A SILENT VOICE ANALYSIS & REVIEW
- Robin Syversen
- Jul 25
- 12 min read
Updated: Aug 2
Exploring the Cultural Connections in A Silent Voice
Director: Naoko Yamada
Cast/Voices: Miyu Irino, Saori Hayami, Aoi Yûki, Kenshô Ono, Yûki Kaneko, Satsuki Yukino
Related Films: Tamako Love Story, The Garden of Words, Tokyo Godfathers
Studio: Kyoto Animation
Year: 2016
Verdict: 4.5/6
Contents:
Introducing A Silent Voice
Since its release in 2016, A Silent Voice has garnered much attention in anime communities worldwide—and for good reason. Its central theme of bullying and inclusivity touches upon a widespread and deeply rooted social issue in Japan that remains troubling to this day.
Japanese critics immediately embraced the film, but its international success wasn't quite as explosive as Your Name, released the same year. Still, the film's undeniable qualities made it a standout in the anime landscape of the 2010s, which presumably explains its slow but steady expanding reputation abroad.
Another explanation might be the rather tactful approach to the topic matter. A Silent Voice walks a tightrope between Japanese political correctness and quiet societal critique. If you're familiar with Japanese social dynamics, the film hits a lot harder. Much is left unsaid, or hidden between the lines, which is both a strength and a weakness.
On the one hand, the film raises important questions. On the other, it sort of lets them float off into the ether. This dynamic plays out in the push and pull between social commentary and melodrama.
At times, the message is delivered with such force that it almost overwhelms the story; yet, the larger scope of bullying is outweighed by the drama, which fortunately is strong enough to keep us thoroughly engaged throughout.
If that sounded cryptic, it's because there's a lot to unpack in A Silent Voice, far more than I can squeeze into a single article.
So instead, I'll focus on what I believe is said between the lines—drawing from my perspective as a non-native who's lived in Japan, and before that, spent six years neck-deep in Japanese Cultural Studies, wrestling with these very themes back in my student days.
The Voice of Silence | Director Naoko Yamada
Before we dive deeper into A Silent Voice, it's worth noting that this emotionally precise film was directed by Naoko Yamada, one of the foremost female directors taking the helm of major anime productions today.
Starting out as an animator at Kyoto Animation in 2004, she quickly rose through the ranks, becoming one of the studio's youngest feature directors. A Silent Voice was her third theatrical release, and by far her most ambitious to date.
Why does that matter? Because Yamada's directorial voice is uniquely attuned to silence. She's known for her attention to small gestures, subtle visual storytelling, and emotional nuance—what she describes as treating characters like "individual people" rather than narrative devices.
That sensitivity aligns perfectly with a film built on miscommunication, bullying, and all the things left unsaid.
Yamada's style stands apart—quiet, intimate, and steeped in restraint. She avoids unnecessary melodrama and lets silence stretch. Her shots often focus on body language (especially feet and posture), and her deliberate pacing lets emotional tension build without overstatement.
The storyboarding is hands-on and empathetic, tuned into how even the smallest gestures can communicate discomfort, longing, or unease. It's an approach that makes A Silent Voice not just poignant, but disarmingly human.
So even if the film doesn't scream protest, its quiet confidence and emotional gravity carry something deeper. A softly spoken authority—a voice that understands what it means to live by strict codes of conduct, and chooses to speak up anyway.
A Silent Voice Plot | Teenage Wasteland Japan
Within its first minute, A Silent Voice juxtaposes suicidal thoughts with the crackle of summer fireworks and the gentle drift of cherry blossoms—inviting us from the get-go to look beneath the surface, where beauty and despair intertwine in a way that begs for closer inspection.
At its core, the story follows Shoya Ishida, a boy who mercilessly bullies a deaf classmate, Shoko Nishimiya. Years later, consumed by guilt and social isolation, he sets out on a clumsy quest for redemption. What begins as an attempt to apologize turns into a slow, awkward effort at connection, self-forgiveness, and maybe even healing.
As Shoya tries to make amends, he and Shoko navigate a minefield of miscommunication, lingering trauma, and the social awkwardness of adolescence. Their fragile attempts at reconnection ripple outward, stirring up old tensions among their former classmates, each carrying their own emotional baggage.
Ueno, a former classmate and key instigator in the early bullying, is unapologetic, bitter, and combative. Nagatsuka—Shoya's self-appointed best friend—offers comic relief and surprising loyalty in a world that often feels cold and distancing.
