A SILENT VOICE

Japan, 2016, 129 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Naoko Yamado.

Over the decades, the Japanese film industry has built up an enormous reputation for animation, especially at the Deeply Studios.

The animation stories tell fairytales, take audiences into a world of imagination and fantasy. However, in more recent years, the animation has gone into fantasy and action in the Anime films.

The films, like this one, take ordinary characters, more ordinary situations, a sense of realism. This is a film about bullying, a focus on school, a young girl being bullied, the boys and then ganging up on her, especially on a young boy, Issue harder. The girl he bullies, initially, is deaf. The film presents her sympathetically, her attempts to speak, needing her notebook to communicate.

After some time, issue harder has his own problems and tries to make up for what he did in the past.

This gives the film quite some earnestness as it draws the audience into contemporary problems, the world of children, the world of bullying, and a world of changing for the better and a sense of redemption.


1. The impact of Japanese animation films? Fantasies? Dramas of realism? The impact of this realism?

2. The animation style, depiction of characters, the characteristics, details? Situations, home, classroom, school, bridges and water, real situations? The musical score?

3. The early part of the film about bullies, bullying? Victims? Bullying presented as ugly?

4. Disability, Nishimiya as deaf, able to speak awkwardly? Needing her notebook? The issue of sign language?

5. The focus on Ishada, his age, in school, being something of a clown, relations with the other students, his not understanding Nishimiya, picking on her, ridiculing her? The effect on him, carefree? His job, getting the money, giving it to his mother? The role of his sister? The clash with his mother, threatening to burn the money, the accidental burning? The reactions?

6. The depiction of the other students in the class – and their depiction as they grew older? Sympathetic, unsympathetic?

7. The passing of five years? The effect on Ishada, his work, the money, the encounter with Nishimiya, with her little sister, the rejection? His decision to learn sign language? Following through, clashes, Nishimiya and her unpredictable behaviour?

8. Ishida befriending Nagatsuka, best friend, the learning of friendship? The interactions, Nagatsuka and his and violence, the clash with Nishimiya’s?

9. The challenge to Ishada, his motivation for reconciliation, or just for himself?

10. The issues of suicide, Japanese youth? Self-image?

11. The issues of repentance, motivations, purifying motivations, regard for others?

12. Ishada’s personal journey, from bullying to acceptance, from suicidal to acceptance of life? Reconciliation?

13. Nishimiya, her journey, disability, picked on, sign language, protected, yet her self-image, her continued apologies?

14. How would this film have made its impact if it were live-action – the impact via the artificiality and stylisation of the animation?