out to put all the burden on him and save himself from trouble. There's a lot of imagery of video games at the start of the film which is what Shoya saw the world as, to hit a new "high score" (which to him is the reactions of those around him), he has to be more and more daring. But life isn't a game, and he learned when it was far too late, largely because the teacher constantly turned a blind eye and somewhat encouraged him. - It's more clear in the manga but after Shoya is singled out, his "friends" threw him into the pond likely because Shoya tried to also throw them under the bus and couldn't target Nishimiya anymore. When Sarah said they were just as bad, they REALLY were and ended up bullying him over the next few years. The teacher also knew about this and didn't do anything when Shoya asked for his help because that was his own "responsibility" after all he did. But at the end of the day, for as much blame as I put on the teacher, Shoya still did the atrocious things he did. He might have been a kid, but so was Nishimiya. Shoya, and most of all, Nishimiya, have to live with these experiences and that's really sad, especially knowing the teacher could have prevented Shoya from ruining his and Nishimiya's lives. - After being constantly bullied, losing all his friends, watching his mother pay for his mistakes and even get hurt (both Adam and Sarah's theories are possible regarding the earring though I leaned towards Sarah), Shoya did genuinely change for the better; learning sign language, attending a high school that's apparently difficult to get into, paying back his mom etc. But for as much progress as he's made, he's also a complete dork now to put it lightly after losing all confidence in himself. Shoya might be able to hear unlike Nishimiya, do sign language and understand her a little better now, but he still hasn't learned to listen or communicate maturely, which is why I think his reunion with Nishimiya is so problematic and messy. Shoya is awkwardly focusing on the wrong things, paying his mother and planning to kill himself so he wouldn't be a burden anymore when she just wanted him to be a good son, and wanting to be Nishimiya's friend because she asked him to in the past when what she really needed was an apology. He wants to do right, he wants to change, he wants friends, but he's also frightened of putting himself out there only to hurt others and lose everything again, so all his efforts feel half-hearted. Love the reaction as always, this is a tough one as I'm sure you both have realized; I do connect to both characters, especially Nishimiya since I have hearing loss, so I have a lot to say about her later in later parts. I hope you guys enjoyed the rest of the film!
Thank you for providing some context. It seems like having background with the manga helps understand what is happening more deeply. I think the other thing people don't always think about is that when we react to a new show or movie, we know absolutely NOTHING and our comments and reactions are completely knee-jerk/impulsive. Everyone else has had time to think deeply about it and understand it better.
@@SarahPavanAnimeThe movie can be confusing at first, this was the first anime movie I saw a few years ago and I thought the same as you, it's great that you're watching it, I love your reactions!
i always assumed that shoya's mom ripped out her own earring after finding out that her son had made nishimiyas ear bleed. as more of a 'i deserve the same thing since i raised him' apology. even though nishimiyas mom does slap nao later, i never thought of her to be one to rip someones earring out as a sort of payback but i guess we'll never know and thats the beauty of leaving it up to interpretationn
This was great insight. Seems like the movie misses a lot do the character development and experience that would provide a lot of context for some the actions and conversations. Thanks for taking the time to give us that insight.
50:10 So TRUE Sarah They were all hypocrite and should own up to their action. Like the ''smart girl'', always tried to make herself look good even if it meant putting down other. If you look closely at 9:11, she starts mouthing before everyone else and after that she's like ''Oh I'LL SHOW YOU THE TIMING''. So KIND of you.
Yeah, can't stand Kawai. Sabotaging poor Nishimiya, and then trying to act like she's the hero by offering her assistance. Always laughing at everything Ueno says to put down Nishimiya and Sahara, as if that isn't also encouraging that toxic behavior by doing so.
Sarah's media literacy is incredible. I shouldn't be surprised considering how much she got from her Haikyuu reactions that I didn't get the first time watching.
I was bullied terribly throughout my childhood. I constantly had people tell me I'm worthless, that I'm useless and a waste of space, was thrown off embankments, trapped in lockers... the works. Its an experience that will never really leave me, there's a constant voice in my head that plays those bullies words on loop I have no choice but to square with every day. But that being said... we were kids, and I'll never forget the very first person who bullied me breaking down in tears at the thought of moving schools and going somewhere new. His name was Oliver Oozeman (a perfect name for a bully I always thought XD) and as I later discovered, he was being abused by his mother at home every day. He had no control in his home life, no safety... so he used the lessons he learned at home to take control at school, so he would have somewhere he felt safe. I knew him from age 7-12, I have to repeat: WE WERE JUST KIDS. No kid should ever have to go through that, but he did, how can I blame HIM for how he dealt with it? Bullies that are true psychopaths are vanishingly rare. By far the most common source of bullying... is bullying, usually by an authority figure the child can't hope to resist. And guess what, being bullied made me meaner. Made me distrustful, made me assume people hated me without giving them a chance. Made me feel I had to lash out to push them away before they could hurt me first. Made me feel like Oliver. So despite in many ways being the poster child for 'bullied as a kid', all I can say is this: I will never give up on a bully or a bullied kid. Because, for the final time: they're just kids.
lmaoooo imagining little sarah pushing two kids down a hill is beautiful, love it 😂 also the big sighs at 33:33 are so relatable... yeah, that's the whole movie lmao 😭
after you watch the whole thing, i also recommend you watch the reaction video done by cinema therapy of a silent voice on your own time. they always do such a good job explaining the psychology and film of it and they always give out so many valuable life lessons!! genuinely one of my favorite videos from them so i really recommend!!
This should be upvoted cause i feel they're missing some info from the movie. I mean, almost everyone did and had to rewatch it two or three times but that video can help them a lot
Although I do think it’s hard as a third party to trust Shoya and believe that his intentions with Nishimiya are genuine, just like the time-skips show, he was indeed bullied too. He would probably never realize what he did was wrong if he had not gone through the same thing, that’s how we learn empathy after all, and he was just a kid. He probably thought he made people laugh with bullying her, but once it happened to him, and got the consequences for his actions, he truly understood what he did to her was awful. And I mean, he is SO incredibly sorry that he doesn’t think he deserves to have friends anymore, and that he deserves to die. But it’s true what you two said, some people will apologize just to feel better about themselves, and in a way, I think Shoya thought something similar without realizing, after all, seeing her again and apologizing was part of the ritual he had planned before killing himself, like he could simply “set things right” before he was gone. But it’s not that simple, and he realized that the damage he did to Nishimiya will not go away with a simple “I’m sorry”. So, he tries to find excuses to see her again, and be friends. I think you guys already saw the whole movie, so I hope I’m not making spoilers, but we realize this with the rest of the movie too, he doesn’t get close to her to make himself feel better, he wants to actually get to know her, support her, be her friend. We see how much he has grown and that his intentions to be better are actually genuine.
Thank you for explaining it they also definitely need to watch an explanation video because the ending is kind of confusing for those who don’t understand about spirit, realms, and stuff like that in Japanese culture with the fish
Awesome to see you both reacting to A Silent Voice! This movie actually got me through some pretty rough times and is my current #1 movie. I can relate to Shoya very closely to how he turned out in high school. I dont think I was a bully, but I know that i could have been a better friend to those close to me. To this very day, 6 years later, I still feel guilt to the point where I refuse to make new friends or put up barriers to prevent myself from getting too close to others. The "X" on the faces represents that anxiety to communicate with others even visually, and I still do that at present too. I force myself to smile and face the world because of this movie even if every fiber in my body doesnt want to. Even when I got the feeling that I was making friends, sure enough I just pushed them away and kept my distance in the end. I still dont trust myself to be a good friend nor do I forgive myself for things ive done and said in the past thus leading to a life of loneliness and rejecting the outside world. It sucks and it hurts, but i dont feel like I've punished myself enough to allow myself to reconnect to humanity just yet. Some days I just want to disappear too but I know thats too easy so here I am... sorry for the rant btw. This movie just hits a little too close to home and I just need to get it off my chest into the void of the internet.
THANK YOU for reacting to this. The story is just as gruesome as it is amazing. And the visualization of social anxiety has never been more captivating in my eyes. Can't wait until you see the rest of this movie! It definitely left a deep impression on me
51:30 he does getting bullied afterward, dunk to the pond, spraid with water, writing on his desk, and getting isolated through elementary and then junior high, all the things he did to nishimiya, he was experienced it too. And that made him understand how's nishimiya felt.
A couple of context items regarding your more confused moments (with the benefit of hindsight, of course) 1 - the mom's ear was bleeding because she ripped out her earring as a form of contrition, mirroring how her son ripped out Shouko's hearing aids. Paying back not only money but experiencing physical pain to show her remorse. 2 - Ishida's mother is a poor hairdresser and he understands the financial burden he inflicted before any sort of emotional or physical trauma because it resonated with his own personal experiences. 3 - Ishida experienced bullying that mirrored Shouko's once she was no longer a viable target for the bullies. In the process he lost all of his "friends" and was isolated. Again, mirroring Shouko's experience and resonating the rest of the trauma he inflicted. 4 - After Shouko transferred schools and he was left alone with no friends. He continued to isolate himself and became more and more withdrawn, essentially changing his personality entirely in the process. 5 - the time skips can be a bit disorienting on the first watch, I agree. 6 - Ishida goes back and forth a little at first with how he treats Shouko, like Adam said. He's curious, wary, and very much a kid who cares more about what his friends and the crowd think than anything else. He really only starts bullying her once Ueno eggs him on as a way to "show off" for her. He's not an inherently bad kid, but he very much lacks any sort of internal strength of will or strong moral compass. Once he realizes he's made a mess of things, he's more caught up in his own anger and shame and lashes out at Shouko instead of apologizing or making anything better. He gets mad at her for trying to smile through the pain because he is not emotionally mature enough to do that. He wants her to lash out and get angry like he is because it would justify his own behavior. When they fight in the classroom she continuously says "I'm doing my best" but he lacks the emotional maturity to even try and understand her. This lack of ability to understand, and lack of will power to try, is extremely overwhelming for him. 7 - on Ishida trying to befriend Shouko after all these years. He's struggling through the realization that you can't un-do experiences and you can't take back things you've done. We look now and say "you can't just go up to her and talk to her now, it's horrible" but we say that with years of experience learning that lesson. He's learning it right now and it's awkward and painful and difficult to watch. But that's how we learn it. He's making a genuine attempt to show remorse and make up with her. He's not saying it in words yet because he's not sure how to. I think it's unfair to expect him to be more emotionally mature than he is. 8 - nothing justifies what Ishida did as a kid and how he treated Shouko. I don't think the movie tries to justify it and it's certainly not a film about forgiving others. It's a film about forgiving yourself, and learning how to move through painful events and grow from them, even those that you are explicitly responsible for. I'm really excited to see the rest of these videos and I'm thrilled this got selected. I'd be interested to see a follow up video once the whole thing has had a chance to settle.
I was bullied in school, and though some of this movie triggered my PTSD I had no trouble sympathizing with Ishida and getting on board with his redemption. Guess I'm just a strong believer in the power of forgiveness and redemption. As a personal example, one of my former bullies eventually met and married my sister, and nowadays we get along great. Also, I hope to see more reactions from you to heart-wrenching titles in the future. They're sure among my favorites.
Sarah, i appreciate the comments you had at the end of this. I too think i felt like you when i was younger, not to say that its a juvenile way of thinking or anything, but i would say in the past 5-6 years i have seen things in a bit of grey instead of black and white. I think this movie is a perfect example of showing how bullying can destroy both the victim and the bully, and although there should absolutely be consequences for actions, i think the world needs a little more empathy for the bully themselves. i've known a few bullies in my life and i can honestly say now those people are completely different, and through the actions they took, the words they said, and the opportunities their victims (me included) gave them, they were able to become beautiful people. Its not gonna work every time, but i think everyone deserves at least a chance to make it right. Anyway, thats just my 2 cents. I honestly look forward to just about anything you and adam do haha
It's hard not to feel angry at Shoya but the film shows very well how he's just the tip of the iceberg. Each situation only happens because while the teacher was completely silent, some children were actively bullying and others were just pretending to care but not helping. I place most of the blame mainly on the adult who didn't intervene sooner, but everyone there is to blame in some way for the situation.