And then there's Yuzuru, Shoko's protective younger sister, whose tough exterior masks a quiet desperation to shield her sibling from further harm. Together, these characters add depth to the story's moral landscape, showing that guilt, forgiveness, and emotional survival rarely follow a clean arc.
It's a story of second chances—but not in a glossy, fairy-tale way. Here, forgiveness is hard-earned, and redemption is never guaranteed.
A Cry for Change | A Silent Voice Analysis
The first fifteen minutes almost feel too on the nose. It's heavy-handed. A checklist of emotional cues served up on a silver platter. But by the half-hour mark, you're unsuspectingly invested, possibly reaching for the tissue box while wondering where that gut-punch came from.
Before the heavier themes take over, you might catch yourself admiring the artwork. The characters are drawn with simple lines, while the backgrounds flow from bleak to breathtaking. Does this contrast reflect something deeper? Maybe the shallowness of interpersonal expression in Japan, set against the layered complexity of the society that surrounds it?
Of course, modern Japan is also full of polished surfaces and manufactured harmony. But underneath the gloss lies a dense, enigmatic network of unspoken rules, silent expectations, and brutal suppression of nonconformity. In that sense, A Silent Voice captures more than a personal drama—it sketches a blueprint of the social machine that quietly shapes the lives of millions.
So let's dive in and see how it all connects. What is A Silent Voice really trying to whisper in our ear—and what's the noise we're left to decode on our own?
Part 1: Bullied from Birth | A Recipe for Hikikomori Suicides
Ishida, the bully turned outsider, is our leading man. But in the film's early scenes, what stands out just as much as his appalling behavior is the complete absence of any adult intervention. The teacher floats through the classroom like a passive ghost, offering no pushback, no scolding—just silence.
Now, I can't speak for the American school system or every corner of Europe, but I can say this: growing up in Norway, this kind of classroom chaos wouldn't fly without consequences.
In A Silent Voice, there's no proper discipline—not until the damage is already done and irreversible. By the time Ishida's bullying escalates beyond repair, the teacher finally decides to act. He outs Ishida in front of the class, and the mob turns on him without missing a beat.
Again, it's on the nose. But in a country infamous for its relentless bullying, suffocating hierarchies, and unspoken rules of submission—at school, in the workplace, in life—it's a point worth underlining.
A large part of Japan's social structure is built on hazing, pecking orders, silent cowering, and late-night drinking with your boss after fourteen-hour workdays. And all of it usually starts where our tale unfolds, in the education system.
More than 1.4 million people in Japan now live as hikikomori—social recluses who've withdrawn completely from the outside world. A staggering number of them cite school bullying, ostracism, or the suppression of individuality as key reasons for their retreat.
No Rest for the Wicked
After Nishimiya transfers to another school, Ishida is left alone, festering in guilt, cut off from everything. And suddenly the intro scene comes into focus—where we first met him on the edge of a bridge, barely stopping himself from taking his own life.
While suicide is yet another one of Japan's long-running social wounds, since it's used here less as a subject in itself and more as a tool to bring the bullying arc full circle, that's where I'll keep the focus too.
The pipeline—from classroom cruelty to long-term social exile—is very real. A Silent Voice taps into that reality, even if it doesn't dig as deep as it could.
In a strange twist of fate, Ishida becomes the outcast. He's frozen out of the classroom ecosystem, ignored by everyone, haunted by what he did. His only hope for redemption? Shoko Nishimiya, the very girl he once tormented.
Somehow, the film leans into this turn, seemingly attempting to tug at our heartstrings. It's like it says: "See? Poor Ishida. He's suffering in a world that's turned its back on him." And that's where things get murky.
Because Ishida had it coming. He got exactly what he ordered—and no matter how well-adjusted he becomes later, he shouldn't get off the hook so easily for inflicting trauma on an innocent girl.
Bullies don't deserve pity for the consequences of their actions. If there's any room for sympathy, it might be for the reasons they became bullies in the first place—but A Silent Voice doesn't really go there.
There's little exploration of Ishida's home life, no emotional context, and no real cause. And that might be the film's biggest weakness: it shines a spotlight on cruelty, but shies away from tracing its roots.
Part 2: Hierarchies and Conformity | Japan's Social Machinery
So why did Ishida become a bully in the first place? On the surface, his mother seems perfectly loving, kind, and present. His father, on the other hand, is entirely absent. A common Japanese dynamic, for sure—many fathers are physically or emotionally checked out—but the fact that his mother works as a hairdresser might indicate something ajar.
