This movie came out a few months after Your Name and was considered the best movie of all times, just like Your Name was called exactly that, and just like everything that will come after it will surely also be the best movie of all times. Anything can be the best whatever of all times when it’s new. A few months later, you are free to forget its very existence.
To its credit, I do agree A Silent Voice is better than Your Name, since it doesn’t have time reset bullshit and amnesia nonsense, plus the main two characters spend some time being physically close to each other before the romance kicks in. Other than that, there’s not much of a story going on and everyone in the cast can be described in a couple of lines. Everything plays out as predictably as you can imagine it from the trailer alone, and if you are looking for pretty colors and an excuse get the feels then it’s a fine movie.
I am not stupid, so I am not going to evaluate the movie based on how much I cried, which is what most use as supposed evidence of quality. If I go by that metric then A Silent Voice is terrible because I didn’t cry nor felt anything once it was over. Unless boredom can be included, which would count against it. The reason for that is simple. There was nothing relatable as far as I’m concerned, since my entertainment while growing up was giant robots and space armadas blowing shit up.
The setting is for the billionth time about bland high schools, just like 99% of every other anime that is coming out today. Really helps to set this movie apart from other anime, doesn’t it? And it’s about bullying, which is something 99% of anime, not just the school ones, include at least once. How fresh and uncommon this movie is. Was the bullying looked into better than usual? Yes it did, since it had repercussions and they weren’t cheap excuses for revengeporn. Because if you didn’t know, bullies are some of the most overused cheaply-written bad guys, used in any tale almost as frequently as Nazis and English noblemen. As a subversion of sorts, in this movie the bully doesn’t exist just to be hated and punched to the face relentlessly. He is actually the main character and he regrets his actions, trying to be a better man.
I make it sound to be amazing, but it’s not. This ain’t Onani Master Kurosawa, because the bully gets to date the girl he bullies. It’s a low-key depiction of Stockholm syndrome and fairly silly, just like all teen dramedy stories are. Just sappy soap operas. And I was never a fan of them; my entertainment growing up was giant robots and space armadas blowing shit up.
‘Oh Snob, you old timer, you don’t have a heart for saying such a thing’ many will say. No, I have a heart and it was pumping blood into my fist so I can plant it in some bully’s face. You see, back in my time at school, bullying wasn’t some evil thing. It was part of growing up. I was bullied in high school for being the weird guy who watches anime and doesn’t like sports. A few times I also bullied others weaker and younger than me for some other crap they liked. Why? Because power, that’s why. The strong bully the weak; it’s how life was back then and still is right now. Don’t deny it isn’t; what do you think cancel culture is all about? Service justice to criminals? No, it’s a bunch of soy-faced keyboard warriors thinking they are in control by complaining about everything and find joy in destroying the careers of those who have different political views.
Anyways, back in the glorious 80s if you didn’t want to be bullied, you would punch your bullies as hard as you could. Then they would leave you to go bully someone who doesn’t fight back. Oh, and needless to say nobody ever attempted suicide because of school bullying. He would be mocked endlessly, he wouldn’t be buried in a proper cemetery, and he would burn in hell forever, because that is what our religion was preaching. Bullying was just something you had to take like a man.
And then I watched this movie which is the polar opposite of how I grew up. Can anyone blame me for finding it boring? My generation’s response to bullying was Karate Kid. You wax on, wax off, and you kick each other’s asses until you lose interest. You don’t attempt suicide, and you don’t fall in love with the ones you bully. A Silent Voice was like a sick fetish in my eyes that went against my moral beliefs. Bullying is bad, children, and there is nothing strange in falling in love with your victims. This is why so many write porn fanfics about Deku getting impregnated by Bakugo in My Hero Academia. Did I mention they are both men? Well, nowadays impregnating a boy you bully makes more sense than punching back your bully and wanting nothing to do with him for the rest of your life.
But wait, there is more. They just had to make the victim a deaf girl that is cute and shy so everybody would want to protect that smile, regardless of her not having any talents or much of a personality. No, really, she has no skills, she is as bland as it gets. Her only defining feature is ‘deaf’. Hey, look people, another film about a minority that deserves all your attention for being unable to do simple things as easily as the rest of us can. And if that isn’t enough to attract everyone’s attension, no worries, attempted suicide as a plea for attention will do it.
What? Suicide? What kind of crap is this, a normal person will think. What could possibly excuse such a stupid move? Oh, it’s very simple. She had a… first world problem… in high school. Well, shit mate, if you can’t handle that, how do you expect to survive in the adult workforce? Bullying in my time was a training arc in a way, to toughen you up for when you get out there. How well will you fare when you show your bio and it says “I tried to kill myself at school because some students were being mean”? Every employer will show you the door, you know?
Anyways, there is no death in this movie because it’s a teen flick aiming at making you cry and stuff. The bully does some improbable physics and grabs the cute deaf girl midair, like he is the Flash or something, and then they fall in love because teen flicks will keep teen flicking as they are supposed to. Also it’s an anime romance. It’s supposed to have highly problematic romantic interests based on abuse and violence that would never end well in real life. You know, the timid girl who wants to tame the edgy bad boy, and stuff. Stuff that always end with homicide or depression and addiction to drugs. But this is an anime, so toxic relationships are the best thing ever. Bully girls and then date them, kids, it will definitely work out fine.
This movie is unbearably sappy because it’s supposed to be. Also the reason why, as far as I see it, not real, or realistic, or relatable, and therefore it gives me nothing to be emotional about. Bullying was acceptable and my entertainment while growing up was giant robots and space armadas blowing shit up. Also, loving someone for torturing you was something we were seeing only on the news and it was always about beaten up housewives who are too afraid to leave their terrible husbands, or crazy fangirls of serial killers, forming cults of personality. Really sick stuff and definitely not what you would want in a healthy relationship.
Oh, also, speaking from personal experience, dealing with deaf people is exhausting. I had a friend who was gradually losing his hearing as time went on. We reached a point where I had to be yelling the same thing 3 times. There was no such problem in this movie, nobody was getting frustrated with how he couldn’t communicate with the girl. All they cared about was protecting the smile of some cute defenseless girl with no talents and not defining features besides ‘deaf’. Once again, completely unrelatable as far as I’m concerned and why it’s the most terrible movie ever made because it didn’t make me cry.
But hey, look on the bright side. It’s better than Your Name. Hell, it’s better than Anthem of the Heart, which was also about a handicapped girl and lots of vomiting high school shenanigans. Well done A Silent Voice, you are the least awful of these three. If only that meant anything when most fans of the manga the movie is based on hate it with passion for not being a faithful adaptation. It really speaks volumes regarding the actual quality of a product when the very fans of the source hate it with passion. It makes it seem like you get all emotional over a faulty derivative instead of the REAL thing.
Not that it had an effect on me, either way. Back in my days-blahblah-blowing shit up. I didn’t like it. It wasn’t real, it wasn’t emotional, it wasn’t relatable. At least it looked nice, I guess.