Hi Sarah and Adam! I've been following both of your channels for a while but this is the first time I'm commenting :) Absolutely love that you're reacting to A Silent Voice - it's my favorite anime movie of all time! I think your reactions up to this point in the film are very normal. The first half of the movie is much harder and frustrating to watch the first time around because it feels so much like it's going to be a simple redemption arc of a bully and most people in their right mind are turned off by the idea of that. I was also apprehensive about the original manga and this movie beforehand since I had a vague sense of the premise and bullying themes, but since I'm a huge fan of Kyoto Animation (the studio that produced this movie) works, I decided to watch the movie and I'm so so glad I did. The reason I love this movie so much is because this story is actually so complex, so layered, and therefore so absolutely human, and I'm sure that this'll stand out to you by the end of the movie. A lot of other people have already offered great context and details, so I don't want to rehash anything others have already said. I did want to share some cultural notes especially about the Japanese education system and Shoya and Nishimiya's elementary school years. I taught in Japanese elementary and junior high schools for a few years, and I'm broadly in the education field (have a master's in Education), so I think I can offer a few details that might clear up a few things about the classroom bullying and Shoya's behavior based on his experiences up to this point in the movie. Just as we might say that the (North) American public education system (and society more broadly) values things like individuality, pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, etc., the Japanese public education system really values group identity and collectivity. In the U.S., your grades are your own, you're rewarded for personal achievements, you're expected as a student in part to take initiative by asking questions, and so on. In Japan, especially in elementary school, there's a lot of emphasis on belonging in the classroom, taking part in class-based responsibilities (like helping to the clean the classroom, serving lunch to your classmates), and also participating as a class in schoolwide singing and sports competitions. When we see Shoya and Nishimiya in music class, they're actually practicing for the school's class choir competition - that's why Nao makes the offhand comment saying that they've already lost due to having Nishimiya in their class. In Japanese school choir competitions, every class prepares a few songs to sing and they're evaluated obviously on things like tone, pitch, articulation, etc. but also on group chemistry and how well they perform as a class. Even in sports competitions at schools, classes and students are generally divided up into large teams that represent the whole school (typically a "Red" team and "White" team). So while there's also individual races, there's also a lot of group/team-based activities, and ultimately, all of the scores get added up and the team with the highest scores wins (think Hogwarts Houses and the whole point system they have). In Japanese classrooms, you /don't/ want to be anyone who stands out in class because there are so many external as well as social stakes in maintaining group cohesion. When Nishimiya first transfers to their class, her physical disability is a super easy and obvious target and is seen as a disruption to classroom peace. It's very subtle but we can see especially with Shoya but also with others in the class how they initially don't know how to interact with her because Nishimiya is so /different/ from them - they're kids after all, and as others in the comments have already said it's really the adults in the school who have failed them tremendously. When Shoya and Nao begin to pick up on what they can get away with in terms of bullying Nishimiya, that's when we start seeing them both escalate in their cruelty, Shoya with his physical bullying and Nao with her verbal manipulation to isolate Nishimiya and Sahara from the class. When it's no longer "okay" to bully Nishimiya after the principal's intervention, Shoya becomes the new class target and experiences all of the physical bullying and isolation that Nishimiya had experienced at his and others' hand. Nishimiya and Shoya both think they "deserve" the bullying, but for different reasons (Nishimiya because she's HoH, Shoya because he was once the bully). A final thought (because this comment got way longer than I thought it'd be 😭) is that bullying is a huge issue in Japan just as it is anywhere, and it's horrific because a lot of the time it manifests in Japan through social isolation and indirect harassment (the gaslighting and passive aggressiveness is real 🥲), and there's very very little incentive, socially, for bystanders to speak up. Arguably, and I'm speaking super super generally of course, there's actually /more/ incentive to stay quiet in order to keep the peace and maintain group cohesion - and this notion definitely permeates throughout all aspects of Japanese social life. Another way to think about it is the general logic of why an American bystander to bullying stays quiet because it's "none of my business", whereas a Japanese bystander stays quiet because it would "cause trouble for others" (e.g. it'll escalate the situation, draw attention, call in authority figures, etc.) This is why Shoya's middle school experiences of being bullied are actually rather stressful and psychologically traumatizing. After all, what can you do when all of your teachers and classmates shun you and cut you off in a society where that basically equates to social death? It's beyond his peers thinking he's a bad guy for being a bully and don't want anything to do with him, because it's more like his entire world is telling him he no longer has a place in society because of his past actions. So in this first half of the movie, we follow Shoya after he's done some really cruel, terrible things to Nishimiya - which he's come to understand that that's what he's done - but he's also now spent a much longer time internalizing and earnestly believing that he has no place in society because of his actions. It's, tragically, why we meet him in the beginning of the movie having planned and ready to end his life. Whew 😮💨 I hope this brings some more insight into the psychological and cultural aspects of the movie! This movie always stirs up so many emotions and thoughts 🥹 Looking forward to Part 2!!
"The nail that sticks up gets hammered down." Whether it's the deaf kid who is seen as an inconvenience to the class, or the one goes out of her way to help her, or the kid that became the scapegoat, that saying was cruelly true. Around the 51:30 mark, I think it might have been missed that Shoya was bullied. After he was called out in front of the principal, his desk was defaced every day, his former friends shoved him and his stuff into the fountain, if he'd get the popular game the group would switch interests, and when they went to middle school where he might have gotten somewhat of a clean start, the kids would tell the others to avoid the bully. And Adam was spot on for thinking back on whether or not he may have bullied anyone in my opinion. It's hard to empathize or sympathize with Shoya (especially just from watching the movie for the first time), but watching the reactions of his friends and thinking about how narrow one's worldview can be at that age combined with how he got no pushback until it was too late (especially from the teacher who should have stopped it immediately), you can see how the spiral can happen.
I had trouble following the time jumps too, but as I understand it, Shoya was bullied for several years after the moment the principle confronted the class for bullying Nishimiya. Nishimiya was no longer a viable target, so Shoya was the next person everyone turned on. Those flashes of him being pushed in the fountain and having his belongings stolen and his desk graffitied were the next several years of his life. Those flashes of people saying nasty things to him were not in his head, they were moments that led him to the mental state he is in in high school.
So my reaction of the first part of the reaction, the feelings were coming in HOT and STRONG! I think that is the point and the setup of course and I personally do not think you have anything to apologize for in terms of your feelings etc. Whether or not you believe or forgive Shoto or anything like that, he was a bully. I hope you all got it sorted out that he was the main/big bulley the lower grades, but as he was called out by the teacher for being a bully, he then got isolated and I would say he was bullied back, as he said, everything he gave got returned, but that was in the following year(s) culminating to him getting into high school, being isolated, from him throwing her book into the pond to himself being pushed into the pond. And yes, the concept of suicide was very up front, A Silent Voice has the trigger warning for Suicidality. But I think most of us on the this discord at the very least were very aware of what we were getting into when we voted for this reaction and from what I saw in part 1, I am definitely looking forward to the next few parts!
I like how Adam's reaction to this.. no hate to Sarah but Adams views is mostly spot on and he views it from a different angle.. watched this and read the manga few years back and yes I had the same views and reaction as Adam hahaha i guess it may be from his empathatic attitude.. but still kinda agree with Sarah against bullies.
Regarding sign languages, they're like regular languages so they're not mutually understandable and they're not necessarily related to the language spoken in the same country. For example, American Sign Language and British Sign Language are completely different (even though English is spoken in both countries). In contrast, ASL is a related language to the French one so there are similarities there.
Long-time fan of you guys! When this popped up on my dash, I was immediately like oh my gooooooosh, Sarah is going to get SO amped up (and knew I'd probably end up commenting as I go on the roller coaster ride that is A Silent Voice with you and Adam!) I watched this for the first time fairly recently, and even as a Japanese speaker, I am 100% with you on the confusion you were noting with the timeline and how the story/memories are presented. I kind of hope that we get a post-movie long reaction, because I think this is such a difficult movie to react to, because of the emotional intensity, the structure of the timeline, and the WILD amount of blink-and-you'll-miss-them details. I definitely went back and watched it a second time to better understand certain things! I'm sure others might have mentioned it, but the subtitles are pretty off in certain spots (when he's a kid, Ishida calls Nishimiya キモイ"kimoi" a lot, which they translate to "disgusting," but is probably closer to "creepy" or something with more of a "this weirds me out" vibe. It's a word that shortened from the phrase 気持ち悪い "kimochiwarui," which literally means "bad feeling." That, and when Ishida is asking Nagatsuka about what the "license" is for being friends-the word he uses is 権利 "kenri," which is definitely better translated as "right," and I think it better conveys that Ishida's trying to figure out the answer to what gives someone the right to be friends with another person. Oh yeah, and the scene where Ishida's in class during high school and he's looking at his classmates-he's imagining what it is they're saying about him (this is shown partially through the voice acting, where the lines are voiced by Ishida to show what's going on in his head, but again, the subtitles on this version don't make this clear!) Adam's point about them being kids and not knowing what to do/that Ishida doesn't know what he's doing is so spot-on, and I found myself thinking "Man, I wish there was a Sarah around for all the Nishimiyas in the world!" Especially as others have commented, the teacher and lack of a support system at a systemic level are really to blame (not that this means what the other kids do is blameless, but they are I think 10-11). I was so glad when Ishida went to intervene when that random guy was trying to steal Nagatsuka's bike (and I remember my heart just clenching when he returned the bike to Ishida-that whole scene is so touching!) While this is definitely a hard movie to watch sometimes, and seeing the empathy and outrage and sense of justice in both of you was another reminder that there are a lot of good people in the world :) Wow, didn't intend to write a novel, but I always love watching both of your reactions to anime, and I really love this movie too, so thank you for making this video (I'm already bracing myself for the next one!)
I think his mom was his turning point. Seeing her sacrifice all the money because of what he did, then seeing her bloody ear knowing full well shoko's mom did that to his mom for what he did to shoko. But then he was bullied and then isolated, so that caused trauma that made him realize a little what he put shoko through. He also was a kid and truly didn't see her act as wanting to be friends. Girls were just not on the brain at that age.
Вау, так ждала этой реакции!!)))) много раз советовала это аниме в комментариях)) спасибо большое что снимаете эти видео)) Люблю вас ребят) И да, Сара, тебя смотрят по всему миру, привет из России)))
This story is a journey of Shoya and Shoko to learn how to love themself. One person lived in regret and hatred himself for being a bully, the other lived in guilt because she thought she was different from others and was a burden to her family. The deaf deserve to be cared for and respected, and Shoya, who knows how to regret and atone for his sins, also deserves to be loved. An insteresting of this movie: The camera angles in this movie are often very low. It represents the angle of sight of Shoya, who is always self-conscious and does not dare to look others in the eye. He covered his ears, kept his eyesight low, which shows us how much he closed his heart. Don't too harsh on him
Great first reaction. I think it's perfectly normal to get worked up over this film and to resist feeling sympathy for him at the start just because the tables have turned, at least at where you are at in the film at this point in the reaction. He needs to spend the entire runtime to continue to grow and earn our sympathy. I will say that while he gets a rise out of me in the moment of the bullying, what really continues to upset me and is to blame for this is the social surroundings. While you can't completely write off his actions, he is like 12 years old and was positively reinforced by his classmates and even his teacher to continue his behavior. So it's no surprise he kept doing it. The school just let it happen. That's what upsets me. It's not until the principal comes in and he learns the gravity of the situation (how expensive the hearing aids were) he realizes he did something wrong. And to his credit he does go to raise his hand before the teacher calls him out and conveniently blames the whole thing on him, and his classmates are more than happy to go along with it. The deep remorse he feels goes a long way for me, but obviously he still has a long way to go. I'm amazed that Nishimiya could stomach seeing him again and continued to meet up with him. I don't think its just a kind heart either...
Ok so Ishida at the very start was neither with nor against Nishimiya. However, he was very good friends with Ueno. Ueno tried to help Nishimiya with her class work, she would pass cues and notes to her, everything. She genuinely tried to help her..until her own grades started dipping, she started missing things teachers said and she became the subject of scolding. She was a good student, but turned out trying to help out someone did not reward her, so she started getting more and more troubled. Ishida noticed this, and to "make her feel better" he starts pulling pranks on Nishimiya...as if trying to say "Are you frustrated with her? Let me take it out on her, on your behalf". In the end, it ends up getting him isolated instead just like it happened with Ueno, trying to "help" his friend left him isolated and he couldn't handle it(they are small children after all) leading to his scuffle with Nishimiya. I am not trying to justify any of their actions, all i am saying it, their actions are not as straightforward as they may seem. They did not held a grudge or illwill against her initially OR they weren't exactly bullies before this. Ishida did it to take revenge for Ueno(and that's not good either). However, the only real fcked up man in all this scenario was the teacher who let things slide even though he was aware of what was happening. As an adult it seems very easy to say that what he did was wrong, but as kids perhaps half of us were like that(maybe not to that extent)..when things didn't go our way, or when elders denied us, we tried to get back on them in our ways...to rebel. Not all but a lot of us have been through this phase, this is whats been showed here but to a little extreme.
From my understanding, schools in Japan do not teach sign languages. This is a special case that they have a deaf student so the school got a teacher(most likely outsourced) to teach the classmates simple sign language for easier communication between Nishimiya Shoko-chan and her fellow students. The school does not have time and spend expenses to hire an aid to sign for just 1 student throughout the entire school period everyday. Also they do not want Nishimiya-chan to sit out of class just because it is music class as it can seem like discrimination and others. This is a setting where they are in Japan 6th grade which is around 11 years old. The other kids who also bullied Nishimiya-chan pushed the entire responsibility on Ishida Shoya-kun because he was the one was the most obvious one bullying her. The rest either watched, joined, laughed and did not stopped the bullying and they are equally responsible but they pretended they were innocent which makes my blood boil even more. Even his so called friends pushed the blame on him. The teacher wasn't any better who did not stopped the bullying when it happened and only called him out when the principal stepped in because there was a complain by the parents. Ishida-kun experienced the same bullying after he was called out for bullying Nishimiya-chan and she transferred school. He was then bullied by his friends and same classmates who joined him to bully Nishimiya-chan. Time skip to the brown uniform, they are in high school. Those dialogue is not from his head. His friends from elementary school isolated him spread around that he was a bully and asked people to not be friends with him and ostracized him and received more bullying when they went to middle school and you can see there are some who attends this same high school now. That's why he tried to suicide. Naturally, the same thing would spread in the high school since there are people from the same middle school attending the same high school as him and he would ostracized.
The fish was a carp. The Japanese word for carp is "koi". "Koi" sounds exactly like the Japanese word for love and affection and so the fish has that symbolism.
I love this film so much, I used this film for my bachelor's thesis 😄. I'm glad that you guys are watching it, I really hope that you'd find the film beautiful as well. In terms of the meaning behind the Koi fish, like each and every symbolism that can be found in this film (one of the major ones are through flower language, including the fireworks -> in Japanese it would translate into 'flowers of fire' and it has meaning, each and every scene that has a shot with flowers in them has meaning to it, and not just solely to 'make it look pretty'). But back to koi, in Japan, the koi fish is the prominent animal used to celebrate Children's Day, as it symbolizes strength in persevering (as they're often found swimming against currents). Back in the day, children rarely survived to adulthood, so they'd especially celebrate children that have made it. It symbolizes a span of time which is most fragile in a person's life, how they struggle to survive and find their place in society. as for the colors of the koi (black or karasugoi & the 3 colored one or sanke) they too have meaning. In short, black koi represents those who could not fit in / survive, and the 3 colored one represents one who could. Like at the beginning, the shot showed that there were many black koi, and only 1 colored one. And only the colored one moved forward, poetically speaking, it foreshadows Shoya's eventual triumph over his struggles in life. P.S: even the background music has a deeper meaning and actually has an active role in the storytelling.
It breaks my heart how Shoya was trying to own up for his actions but didn't get the chance due to the inept teacher trying to save his own skin by singiling him out. As a teacher myself, the teacher's actions are unforgivable to me, as he is the adult in the situation. The manga shows a lot more on his and other classmates actions, so you understand better the situation and mindset Shoya is in. This story is about finding a way to love yourself again after you have done horrible things and you hate yourself over it. For the viewer, it's a challenge on empathy: can you find it in yourself to understand - even a little bit - where these characters come from and the reasons behind their actions. I absolutely love this manga and the movie. The manga hit hard when I read it, and I feel that it changed some small part in me. The movie is challenging to watch as the timeline in the beginning is very confusing when you haven't read the manga. BUT the movie does amazingly well with telling the story and emotions through cinematography. It's a masterclass on "show, don't tell". This is also really good in rewatch as there is always some new angle you realize when watching it again. I loved the reaction and can't wait to see the rest of it (even if Adam doesn't end up crying)!
This is my favorite anime movie, and maybe even my favorite movie of all time so i'm pumped to see your guys' reaction of this! Especially since i was just thinking earlier this week that I should rewatch it for the thousandth time. If you guys end up enjoying the movie, I'd definitely recommend the manga, it's only 7 volumes so it's not super long. I do like how Sarah called out Kawai for crying to get out of trouble, a lot of people who experience the story for the first time through the movie often don't seem to really pick up on how she is, so it defo made me happy to see that you noticed that Defo looking forward to the rest of these to come out! Gosh it is such a good movie and so beautifully animated and the soundtrack is sooooo good! Truly an S tier movie in my mind. I'm definitely interested in hearing your guys' thoughts as the movie progresses
During music class if you look closely you can see "nice girl" with the braids intentionally messing up the timing the first time, only to make herself look better by "helping" her afterwards.
Oooooh let's goooo! Back in 2020 I had a pretty big career change and started as a teacher. A Silent Voice's portrayal of adolescence informs a lot of how I think about interactions I normally wouldn't pay as much mind to. I hope you guys enjoy it's amazing! I will never forget the first time I heard "I'm doing my best." :(((
Sign Language can vary greatly depending on your region. Even ASL has different dialects. When my brother used to go to deaf camp, he came back one year to show us general greeting signs from someone who learned sign from a Spanish speaking country. I was taking Spanish classes at the time, so he was excited to learn Spanish words of his own. It was cute. lol Home signs are also common, and getting into the habit of home signs can make it harder to remember general ASL signs when signing to others. At least, that's been our experience in an area with an extremely low and spread out deaf population. JSL, from what I know of it, incorporates a lot of hiragana and mouth movements to distinguish between certain words. I assume this is because Japanese is a context based language (and hiragana has glyphs that change how certain characters are pronounced), so sign has to accommodate for that in various ways. Funny enough, the JSL sign for "friend" is the ASL sign for "married" which my family found particularly funny since it makes it look like she's just randomly asking to get married. (They have not watched this movie, just seen clips that I've shown them. My family is a bunch of criers, and they tapped out of this movie the moment I explained the setup. lol)
Deaf and HOH people also enjoy music - it's different for each person, as not everyone has the same level of hearing/deafness and not everyone has the same level of sensitivity to vibration etc
Even though the film is amazing, they had to cut out a lot of the manga for time constraints. The manga goes more in-depth on how non accomodating the school was for Shoko, and how their homeroom teacher specifically was a way bigger part of the problem than the film made him out to be, continuing to teach as if she wasn't there, ignoring all the bullying, etc. It seems a lot of different communities for people with disabilities (not just the deaf) praised the film and manga a lot for how uncompromising they were in showing how Japan in general treats people with disabilities, not giving them the support they need. Not sure if the situation's changed since then, but it sure was true at the time.
Anytime I see this video pop up I brace myself. Then I see yall reacted to it and I KNEW Sarah was gonna have a tough time with the intro. I thought to myself “surely they’ll digest what they’re going to listen to reason before it consumes them” and then BAM not even 5 minutes in and I could see yall get HEATED. Don’t worry, we all did! If it wasn’t for the tender piano music playing at those uncomfortable moments I would have eaten my shoe. Kids are mean, and they encapsulated that in the beginning of the film.
You are definitely meant to have that immediate strong reaction at the beginning, I felt the same. It honestly hit me way harder seeing shoya’s experience because you can see how a young kid who never had a deep thought in his life becomes that bully we all hate. It didn’t start out super extreme. Everyone was super nice at the beginning. My younger sister had a disability and I can say for certain that the more you spend time with some who has a disability the less you see the disability. Shoya is clearly the class clown. He’s confident funny popular, and like most kids his age he makes joke for attention. He also has already gotten used to making jokes at the expense of others. It’s all fun and and games, never cause any problems. It makes people laugh. So when he gets comfortable around shoko it’s not a big leap to teas her. It’s uncomfortable how realistically it escalates. Any kid can go down this path it’s just a natural path that people will take if they’re not shown otherwise. I know you said you tend to have a very black and white morality so this may not connect with you. The key here is that just because we all have the same potential for evil and can sympathize with shoya because of that does not justify what shoya did. Our actions do have consequences, and shoyas affected a lot of people including himself. It’s like hate the sin not the sinner. Iwill always hate to see a person so broken they can’t even see a reason to live, even if that person did it to themself. Sorry this I’m trying so hard so clear share my feelings but there’s just so many ways to say it wrong, when dealing with something this sensitive.
Thanks for the reaction. This is definitely a movie/story that benefits from rereading. The story makes so many points about how institutions and norms hurt so many people. I think the author is trying to thread a narrow path to highlight the difference between performative repentance and reparation.
Can't wait the next part!)) The little girl in Ishada home is dother of his older sisiter. They live together, him, his mom, sister, her husband and their kid)
ishida got bullied really really bad too after nishimiya got transferred everyone put the blame on him. Yes ishida is very wrong but i think ishida was a attention seeker, knowing that everbody hate nishimiya, and people didn’t do anything instead of laughing become reinforcement for him to bully nishimiya. you can see at first he doesn’t really to nishimiya, he also a little bit interest and has no comment when the teacher taught the sign language. (i know this cannt be a justification for what he has done. but still as a victim i want all the people who involved also got a pusnishment/ lesson/ something they deserve to got bcs bullying other people) And the part when he wants be nishimiya’s friend it bcs he just no clues about what he has to do. The part when he isolated himself i think is part of his trauma, and a form of punishment for himself about what he did in the past. I was bullied for like 4,5/5 years during my elementary school, for me yes ishida was wrong. But everyone like the teacher, kawaii, the yellow hiar guy, ueno etc have nothing better. And its unfair to just put the blame on him bcs at least he’s remember and took the all the blames. Bcs for me the worst part of being bullied is knowing that the bully doesnt even remember, realize, apologize, or regret what they did, and just myself the one who have to carry all the memories, the bad experiences, and the trauma, bcs we cant forget
the mom forced nishimiya too hard to be like “the majority” so she can fit to the society, thats what she doesn’t use sign language, the teacher always knows that nishimiya got bullied but stay calm and do nothing until the end he just blame ishida to make him seem like a “teacher”. ueno obviously wrong, she’s a real bully, she clearly hate nisyimiya, the yellow guy actually stay quite and enjoy what ishida’s did, doesn’t feel guilty at all, he blame ishida’s and feel that he has right to bully ishida’s bcs of what he did to nishimiya, he also incited and spread the story about what ishida’s do in elementary school to everyone on junior high school or high school. Kawaii is the worst type of bully. She’s fake. She acted innocent and kind in the front, but talking bad, laughing dll at the back, when the choir part nishimiya got “wrong in” when she sings is also bcs of her, she wants to embarrass her, she also manipulative, glasslighting, amd play victim. As a bully victim the yellow hair guy, kawaii, and the teacher is the worst type of bully. Bcs at least ishida, and ueno was being real and consistent, so i can hate them fully if they aren’t getting better in the future, instead of kawaii who makes the bully victim confused and somehow makes a lil bit guilty to hate
I'm going to come and defend Sarah, cuz she has every right to be mad/ dislike Shoya. The first time I watched I had a similar reaction to hers I thought "What a shitty kid he just wants to apologize to make himself feel better" or when they told us about how his ex "friends" started bullying him I thought "well I don't like them either but karma" Then I noticed he didn't apologize and I was confused cuz that's usually how it goes with bullies. I think Sarah's reactions are genuine and they're her first thought after what happened, this is not a deep dive into the character or movie its a reaction so let her express her feelings. My feelings about Shoya change throughout the movie (I won't go deep into that part or why because that's a spoiler and I don't know if they have finish the movie) and I bet sarah's will too, wether they change for better or for worse that's up to her because people don't have to like a character even if they apologize.
i’m super excited to see your second reaction to this amazing movie! i don’t think we’re supposed to give shoya a clean pass right away, and if you walk away from the movie having not fully forgiven him, that’s fine! everyone has different takes on characters, and he’s done some pretty terrible things and didn’t really apologize for them. when i first watched this movie, i was definitely put off by his character but i like how the movie tries to tackle some darker and harder-hitting topics/themes
To your question about sign language in different languages, there's hundreds of different sign languages, even among people of different areas in the same country. A lot of words are the same in different languages, but a lot are not, and with different alphabets the same happens, same with slang, etc.
Let me preface with I'm not excusing Shoya but I think at the start he was the kid looking to get a reaction how ever he could and his friends were giving him that and taking part in it even the blonde girl who put on her best crocodile tears when the school finally got involved was laughing and Ueno's snide comments and then all turned on him. If they aren't in a class with a teacher who is more annoyed that he's there and has accommodate Nishimiya it never escalates to the point it did. Also its easy to miss but it wasn't just self isolation there was a short scene where when they got to middle school one of his "friends" who was right there with him bullying her tells someone not to talk to him because he's a bully and that information probably spread through the middle school and carried into highschool
I knew it and I love that Sarah got really upset. The beginning part (primary school time) of the movie is indeed stressful and also made me totally mad as a mother of a physically disabled child in a wheelchair. But this movie made me go through a lot of emotions. It’s not a pleasant, easy movie; some part a bit difficult to understand even for a Japanese native but definitely an excellent movie that stays in my mind strongly for a long time.
Why Ishida tell "Kawai did" If you mentioning at the singing scene u can see that Kawai started mounthing the words early and Shoko looked over that why she started singing. She is the type of bully who tries to portray herself as a very nice person.
The manga and the movie were meant to confront the Japanese culture of differences being looked down upon and outcast in the manga Nishimiya is in a school for the deaf, but I can't remember if she is getting bullied there too or if her mom wants her to go to a "normal" school, so she transfers to this school. And in this school "it's not their job" to cater to the deaf student so minimal effort is made. Also bullying in school at the time in Japan was a very big problem across the board and went unchecked a lot of the time by the adults as students were expected to work it out amongst themselves.
I used to study LIBRAS, which ks Brazolia sign language. The signa are created according to symbols that would make sense in that society/culture. There MAY be some signs in common. :) my teacher was deaf and she explained to us that when she used do go to international conventions she could communicate to some other people in a level because it's a visual/gestural language. Kawai and the teacher are TERRIBLE ohhhh my god. What gets me emotional in this movie is that I can see how Shoko is "nice and gentle and soooo comprehensive" because she probably feels like a burden to everybody. People dont need much to hate you alredy, so Imagine if you were not the best girl ever? God forbid you have any type of "bad" behavior. So yeah you have to be nice and gentle and lovable because you'd feel guilty otherwise.
The movie leaves a few things out i will recommend reading the starting part that will make a lot of things more clear. I was confused about many things when i first watched the movie and manga made everything clear about everyones perspective and feelings
Oh man, when i saw this in my feed i was excited and nervous at the same time. Its a really tough movie to tackle, but thats what makes it so good. Looking forward to seeing yalls thoughts after getting the whole picture! Also the subs on these seem not the best, so might lead to some misunderstandings due to translation.
I don't know why but if we look back to elementary school dates, some boys and girls hate to be too close to each other. It's just embarrassing and once that invisible line is crossed someone even get angry to hide his/her shy inside. No mention to communicate with a special kid who can't hear. We are so used to tell lies through our mouth, it couldn't fool those people only talk with their heart. Where is the teacher? OMG.
I was the bullied and a bully. Ishida to me is relatable... I too had a time where I've "come to my senses" and looked back at how awful I treated my peers back in elementary and middle school. I painfully regret everything I've done, even though I was a kid, and I wish I had the opportunity to make things right again. P.S. I think Ishida will be the one to claw out of your "bad book", Sarah.
Ohoho, cant wait for more parts! I want to see how the rections are and opinions become by the end. I read the manga years before the movie came out and was one of my favourite sad but good stories even before the anime, the movie did it well enough cutting down unnecessary sections but also lost some things due to kt being movie length but what can you do, still they did fantastic
Yeah when i watched this I was so angry at the teachers. They made no effort to accommodate her and even admitted they knew she was getting bullied and still did nothing.
tbh it's very refreshing to see someone who's still angry at shoya even when he tries to make up for his past bullying. i absolutely don't blame sarah, and i wouldn't have blamed shoko if she hadn't forgiven shoya
IMMEDIATELY CLICKED TO WATCH 😭🙌🏽 This movie had me absolutely sobbing. Please feel free to go back and rewatch things, especially if you didn't catch what they said or didn't understand something! This goes for all other reactions too. Take your time to pause, discuss, and reflect :) Also, I hate how this particular streaming service did those subtitles. It totally takes away from the message of the movie 😭😭
Loved this, y’all!! I wanted to respond to your final comment on bullying with my own experience 💕 So, I was a bully, and I was later bullied. In 6th grade, there was a kid who was legally blind, and wore incredibly thick glasses that we’ll call Dylan. One day, me and my friends were playing on the playground before class (they were all guys, and I identified as a girl at the time). One of them brought a prank gum toy, where you grab a piece of gum and it shocks your finger. They all tricked each other into pulling it, and they turned to Dylan and wanted to get him to pull it. We all started getting in his face, telling him to pull it. He kept saying “we can’t have gum at school,” but we just kept pressing him. He was very quiet, but didn’t give in, and pretty soon we gave up and left. A few days later, his teacher went into each of the 6th grade classes and did what the A Silent Voice teacher DIDNT do. She talked to us about how disappointing it was that we would stoop so low to target someone who is LEGALLY BLIND. I felt AWFUL. I honestly don’t know if I apologized, but I made a point to be much kinder and inclusive. We’re in a very small town, so we were in clubs together later, and became great friends and co-leaders in high school band. We even went to Winter Formal in our Senior year 🥰 by this point, I brought up and profusely apologized for being a part of the bullying in 6th grade. everytime I watch this movie, I think hard on how horrible it is to bully a kid with a physical disability, AND, I remember how easy it is to fall into step with other people who started it. Being a kid is not an excuse for bullying, but being a bully doesn’t mean you will ALWAYS be a bully. You MUST feel remorse, and in a lot of cases, you need to atone. LATER, my senior year of high school, a group of my classmates made a fake Facebook profile of me, with explicit jokes and other just, awful stuff. About 20 other classmates were “friends” with the profile, but clearly didn’t contribute. I was really hurt that it wasn’t reported sooner, but again, being a bystander puts you in a weird spot where you want to just look away. Anyways, my bff reported it to our most diligent teacher, and the school’s investigation began. My bff spoke with the Vice Principal for a long time, explaining the whole situation. The “profile name” was my name misspelled to make an explicit joke. She explained it, and the VP said “haha that’s clever”. She said “my bff is being bullied, and you think it’s clever?” He said, “well I don’t really know what to do. In my day, kids settled it in the parking lot.” I could go on, but I’ll get to my point. This VP sucked. He suggested that the way to solve this should probably be violence. YOU, Sarah, do NOT suck. You did not suggest in any way that violence is the best answer to all bullying. What I heard you say was roughly “the way for me to shut it down in this situation was sliiiiiiightly violent🤣”. I know that sometimes, a lil shove will shut someone up, and there are very lovely people out there who are brave enough and wise enough to be the right amount of physical at the right time. Being physical would NOT have worked in my situation, but it worked PERFECTLY in yours. And, I think that’s just fine 🥰🥰 I LOVE that y’all are watching this 🥰 hope you continue to love it! See you soon 💕
minor note but the closer translation here(47:40) would be "I know right?" imo. So the scene flows better after that one question "Why is he still living?"😂😭
man, my hatred towards the teacher is unbelievable big, it's not like that man just don't know how to deal with this situation. He just literally don't give two damns or a fuck about her being in class. how can someone like that be a teacher
Hello, here is a profoundly deaf signer from Spain. Yeah, sign language is not universal, so usually every spoken language has its own sign language. ASL (American), BSL (British) and AUSLAN (Australian) even the signs are very different. I am from Catalonia, I communicate with LSC (Catalan) and I am fluent in LSE (Spanish), I would not be able to understand the signs of my neighboring countries (France, Italy, Portugal, North Africa, etc...). We, deaf people, to relate to deaf foreigners, either use LSI in European countries or ASL in American countries. I hope my information helps you all clarify. Happy summer!
I read the mangá first and only after I watched the movie(many many years ago), and always thought that the movie didn't make a good job on showing the bully, because on mangá this seemed slower and visceral, and the movie softned a little because it wouldn't have the time to do a good redemption arc ... It's really good to know that movie could make Sarah feel the same as me when I read the very first time... But, on the same page, has some things that movie did poorly, example: after Nishimiya trade schools, Shoya became the target of bullying... The guy exercising on thee bed (that is Brazilian) is the new boyfriend of Shoya's Mom and the Father of the little girl on the future, an the "X" on the face has a bigger meaning, symbolizes the depression itself, when he nullifies the people around him...
@@Arthon2101 well, they barely say anything about it. I think the older sister doesn't appear until the end of the manga. And somewhere Shoya briefly says that Maria is his nephew.
I think this is a good movie, but it is such a hard movie to watch. I honestly can't go back to it on my own. But I always recommend anime fans give it a shot. Even if people ultimate don't like it, it always brings up a lot of good conversations. Grave of the Fireflies is the same. I'm glad you guys gave it a chance.
As Adam puts it, this is a really messy part of life and this story captures it to such an uncomfortable degree. There are a few things I'll share from the manga that might give a bit more context to things.
- The teacher is horrible. He laughs at one of Shoya's jokes about Nishimiya, AGREES with Shoya's sentiments of looking down on Nishimiya and only half-heartedly tells Shoya off so he doesn't embarrass or cause him trouble (like getting the principle involved), mocks the other teacher for suggesting they learn sign language, and when he and Shoya reunite (manga-only), the teacher called Nishimiya a "stepping-stone" for Shoya to become "the fine young man" he is today, that Shoya was just unlucky among everyone in the class because he drew the "short straw", which Shoya obviously rejects. The teacher never cared and only called Shoya out to put all the burden on him and save himself from trouble. There's a lot of imagery of video games at the start of the film which is what Shoya saw the world as, to hit a new "high score" (which to him is the reactions of those around him), he has to be more and more daring. But life isn't a game, and he learned when it was far too late, largely because the teacher constantly turned a blind eye and somewhat encouraged him.
- It's more clear in the manga but after Shoya is singled out, his "friends" threw him into the pond likely because Shoya tried to also throw them under the bus and couldn't target Nishimiya anymore. When Sarah said they were just as bad, they REALLY were and ended up bullying him over the next few years. The teacher also knew about this and didn't do anything when Shoya asked for his help because that was his own "responsibility" after all he did. But at the end of the day, for as much blame as I put on the teacher, Shoya still did the atrocious things he did. He might have been a kid, but so was Nishimiya. Shoya, and most of all, Nishimiya, have to live with these experiences and that's really sad, especially knowing the teacher could have prevented Shoya from ruining his and Nishimiya's lives.
- After being constantly bullied, losing all his friends, watching his mother pay for his mistakes and even get hurt (both Adam and Sarah's theories are possible regarding the earring though I leaned towards Sarah), Shoya did genuinely change for the better; learning sign language, attending a high school that's apparently difficult to get into, paying back his mom etc. But for as much progress as he's made, he's also a complete dork now to put it lightly after losing all confidence in himself. Shoya might be able to hear unlike Nishimiya, do sign language and understand her a little better now, but he still hasn't learned to listen or communicate maturely, which is why I think his reunion with Nishimiya is so problematic and messy. Shoya is awkwardly focusing on the wrong things, paying his mother and planning to kill himself so he wouldn't be a burden anymore when she just wanted him to be a good son, and wanting to be Nishimiya's friend because she asked him to in the past when what she really needed was an apology. He wants to do right, he wants to change, he wants friends, but he's also frightened of putting himself out there only to hurt others and lose everything again, so all his efforts feel half-hearted.
Love the reaction as always, this is a tough one as I'm sure you both have realized; I do connect to both characters, especially Nishimiya since I have hearing loss, so I have a lot to say about her later in later parts. I hope you guys enjoyed the rest of the film!
Thank you for providing some context. It seems like having background with the manga helps understand what is happening more deeply. I think the other thing people don't always think about is that when we react to a new show or movie, we know absolutely NOTHING and our comments and reactions are completely knee-jerk/impulsive. Everyone else has had time to think deeply about it and understand it better.
@@SarahPavanAnimeThe movie can be confusing at first, this was the first anime movie I saw a few years ago and I thought the same as you, it's great that you're watching it, I love your reactions!
i always assumed that shoya's mom ripped out her own earring after finding out that her son had made nishimiyas ear bleed. as more of a 'i deserve the same thing since i raised him' apology. even though nishimiyas mom does slap nao later, i never thought of her to be one to rip someones earring out as a sort of payback but i guess we'll never know and thats the beauty of leaving it up to interpretationn
This was great insight. Seems like the movie misses a lot do the character development and experience that would provide a lot of context for some the actions and conversations. Thanks for taking the time to give us that insight.
THE FREAKING ADAM PICTURE IN THE INTRO HAHAHHAHAHAH 2:33
Classic
No comment
50:10 So TRUE Sarah
They were all hypocrite and should own up to their action. Like the ''smart girl'', always tried to make herself look good even if it meant putting down other.
If you look closely at 9:11, she starts mouthing before everyone else and after that she's like ''Oh I'LL SHOW YOU THE TIMING''. So KIND of you.
Yeah, can't stand Kawai. Sabotaging poor Nishimiya, and then trying to act like she's the hero by offering her assistance. Always laughing at everything Ueno says to put down Nishimiya and Sahara, as if that isn't also encouraging that toxic behavior by doing so.
Damn I never even noticed she did that, I found reason number 23,791 to hate Kawai
Wait I did not notice that too😭
Sarah's media literacy is incredible. I shouldn't be surprised considering how much she got from her Haikyuu reactions that I didn't get the first time watching.
I was bullied terribly throughout my childhood. I constantly had people tell me I'm worthless, that I'm useless and a waste of space, was thrown off embankments, trapped in lockers... the works.
Its an experience that will never really leave me, there's a constant voice in my head that plays those bullies words on loop I have no choice but to square with every day.
But that being said... we were kids, and I'll never forget the very first person who bullied me breaking down in tears at the thought of moving schools and going somewhere new.
His name was Oliver Oozeman (a perfect name for a bully I always thought XD) and as I later discovered, he was being abused by his mother at home every day.
He had no control in his home life, no safety... so he used the lessons he learned at home to take control at school, so he would have somewhere he felt safe.
I knew him from age 7-12, I have to repeat: WE WERE JUST KIDS. No kid should ever have to go through that, but he did, how can I blame HIM for how he dealt with it?
Bullies that are true psychopaths are vanishingly rare. By far the most common source of bullying... is bullying, usually by an authority figure the child can't hope to resist.
And guess what, being bullied made me meaner. Made me distrustful, made me assume people hated me without giving them a chance. Made me feel I had to lash out to push them away before they could hurt me first.
Made me feel like Oliver.
So despite in many ways being the poster child for 'bullied as a kid', all I can say is this: I will never give up on a bully or a bullied kid.
Because, for the final time: they're just kids.
lmaoooo imagining little sarah pushing two kids down a hill is beautiful, love it 😂
also the big sighs at 33:33 are so relatable... yeah, that's the whole movie lmao 😭
after you watch the whole thing, i also recommend you watch the reaction video done by cinema therapy of a silent voice on your own time. they always do such a good job explaining the psychology and film of it and they always give out so many valuable life lessons!! genuinely one of my favorite videos from them so i really recommend!!
I recommend this as well
This should be upvoted cause i feel they're missing some info from the movie. I mean, almost everyone did and had to rewatch it two or three times but that video can help them a lot
The scammers?
Although I do think it’s hard as a third party to trust Shoya and believe that his intentions with Nishimiya are genuine, just like the time-skips show, he was indeed bullied too. He would probably never realize what he did was wrong if he had not gone through the same thing, that’s how we learn empathy after all, and he was just a kid. He probably thought he made people laugh with bullying her, but once it happened to him, and got the consequences for his actions, he truly understood what he did to her was awful. And I mean, he is SO incredibly sorry that he doesn’t think he deserves to have friends anymore, and that he deserves to die. But it’s true what you two said, some people will apologize just to feel better about themselves, and in a way, I think Shoya thought something similar without realizing, after all, seeing her again and apologizing was part of the ritual he had planned before killing himself, like he could simply “set things right” before he was gone. But it’s not that simple, and he realized that the damage he did to Nishimiya will not go away with a simple “I’m sorry”. So, he tries to find excuses to see her again, and be friends. I think you guys already saw the whole movie, so I hope I’m not making spoilers, but we realize this with the rest of the movie too, he doesn’t get close to her to make himself feel better, he wants to actually get to know her, support her, be her friend. We see how much he has grown and that his intentions to be better are actually genuine.
Thank you for explaining it they also definitely need to watch an explanation video because the ending is kind of confusing for those who don’t understand about spirit, realms, and stuff like that in Japanese culture with the fish
Awesome to see you both reacting to A Silent Voice! This movie actually got me through some pretty rough times and is my current #1 movie.
I can relate to Shoya very closely to how he turned out in high school. I dont think I was a bully, but I know that i could have been a better friend to those close to me. To this very day, 6 years later, I still feel guilt to the point where I refuse to make new friends or put up barriers to prevent myself from getting too close to others.
The "X" on the faces represents that anxiety to communicate with others even visually, and I still do that at present too. I force myself to smile and face the world because of this movie even if every fiber in my body doesnt want to. Even when I got the feeling that I was making friends, sure enough I just pushed them away and kept my distance in the end. I still dont trust myself to be a good friend nor do I forgive myself for things ive done and said in the past thus leading to a life of loneliness and rejecting the outside world. It sucks and it hurts, but i dont feel like I've punished myself enough to allow myself to reconnect to humanity just yet.
Some days I just want to disappear too but I know thats too easy so here I am... sorry for the rant btw. This movie just hits a little too close to home and I just need to get it off my chest into the void of the internet.
THANK YOU for reacting to this. The story is just as gruesome as it is amazing. And the visualization of social anxiety has never been more captivating in my eyes. Can't wait until you see the rest of this movie! It definitely left a deep impression on me
51:30 he does getting bullied afterward, dunk to the pond, spraid with water, writing on his desk, and getting isolated through elementary and then junior high, all the things he did to nishimiya, he was experienced it too. And that made him understand how's nishimiya felt.
A couple of context items regarding your more confused moments (with the benefit of hindsight, of course)
1 - the mom's ear was bleeding because she ripped out her earring as a form of contrition, mirroring how her son ripped out Shouko's hearing aids. Paying back not only money but experiencing physical pain to show her remorse.
2 - Ishida's mother is a poor hairdresser and he understands the financial burden he inflicted before any sort of emotional or physical trauma because it resonated with his own personal experiences.
3 - Ishida experienced bullying that mirrored Shouko's once she was no longer a viable target for the bullies. In the process he lost all of his "friends" and was isolated. Again, mirroring Shouko's experience and resonating the rest of the trauma he inflicted.
4 - After Shouko transferred schools and he was left alone with no friends. He continued to isolate himself and became more and more withdrawn, essentially changing his personality entirely in the process.
5 - the time skips can be a bit disorienting on the first watch, I agree.
6 - Ishida goes back and forth a little at first with how he treats Shouko, like Adam said. He's curious, wary, and very much a kid who cares more about what his friends and the crowd think than anything else. He really only starts bullying her once Ueno eggs him on as a way to "show off" for her. He's not an inherently bad kid, but he very much lacks any sort of internal strength of will or strong moral compass. Once he realizes he's made a mess of things, he's more caught up in his own anger and shame and lashes out at Shouko instead of apologizing or making anything better. He gets mad at her for trying to smile through the pain because he is not emotionally mature enough to do that. He wants her to lash out and get angry like he is because it would justify his own behavior. When they fight in the classroom she continuously says "I'm doing my best" but he lacks the emotional maturity to even try and understand her. This lack of ability to understand, and lack of will power to try, is extremely overwhelming for him.
7 - on Ishida trying to befriend Shouko after all these years. He's struggling through the realization that you can't un-do experiences and you can't take back things you've done. We look now and say "you can't just go up to her and talk to her now, it's horrible" but we say that with years of experience learning that lesson. He's learning it right now and it's awkward and painful and difficult to watch. But that's how we learn it. He's making a genuine attempt to show remorse and make up with her. He's not saying it in words yet because he's not sure how to. I think it's unfair to expect him to be more emotionally mature than he is.
8 - nothing justifies what Ishida did as a kid and how he treated Shouko. I don't think the movie tries to justify it and it's certainly not a film about forgiving others. It's a film about forgiving yourself, and learning how to move through painful events and grow from them, even those that you are explicitly responsible for.
I'm really excited to see the rest of these videos and I'm thrilled this got selected. I'd be interested to see a follow up video once the whole thing has had a chance to settle.
I was bullied in school, and though some of this movie triggered my PTSD I had no trouble sympathizing with Ishida and getting on board with his redemption. Guess I'm just a strong believer in the power of forgiveness and redemption. As a personal example, one of my former bullies eventually met and married my sister, and nowadays we get along great.
Also, I hope to see more reactions from you to heart-wrenching titles in the future. They're sure among my favorites.
Sarah, i appreciate the comments you had at the end of this. I too think i felt like you when i was younger, not to say that its a juvenile way of thinking or anything, but i would say in the past 5-6 years i have seen things in a bit of grey instead of black and white. I think this movie is a perfect example of showing how bullying can destroy both the victim and the bully, and although there should absolutely be consequences for actions, i think the world needs a little more empathy for the bully themselves. i've known a few bullies in my life and i can honestly say now those people are completely different, and through the actions they took, the words they said, and the opportunities their victims (me included) gave them, they were able to become beautiful people. Its not gonna work every time, but i think everyone deserves at least a chance to make it right. Anyway, thats just my 2 cents. I honestly look forward to just about anything you and adam do haha
It's hard not to feel angry at Shoya but the film shows very well how he's just the tip of the iceberg. Each situation only happens because while the teacher was completely silent, some children were actively bullying and others were just pretending to care but not helping. I place most of the blame mainly on the adult who didn't intervene sooner, but everyone there is to blame in some way for the situation.
Hi Sarah and Adam! I've been following both of your channels for a while but this is the first time I'm commenting :) Absolutely love that you're reacting to A Silent Voice - it's my favorite anime movie of all time! I think your reactions up to this point in the film are very normal. The first half of the movie is much harder and frustrating to watch the first time around because it feels so much like it's going to be a simple redemption arc of a bully and most people in their right mind are turned off by the idea of that. I was also apprehensive about the original manga and this movie beforehand since I had a vague sense of the premise and bullying themes, but since I'm a huge fan of Kyoto Animation (the studio that produced this movie) works, I decided to watch the movie and I'm so so glad I did. The reason I love this movie so much is because this story is actually so complex, so layered, and therefore so absolutely human, and I'm sure that this'll stand out to you by the end of the movie.
A lot of other people have already offered great context and details, so I don't want to rehash anything others have already said. I did want to share some cultural notes especially about the Japanese education system and Shoya and Nishimiya's elementary school years. I taught in Japanese elementary and junior high schools for a few years, and I'm broadly in the education field (have a master's in Education), so I think I can offer a few details that might clear up a few things about the classroom bullying and Shoya's behavior based on his experiences up to this point in the movie.
Just as we might say that the (North) American public education system (and society more broadly) values things like individuality, pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, etc., the Japanese public education system really values group identity and collectivity. In the U.S., your grades are your own, you're rewarded for personal achievements, you're expected as a student in part to take initiative by asking questions, and so on. In Japan, especially in elementary school, there's a lot of emphasis on belonging in the classroom, taking part in class-based responsibilities (like helping to the clean the classroom, serving lunch to your classmates), and also participating as a class in schoolwide singing and sports competitions. When we see Shoya and Nishimiya in music class, they're actually practicing for the school's class choir competition - that's why Nao makes the offhand comment saying that they've already lost due to having Nishimiya in their class. In Japanese school choir competitions, every class prepares a few songs to sing and they're evaluated obviously on things like tone, pitch, articulation, etc. but also on group chemistry and how well they perform as a class. Even in sports competitions at schools, classes and students are generally divided up into large teams that represent the whole school (typically a "Red" team and "White" team). So while there's also individual races, there's also a lot of group/team-based activities, and ultimately, all of the scores get added up and the team with the highest scores wins (think Hogwarts Houses and the whole point system they have).
In Japanese classrooms, you /don't/ want to be anyone who stands out in class because there are so many external as well as social stakes in maintaining group cohesion. When Nishimiya first transfers to their class, her physical disability is a super easy and obvious target and is seen as a disruption to classroom peace. It's very subtle but we can see especially with Shoya but also with others in the class how they initially don't know how to interact with her because Nishimiya is so /different/ from them - they're kids after all, and as others in the comments have already said it's really the adults in the school who have failed them tremendously. When Shoya and Nao begin to pick up on what they can get away with in terms of bullying Nishimiya, that's when we start seeing them both escalate in their cruelty, Shoya with his physical bullying and Nao with her verbal manipulation to isolate Nishimiya and Sahara from the class. When it's no longer "okay" to bully Nishimiya after the principal's intervention, Shoya becomes the new class target and experiences all of the physical bullying and isolation that Nishimiya had experienced at his and others' hand. Nishimiya and Shoya both think they "deserve" the bullying, but for different reasons (Nishimiya because she's HoH, Shoya because he was once the bully).
A final thought (because this comment got way longer than I thought it'd be 😭) is that bullying is a huge issue in Japan just as it is anywhere, and it's horrific because a lot of the time it manifests in Japan through social isolation and indirect harassment (the gaslighting and passive aggressiveness is real 🥲), and there's very very little incentive, socially, for bystanders to speak up. Arguably, and I'm speaking super super generally of course, there's actually /more/ incentive to stay quiet in order to keep the peace and maintain group cohesion - and this notion definitely permeates throughout all aspects of Japanese social life. Another way to think about it is the general logic of why an American bystander to bullying stays quiet because it's "none of my business", whereas a Japanese bystander stays quiet because it would "cause trouble for others" (e.g. it'll escalate the situation, draw attention, call in authority figures, etc.) This is why Shoya's middle school experiences of being bullied are actually rather stressful and psychologically traumatizing. After all, what can you do when all of your teachers and classmates shun you and cut you off in a society where that basically equates to social death? It's beyond his peers thinking he's a bad guy for being a bully and don't want anything to do with him, because it's more like his entire world is telling him he no longer has a place in society because of his past actions. So in this first half of the movie, we follow Shoya after he's done some really cruel, terrible things to Nishimiya - which he's come to understand that that's what he's done - but he's also now spent a much longer time internalizing and earnestly believing that he has no place in society because of his actions. It's, tragically, why we meet him in the beginning of the movie having planned and ready to end his life.
Whew 😮💨 I hope this brings some more insight into the psychological and cultural aspects of the movie! This movie always stirs up so many emotions and thoughts 🥹 Looking forward to Part 2!!
"The nail that sticks up gets hammered down." Whether it's the deaf kid who is seen as an inconvenience to the class, or the one goes out of her way to help her, or the kid that became the scapegoat, that saying was cruelly true.
Around the 51:30 mark, I think it might have been missed that Shoya was bullied. After he was called out in front of the principal, his desk was defaced every day, his former friends shoved him and his stuff into the fountain, if he'd get the popular game the group would switch interests, and when they went to middle school where he might have gotten somewhat of a clean start, the kids would tell the others to avoid the bully.
And Adam was spot on for thinking back on whether or not he may have bullied anyone in my opinion. It's hard to empathize or sympathize with Shoya (especially just from watching the movie for the first time), but watching the reactions of his friends and thinking about how narrow one's worldview can be at that age combined with how he got no pushback until it was too late (especially from the teacher who should have stopped it immediately), you can see how the spiral can happen.
I had trouble following the time jumps too, but as I understand it, Shoya was bullied for several years after the moment the principle confronted the class for bullying Nishimiya. Nishimiya was no longer a viable target, so Shoya was the next person everyone turned on. Those flashes of him being pushed in the fountain and having his belongings stolen and his desk graffitied were the next several years of his life. Those flashes of people saying nasty things to him were not in his head, they were moments that led him to the mental state he is in in high school.
So my reaction of the first part of the reaction, the feelings were coming in HOT and STRONG!
I think that is the point and the setup of course and I personally do not think you have anything to apologize for in terms of your feelings etc. Whether or not you believe or forgive Shoto or anything like that, he was a bully.
I hope you all got it sorted out that he was the main/big bulley the lower grades, but as he was called out by the teacher for being a bully, he then got isolated and I would say he was bullied back, as he said, everything he gave got returned, but that was in the following year(s) culminating to him getting into high school, being isolated, from him throwing her book into the pond to himself being pushed into the pond.
And yes, the concept of suicide was very up front, A Silent Voice has the trigger warning for Suicidality.
But I think most of us on the this discord at the very least were very aware of what we were getting into when we voted for this reaction and from what I saw in part 1, I am definitely looking forward to the next few parts!
I like how Adam's reaction to this.. no hate to Sarah but Adams views is mostly spot on and he views it from a different angle.. watched this and read the manga few years back and yes I had the same views and reaction as Adam hahaha i guess it may be from his empathatic attitude.. but still kinda agree with Sarah against bullies.
I’m loving your anime journey❤your picks are always so good!
Regarding sign languages, they're like regular languages so they're not mutually understandable and they're not necessarily related to the language spoken in the same country. For example, American Sign Language and British Sign Language are completely different (even though English is spoken in both countries). In contrast, ASL is a related language to the French one so there are similarities there.
Thanks for the info!
Long-time fan of you guys! When this popped up on my dash, I was immediately like oh my gooooooosh, Sarah is going to get SO amped up (and knew I'd probably end up commenting as I go on the roller coaster ride that is A Silent Voice with you and Adam!)
I watched this for the first time fairly recently, and even as a Japanese speaker, I am 100% with you on the confusion you were noting with the timeline and how the story/memories are presented. I kind of hope that we get a post-movie long reaction, because I think this is such a difficult movie to react to, because of the emotional intensity, the structure of the timeline, and the WILD amount of blink-and-you'll-miss-them details. I definitely went back and watched it a second time to better understand certain things!
I'm sure others might have mentioned it, but the subtitles are pretty off in certain spots (when he's a kid, Ishida calls Nishimiya キモイ"kimoi" a lot, which they translate to "disgusting," but is probably closer to "creepy" or something with more of a "this weirds me out" vibe. It's a word that shortened from the phrase 気持ち悪い "kimochiwarui," which literally means "bad feeling." That, and when Ishida is asking Nagatsuka about what the "license" is for being friends-the word he uses is 権利 "kenri," which is definitely better translated as "right," and I think it better conveys that Ishida's trying to figure out the answer to what gives someone the right to be friends with another person.
Oh yeah, and the scene where Ishida's in class during high school and he's looking at his classmates-he's imagining what it is they're saying about him (this is shown partially through the voice acting, where the lines are voiced by Ishida to show what's going on in his head, but again, the subtitles on this version don't make this clear!)
Adam's point about them being kids and not knowing what to do/that Ishida doesn't know what he's doing is so spot-on, and I found myself thinking "Man, I wish there was a Sarah around for all the Nishimiyas in the world!" Especially as others have commented, the teacher and lack of a support system at a systemic level are really to blame (not that this means what the other kids do is blameless, but they are I think 10-11). I was so glad when Ishida went to intervene when that random guy was trying to steal Nagatsuka's bike (and I remember my heart just clenching when he returned the bike to Ishida-that whole scene is so touching!)
While this is definitely a hard movie to watch sometimes, and seeing the empathy and outrage and sense of justice in both of you was another reminder that there are a lot of good people in the world :)
Wow, didn't intend to write a novel, but I always love watching both of your reactions to anime, and I really love this movie too, so thank you for making this video (I'm already bracing myself for the next one!)
POOR ADAM WHATT IS THAT INTRO LOLLLL I love it sm
I think his mom was his turning point. Seeing her sacrifice all the money because of what he did, then seeing her bloody ear knowing full well shoko's mom did that to his mom for what he did to shoko. But then he was bullied and then isolated, so that caused trauma that made him realize a little what he put shoko through. He also was a kid and truly didn't see her act as wanting to be friends. Girls were just not on the brain at that age.
Ugh the MUSIC for this movie is SO GOOD. I listen to the OST at work at least once a week. It’s so unique and I adore it!
Вау, так ждала этой реакции!!)))) много раз советовала это аниме в комментариях)) спасибо большое что снимаете эти видео)) Люблю вас ребят) И да, Сара, тебя смотрят по всему миру, привет из России)))
This story is a journey of Shoya and Shoko to learn how to love themself. One person lived in regret and hatred himself for being a bully, the other lived in guilt because she thought she was different from others and was a burden to her family. The deaf deserve to be cared for and respected, and Shoya, who knows how to regret and atone for his sins, also deserves to be loved.
An insteresting of this movie: The camera angles in this movie are often very low. It represents the angle of sight of Shoya, who is always self-conscious and does not dare to look others in the eye. He covered his ears, kept his eyesight low, which shows us how much he closed his heart. Don't too harsh on him
Was not expecting this but glad y'all watched it.
Great first reaction. I think it's perfectly normal to get worked up over this film and to resist feeling sympathy for him at the start just because the tables have turned, at least at where you are at in the film at this point in the reaction. He needs to spend the entire runtime to continue to grow and earn our sympathy. I will say that while he gets a rise out of me in the moment of the bullying, what really continues to upset me and is to blame for this is the social surroundings. While you can't completely write off his actions, he is like 12 years old and was positively reinforced by his classmates and even his teacher to continue his behavior. So it's no surprise he kept doing it. The school just let it happen. That's what upsets me. It's not until the principal comes in and he learns the gravity of the situation (how expensive the hearing aids were) he realizes he did something wrong. And to his credit he does go to raise his hand before the teacher calls him out and conveniently blames the whole thing on him, and his classmates are more than happy to go along with it. The deep remorse he feels goes a long way for me, but obviously he still has a long way to go. I'm amazed that Nishimiya could stomach seeing him again and continued to meet up with him. I don't think its just a kind heart either...
Ok so Ishida at the very start was neither with nor against Nishimiya. However, he was very good friends with Ueno. Ueno tried to help Nishimiya with her class work, she would pass cues and notes to her, everything. She genuinely tried to help her..until her own grades started dipping, she started missing things teachers said and she became the subject of scolding. She was a good student, but turned out trying to help out someone did not reward her, so she started getting more and more troubled. Ishida noticed this, and to "make her feel better" he starts pulling pranks on Nishimiya...as if trying to say "Are you frustrated with her? Let me take it out on her, on your behalf".
In the end, it ends up getting him isolated instead just like it happened with Ueno, trying to "help" his friend left him isolated and he couldn't handle it(they are small children after all) leading to his scuffle with Nishimiya.
I am not trying to justify any of their actions, all i am saying it, their actions are not as straightforward as they may seem. They did not held a grudge or illwill against her initially OR they weren't exactly bullies before this. Ishida did it to take revenge for Ueno(and that's not good either). However, the only real fcked up man in all this scenario was the teacher who let things slide even though he was aware of what was happening. As an adult it seems very easy to say that what he did was wrong, but as kids perhaps half of us were like that(maybe not to that extent)..when things didn't go our way, or when elders denied us, we tried to get back on them in our ways...to rebel. Not all but a lot of us have been through this phase, this is whats been showed here but to a little extreme.
Thank you I needed sarah reaction to this sooo bad
From my understanding, schools in Japan do not teach sign languages. This is a special case that they have a deaf student so the school got a teacher(most likely outsourced) to teach the classmates simple sign language for easier communication between Nishimiya Shoko-chan and her fellow students. The school does not have time and spend expenses to hire an aid to sign for just 1 student throughout the entire school period everyday. Also they do not want Nishimiya-chan to sit out of class just because it is music class as it can seem like discrimination and others.
This is a setting where they are in Japan 6th grade which is around 11 years old.
The other kids who also bullied Nishimiya-chan pushed the entire responsibility on Ishida Shoya-kun because he was the one was the most obvious one bullying her. The rest either watched, joined, laughed and did not stopped the bullying and they are equally responsible but they pretended they were innocent which makes my blood boil even more. Even his so called friends pushed the blame on him. The teacher wasn't any better who did not stopped the bullying when it happened and only called him out when the principal stepped in because there was a complain by the parents.
Ishida-kun experienced the same bullying after he was called out for bullying Nishimiya-chan and she transferred school. He was then bullied by his friends and same classmates who joined him to bully Nishimiya-chan.
Time skip to the brown uniform, they are in high school. Those dialogue is not from his head. His friends from elementary school isolated him spread around that he was a bully and asked people to not be friends with him and ostracized him and received more bullying when they went to middle school and you can see there are some who attends this same high school now. That's why he tried to suicide. Naturally, the same thing would spread in the high school since there are people from the same middle school attending the same high school as him and he would ostracized.
The fish was a carp. The Japanese word for carp is "koi". "Koi" sounds exactly like the Japanese word for love and affection and so the fish has that symbolism.
I love this film so much, I used this film for my bachelor's thesis 😄. I'm glad that you guys are watching it, I really hope that you'd find the film beautiful as well.
In terms of the meaning behind the Koi fish, like each and every symbolism that can be found in this film (one of the major ones are through flower language, including the fireworks -> in Japanese it would translate into 'flowers of fire' and it has meaning, each and every scene that has a shot with flowers in them has meaning to it, and not just solely to 'make it look pretty'). But back to koi, in Japan, the koi fish is the prominent animal used to celebrate Children's Day, as it symbolizes strength in persevering (as they're often found swimming against currents). Back in the day, children rarely survived to adulthood, so they'd especially celebrate children that have made it. It symbolizes a span of time which is most fragile in a person's life, how they struggle to survive and find their place in society.
as for the colors of the koi (black or karasugoi & the 3 colored one or sanke) they too have meaning. In short, black koi represents those who could not fit in / survive, and the 3 colored one represents one who could. Like at the beginning, the shot showed that there were many black koi, and only 1 colored one. And only the colored one moved forward, poetically speaking, it foreshadows Shoya's eventual triumph over his struggles in life.
P.S: even the background music has a deeper meaning and actually has an active role in the storytelling.
My absolute favorite anime movie! Glad you guys are watching it.
Oh no I'm ready for the tears. I love this movie, but it always brings tears.
It breaks my heart how Shoya was trying to own up for his actions but didn't get the chance due to the inept teacher trying to save his own skin by singiling him out. As a teacher myself, the teacher's actions are unforgivable to me, as he is the adult in the situation. The manga shows a lot more on his and other classmates actions, so you understand better the situation and mindset Shoya is in. This story is about finding a way to love yourself again after you have done horrible things and you hate yourself over it. For the viewer, it's a challenge on empathy: can you find it in yourself to understand - even a little bit - where these characters come from and the reasons behind their actions.
I absolutely love this manga and the movie. The manga hit hard when I read it, and I feel that it changed some small part in me. The movie is challenging to watch as the timeline in the beginning is very confusing when you haven't read the manga. BUT the movie does amazingly well with telling the story and emotions through cinematography. It's a masterclass on "show, don't tell". This is also really good in rewatch as there is always some new angle you realize when watching it again.
I loved the reaction and can't wait to see the rest of it (even if Adam doesn't end up crying)!
This is my favorite anime movie, and maybe even my favorite movie of all time so i'm pumped to see your guys' reaction of this! Especially since i was just thinking earlier this week that I should rewatch it for the thousandth time. If you guys end up enjoying the movie, I'd definitely recommend the manga, it's only 7 volumes so it's not super long. I do like how Sarah called out Kawai for crying to get out of trouble, a lot of people who experience the story for the first time through the movie often don't seem to really pick up on how she is, so it defo made me happy to see that you noticed that
Defo looking forward to the rest of these to come out! Gosh it is such a good movie and so beautifully animated and the soundtrack is sooooo good! Truly an S tier movie in my mind. I'm definitely interested in hearing your guys' thoughts as the movie progresses
love your perspective here
During music class if you look closely you can see "nice girl" with the braids intentionally messing up the timing the first time, only to make herself look better by "helping" her afterwards.
This is easily the best movie I have ever seen
thanks for the movie reaction
Oooooh let's goooo!
Back in 2020 I had a pretty big career change and started as a teacher. A Silent Voice's portrayal of adolescence informs a lot of how I think about interactions I normally wouldn't pay as much mind to. I hope you guys enjoy it's amazing!
I will never forget the first time I heard "I'm doing my best." :(((
Protective Sarah and understanding Adam, love to see it 🥰🥰🥰
Loved this reaction can’t wait for more!
Sign Language can vary greatly depending on your region. Even ASL has different dialects. When my brother used to go to deaf camp, he came back one year to show us general greeting signs from someone who learned sign from a Spanish speaking country. I was taking Spanish classes at the time, so he was excited to learn Spanish words of his own. It was cute. lol Home signs are also common, and getting into the habit of home signs can make it harder to remember general ASL signs when signing to others. At least, that's been our experience in an area with an extremely low and spread out deaf population.
JSL, from what I know of it, incorporates a lot of hiragana and mouth movements to distinguish between certain words. I assume this is because Japanese is a context based language (and hiragana has glyphs that change how certain characters are pronounced), so sign has to accommodate for that in various ways.
Funny enough, the JSL sign for "friend" is the ASL sign for "married" which my family found particularly funny since it makes it look like she's just randomly asking to get married. (They have not watched this movie, just seen clips that I've shown them. My family is a bunch of criers, and they tapped out of this movie the moment I explained the setup. lol)
I love this movie ,Thanks u guys ❤️
Never watched this anime , can't wait to see the next part with you guys .
Deaf and HOH people also enjoy music - it's different for each person, as not everyone has the same level of hearing/deafness and not everyone has the same level of sensitivity to vibration etc
Even though the film is amazing, they had to cut out a lot of the manga for time constraints. The manga goes more in-depth on how non accomodating the school was for Shoko, and how their homeroom teacher specifically was a way bigger part of the problem than the film made him out to be, continuing to teach as if she wasn't there, ignoring all the bullying, etc. It seems a lot of different communities for people with disabilities (not just the deaf) praised the film and manga a lot for how uncompromising they were in showing how Japan in general treats people with disabilities, not giving them the support they need. Not sure if the situation's changed since then, but it sure was true at the time.
Anytime I see this video pop up I brace myself. Then I see yall reacted to it and I KNEW Sarah was gonna have a tough time with the intro. I thought to myself “surely they’ll digest what they’re going to listen to reason before it consumes them” and then BAM not even 5 minutes in and I could see yall get HEATED. Don’t worry, we all did! If it wasn’t for the tender piano music playing at those uncomfortable moments I would have eaten my shoe. Kids are mean, and they encapsulated that in the beginning of the film.
Yes!!!! No way, what a treat!
You are definitely meant to have that immediate strong reaction at the beginning, I felt the same. It honestly hit me way harder seeing shoya’s experience because you can see how a young kid who never had a deep thought in his life becomes that bully we all hate. It didn’t start out super extreme. Everyone was super nice at the beginning. My younger sister had a disability and I can say for certain that the more you spend time with some who has a disability the less you see the disability. Shoya is clearly the class clown. He’s confident funny popular, and like most kids his age he makes joke for attention. He also has already gotten used to making jokes at the expense of others. It’s all fun and and games, never cause any problems. It makes people laugh. So when he gets comfortable around shoko it’s not a big leap to teas her. It’s uncomfortable how realistically it escalates. Any kid can go down this path it’s just a natural path that people will take if they’re not shown otherwise. I know you said you tend to have a very black and white morality so this may not connect with you.
The key here is that just because we all have the same potential for evil and can sympathize with shoya because of that does not justify what shoya did. Our actions do have consequences, and shoyas affected a lot of people including himself. It’s like hate the sin not the sinner. Iwill always hate to see a person so broken they can’t even see a reason to live, even if that person did it to themself. Sorry this I’m trying so hard so clear share my feelings but there’s just so many ways to say it wrong, when dealing with something this sensitive.
Thanks for the reaction. This is definitely a movie/story that benefits from rereading. The story makes so many points about how institutions and norms hurt so many people. I think the author is trying to thread a narrow path to highlight the difference between performative repentance and reparation.
Can't wait the next part!)) The little girl in Ishada home is dother of his older sisiter. They live together, him, his mom, sister, her husband and their kid)
WHO DID ADAM IN THE INTRO LIKE THAT 😭😭😭😭😭😭
Our editor lol. As long as people get a laugh I’m good with it.
Отлично, ждём продолжения👍👍👍
ishida got bullied really really bad too after nishimiya got transferred everyone put the blame on him. Yes ishida is very wrong but i think ishida was a attention seeker, knowing that everbody hate nishimiya, and people didn’t do anything instead of laughing become reinforcement for him to bully nishimiya. you can see at first he doesn’t really to nishimiya, he also a little bit interest and has no comment when the teacher taught the sign language. (i know this cannt be a justification for what he has done. but still as a victim i want all the people who involved also got a pusnishment/ lesson/ something they deserve to got bcs bullying other people)
And the part when he wants be nishimiya’s friend it bcs he just no clues about what he has to do. The part when he isolated himself i think is part of his trauma, and a form of punishment for himself about what he did in the past.
I was bullied for like 4,5/5 years during my elementary school, for me yes ishida was wrong. But everyone like the teacher, kawaii, the yellow hiar guy, ueno etc have nothing better. And its unfair to just put the blame on him bcs at least he’s remember and took the all the blames. Bcs for me the worst part of being bullied is knowing that the bully doesnt even remember, realize, apologize, or regret what they did, and just myself the one who have to carry all the memories, the bad experiences, and the trauma, bcs we cant forget
the mom forced nishimiya too hard to be like “the majority” so she can fit to the society, thats what she doesn’t use sign language, the teacher always knows that nishimiya got bullied but stay calm and do nothing until the end he just blame ishida to make him seem like a “teacher”. ueno obviously wrong, she’s a real bully, she clearly hate nisyimiya, the yellow guy actually stay quite and enjoy what ishida’s did, doesn’t feel guilty at all, he blame ishida’s and feel that he has right to bully ishida’s bcs of what he did to nishimiya, he also incited and spread the story about what ishida’s do in elementary school to everyone on junior high school or high school.
Kawaii is the worst type of bully. She’s fake. She acted innocent and kind in the front, but talking bad, laughing dll at the back, when the choir part nishimiya got “wrong in” when she sings is also bcs of her, she wants to embarrass her, she also manipulative, glasslighting, amd play victim. As a bully victim the yellow hair guy, kawaii, and the teacher is the worst type of bully.
Bcs at least ishida, and ueno was being real and consistent, so i can hate them fully if they aren’t getting better in the future, instead of kawaii who makes the bully victim confused and somehow makes a lil bit guilty to hate
I'm going to come and defend Sarah, cuz she has every right to be mad/ dislike Shoya. The first time I watched I had a similar reaction to hers I thought "What a shitty kid he just wants to apologize to make himself feel better" or when they told us about how his ex "friends" started bullying him I thought "well I don't like them either but karma" Then I noticed he didn't apologize and I was confused cuz that's usually how it goes with bullies. I think Sarah's reactions are genuine and they're her first thought after what happened, this is not a deep dive into the character or movie its a reaction so let her express her feelings. My feelings about Shoya change throughout the movie (I won't go deep into that part or why because that's a spoiler and I don't know if they have finish the movie) and I bet sarah's will too, wether they change for better or for worse that's up to her because people don't have to like a character even if they apologize.
I think the blood from Sho’s mom was because she ripped her earings just liked how her son pulled Shinimiya’s hearing aids
Omg guys🥺 this movie is amazing, ik this whould be a good reaction as always
i’m super excited to see your second reaction to this amazing movie! i don’t think we’re supposed to give shoya a clean pass right away, and if you walk away from the movie having not fully forgiven him, that’s fine! everyone has different takes on characters, and he’s done some pretty terrible things and didn’t really apologize for them. when i first watched this movie, i was definitely put off by his character but i like how the movie tries to tackle some darker and harder-hitting topics/themes
Intro pic was hilarious 😂
lol, the high school look
To your question about sign language in different languages, there's hundreds of different sign languages, even among people of different areas in the same country. A lot of words are the same in different languages, but a lot are not, and with different alphabets the same happens, same with slang, etc.
Oh no, this is going to be a rollercoaster of emotions. This movie is amazing so I’m ready to be hurt again 😅😢
Let me preface with I'm not excusing Shoya but I think at the start he was the kid looking to get a reaction how ever he could and his friends were giving him that and taking part in it even the blonde girl who put on her best crocodile tears when the school finally got involved was laughing and Ueno's snide comments and then all turned on him. If they aren't in a class with a teacher who is more annoyed that he's there and has accommodate Nishimiya it never escalates to the point it did. Also its easy to miss but it wasn't just self isolation there was a short scene where when they got to middle school one of his "friends" who was right there with him bullying her tells someone not to talk to him because he's a bully and that information probably spread through the middle school and carried into highschool
oh my gosh i thought i was dreaming when i saw the title
I knew it and I love that Sarah got really upset. The beginning part (primary school time) of the movie is indeed stressful and also made me totally mad as a mother of a physically disabled child in a wheelchair. But this movie made me go through a lot of emotions. It’s not a pleasant, easy movie; some part a bit difficult to understand even for a Japanese native but definitely an excellent movie that stays in my mind strongly for a long time.
They are elementary school when they met nishimiya for the 1st time.
Why Ishida tell "Kawai did"
If you mentioning at the singing scene u can see that Kawai started mounthing the words early and Shoko looked over that why she started singing. She is the type of bully who tries to portray herself as a very nice person.
日本っぽい描写がたくさんあるし、
なかなか複雑な表現とかあるからしっかり伝わるといいなあ
めちゃめちゃ好きだし、考えさせられる映画ですよね
The manga and the movie were meant to confront the Japanese culture of differences being looked down upon and outcast in the manga Nishimiya is in a school for the deaf, but I can't remember if she is getting bullied there too or if her mom wants her to go to a "normal" school, so she transfers to this school. And in this school "it's not their job" to cater to the deaf student so minimal effort is made. Also bullying in school at the time in Japan was a very big problem across the board and went unchecked a lot of the time by the adults as students were expected to work it out amongst themselves.
All my homies hate Kawai
Kawaii is irredeemable in the anime and somehow even worse in the manga
I used to study LIBRAS, which ks Brazolia sign language. The signa are created according to symbols that would make sense in that society/culture. There MAY be some signs in common. :) my teacher was deaf and she explained to us that when she used do go to international conventions she could communicate to some other people in a level because it's a visual/gestural language.
Kawai and the teacher are TERRIBLE ohhhh my god.
What gets me emotional in this movie is that I can see how Shoko is "nice and gentle and soooo comprehensive" because she probably feels like a burden to everybody.
People dont need much to hate you alredy, so Imagine if you were not the best girl ever? God forbid you have any type of "bad" behavior. So yeah you have to be nice and gentle and lovable because you'd feel guilty otherwise.
where's part two, I want it now...
The movie leaves a few things out i will recommend reading the starting part that will make a lot of things more clear.
I was confused about many things when i first watched the movie and manga made everything clear about everyones perspective and feelings
Oh man, when i saw this in my feed i was excited and nervous at the same time. Its a really tough movie to tackle, but thats what makes it so good. Looking forward to seeing yalls thoughts after getting the whole picture! Also the subs on these seem not the best, so might lead to some misunderstandings due to translation.
this is just, great
This movie always makes me cry 😭 You guys should definitely watch ‘Colorful’ it’s another anime movie, really amazing
Ok, so after this watch "I want to eat your pancreas" or "Wolfs children" and you're done
Not gonna lie… I had started this movie and I had to stop… it was really really rough watching it… came back to It months later
I don't know why but if we look back to elementary school dates, some boys and girls hate to be too close to each other. It's just embarrassing and once that invisible line is crossed someone even get angry to hide his/her shy inside. No mention to communicate with a special kid who can't hear.
We are so used to tell lies through our mouth, it couldn't fool those people only talk with their heart.
Where is the teacher? OMG.
I was the bullied and a bully. Ishida to me is relatable... I too had a time where I've "come to my senses" and looked back at how awful I treated my peers back in elementary and middle school. I painfully regret everything I've done, even though I was a kid, and I wish I had the opportunity to make things right again.
P.S. I think Ishida will be the one to claw out of your "bad book", Sarah.
5 minutes in and sarah was already going through it
Ohoho, cant wait for more parts! I want to see how the rections are and opinions become by the end. I read the manga years before the movie came out and was one of my favourite sad but good stories even before the anime, the movie did it well enough cutting down unnecessary sections but also lost some things due to kt being movie length but what can you do, still they did fantastic
Yeah when i watched this I was so angry at the teachers. They made no effort to accommodate her and even admitted they knew she was getting bullied and still did nothing.
tbh it's very refreshing to see someone who's still angry at shoya even when he tries to make up for his past bullying. i absolutely don't blame sarah, and i wouldn't have blamed shoko if she hadn't forgiven shoya
IMMEDIATELY CLICKED TO WATCH 😭🙌🏽 This movie had me absolutely sobbing.
Please feel free to go back and rewatch things, especially if you didn't catch what they said or didn't understand something! This goes for all other reactions too. Take your time to pause, discuss, and reflect :)
Also, I hate how this particular streaming service did those subtitles. It totally takes away from the message of the movie 😭😭
Oh, I'm waiting for Mugen Train but thank you for this!❤ Just prepare a tissue next time though.
OMG! This movieeeee
Loved this, y’all!! I wanted to respond to your final comment on bullying with my own experience 💕
So, I was a bully, and I was later bullied. In 6th grade, there was a kid who was legally blind, and wore incredibly thick glasses that we’ll call Dylan. One day, me and my friends were playing on the playground before class (they were all guys, and I identified as a girl at the time). One of them brought a prank gum toy, where you grab a piece of gum and it shocks your finger. They all tricked each other into pulling it, and they turned to Dylan and wanted to get him to pull it. We all started getting in his face, telling him to pull it. He kept saying “we can’t have gum at school,” but we just kept pressing him. He was very quiet, but didn’t give in, and pretty soon we gave up and left. A few days later, his teacher went into each of the 6th grade classes and did what the A Silent Voice teacher DIDNT do. She talked to us about how disappointing it was that we would stoop so low to target someone who is LEGALLY BLIND. I felt AWFUL. I honestly don’t know if I apologized, but I made a point to be much kinder and inclusive. We’re in a very small town, so we were in clubs together later, and became great friends and co-leaders in high school band. We even went to Winter Formal in our Senior year 🥰 by this point, I brought up and profusely apologized for being a part of the bullying in 6th grade. everytime I watch this movie, I think hard on how horrible it is to bully a kid with a physical disability, AND, I remember how easy it is to fall into step with other people who started it. Being a kid is not an excuse for bullying, but being a bully doesn’t mean you will ALWAYS be a bully. You MUST feel remorse, and in a lot of cases, you need to atone.
LATER, my senior year of high school, a group of my classmates made a fake Facebook profile of me, with explicit jokes and other just, awful stuff. About 20 other classmates were “friends” with the profile, but clearly didn’t contribute. I was really hurt that it wasn’t reported sooner, but again, being a bystander puts you in a weird spot where you want to just look away. Anyways, my bff reported it to our most diligent teacher, and the school’s investigation began. My bff spoke with the Vice Principal for a long time, explaining the whole situation. The “profile name” was my name misspelled to make an explicit joke. She explained it, and the VP said “haha that’s clever”. She said “my bff is being bullied, and you think it’s clever?” He said, “well I don’t really know what to do. In my day, kids settled it in the parking lot.” I could go on, but I’ll get to my point.
This VP sucked. He suggested that the way to solve this should probably be violence. YOU, Sarah, do NOT suck. You did not suggest in any way that violence is the best answer to all bullying. What I heard you say was roughly “the way for me to shut it down in this situation was sliiiiiiightly violent🤣”. I know that sometimes, a lil shove will shut someone up, and there are very lovely people out there who are brave enough and wise enough to be the right amount of physical at the right time. Being physical would NOT have worked in my situation, but it worked PERFECTLY in yours. And, I think that’s just fine 🥰🥰
I LOVE that y’all are watching this 🥰 hope you continue to love it! See you soon 💕
I think i need to comment after they done reacting to this movie. theres something that sarah said that i disagree.
minor note but the closer translation here(47:40) would be "I know right?" imo. So the scene flows better after that one question "Why is he still living?"😂😭
man, my hatred towards the teacher is unbelievable big, it's not like that man just don't know how to deal with this situation. He just literally don't give two damns or a fuck about her being in class. how can someone like that be a teacher
The movie subs are not great. This is not official translation is it?
shoya's voice actor is suga's btw fyi
Hello, here is a profoundly deaf signer from Spain. Yeah, sign language is not universal, so usually every spoken language has its own sign language. ASL (American), BSL (British) and AUSLAN (Australian) even the signs are very different. I am from Catalonia, I communicate with LSC (Catalan) and I am fluent in LSE (Spanish), I would not be able to understand the signs of my neighboring countries (France, Italy, Portugal, North Africa, etc...). We, deaf people, to relate to deaf foreigners, either use LSI in European countries or ASL in American countries. I hope my information helps you all clarify. Happy summer!
9:45 It would have been fine if Kawai hadn't have faked a start right there in order to embarrass Shoko.
I read the mangá first and only after I watched the movie(many many years ago), and always thought that the movie didn't make a good job on showing the bully, because on mangá this seemed slower and visceral, and the movie softned a little because it wouldn't have the time to do a good redemption arc ...
It's really good to know that movie could make Sarah feel the same as me when I read the very first time...
But, on the same page, has some things that movie did poorly, example: after Nishimiya trade schools, Shoya became the target of bullying... The guy exercising on thee bed (that is Brazilian) is the new boyfriend of Shoya's Mom and the Father of the little girl on the future, an the "X" on the face has a bigger meaning, symbolizes the depression itself, when he nullifies the people around him...
The Brazilian guy is the boyfriend of Shoya's older sister. Maria, the little girl, is Shoya's nephew.
@@wirdyy 😅really? Sorry, My mistake... As I Say, I read the manga years ago...
@@Arthon2101 well, they barely say anything about it. I think the older sister doesn't appear until the end of the manga. And somewhere Shoya briefly says that Maria is his nephew.
Will they not react to S2 of Demon slayer?
I think this is a good movie, but it is such a hard movie to watch. I honestly can't go back to it on my own. But I always recommend anime fans give it a shot. Even if people ultimate don't like it, it always brings up a lot of good conversations. Grave of the Fireflies is the same.
I'm glad you guys gave it a chance.