In a society where stay-at-home moms are still prevalent, her job quietly signals that this is a broken home. Maybe there was a divorce. Maybe something worse. We're never told, and the film never hints at what might have gone down—but the subtext is there. And the silence around it is striking.
Somehow, that silence feels more Japanese than anything.
Bullies don't come out of nowhere. There's a pattern—a strain that runs through family dynamics, often passing down the same pressure, shame, and unprocessed trauma. A Silent Voice doesn't dare point a finger at the home, where so many behavioral patterns actually begin.
Reactions Without a Cause
Parents are the frontline of emotional development, but here, their complicity is left untouched. The film shows us the result, but not the origin. And that's a missed opportunity, especially in a society where parents are under immense pressure.
They're boxed into roles—homemaker, salariman, perfectionist provider—and thrown into the educational escalator system: top kindergarten, top elementary school, top high school, top university, all leading to a mythical "safe" job that doesn't really exist anymore.
The structure still stands, even if the economy doesn't. What remains is the hierarchy. The ritual. The system that turns children into anxious little cogs, drilled to perform, trained to submit. And if you fail to conform—or simply fall between the cracks—the road ahead becomes an obstacle course ten times worse than it already was.
In that sense, A Silent Voice says more by omission than it ever could through dialogue. It sketches the outlines of a broken family and then refuses to fill in the rest. That absence is deafening. Ishida's pain doesn't emerge from nowhere, and yet the film avoids tracing it. As if the deeper you dig, the closer you get to criticizing the very foundations of the culture.
Outlining a Breeding Ground for Repression
Still, the broader machinery is on display—the one that weeds out nonconformity and punishes those who stand out. Nishimiya doesn't stand a chance—not because she's weak, but because she's different. Deaf, yes, but more than that: she communicates on her own terms. She disrupts the social flow. And for that, she's marked.
This is where Ueno comes in. Her unflinching resentment of Nishimiya is brutally honest. She lashes out, not just at Shoko, but at her mother, too. "You should never have had a child if you couldn't raise her properly." It's a chilling, yet seemingly authentic line. If anything, it sounds like something spat straight from the mouth of a society that values uniformity above individuality.
Later, when Ishida is injured while protecting Nishimiya, Ueno blames Shoko for that as well. Her bitterness is relentless, but it feels less like personal hatred and more like a collective voice speaking through her. She becomes a stand-in for the repressed, conformist masses—those who never spoke up, never broke the rules, never forgave anyone who did.
"I just spoke the truth," she says. And maybe, in a way, she did. Not her truth, but the one written into the margins of Japanese life. The truth that difference is dangerous. That weakness is shameful. That the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.
Part 3: Communication Breakdown | Tsuki ga Kirei Desu ne
On the surface, the title A Silent Voice points to the voiceless victims of bullying—but beneath it all, there's another kind of silence. The kind that seeps into language, into body posture, into every interaction that never quite says what it means.
Once the hierarchy is internalized and you've accepted the rules of the system, it inevitably affects all means of communication. It is no secret that Japanese daily life is a masterclass in coded language, social ambiguity, and deeply ingrained habits of indirect communication.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the film's most awkward—and arguably most memorable—scene: Nishimiya's confession.
She reveals her feelings to Ishida, saying "Suki desu"—literally, "I like you." But in most contexts, it signals something deeper, something closer to "I love you." It's an expression steeped in subtext, one that relies on both people reading between the lines. Ishida, true to form, mishears suki as tsuki—the moon—and replies by commenting on how beautiful it is.
It's a direct nod to Japan's national treasure and world-renowned author, Natsume Soseki. He once claimed that saying "I love you" was far too direct for Japanese sensibilities. So instead, he offered a poetic dodge: "The moon is beautiful, isn't it?"
This is what Japanese communication often looks like: poetic, elegant, and poised for potential misinterpretation. That said, even as a foreigner, I got the subtext immediately.
So when Ishida didn't—when he missed what felt so obvious—it felt like a logic error. But narratively, I get it. It's not entirely believable, but the quirkiness is undeniable. The scene stands out as a highlight of the film, so I'll let it slide, easily.
More importantly, the misunderstanding fuels the narrative. It becomes a catalyst for their stagnant relationship. Despite everything they've been through, something always feels stuck between them. Stiff. Undeclared. Somehow, they just can't seem to grow closer.
To Be or Not to Be… Bully or Bullied
Out of the blue, in a desperate attempt to put things on the right track, Ishida flips. He morphs into the stereotypical Japanese teenage boy: loud, relentlessly upbeat, desperate to please, and determined to pretend everything's fine. His inner guilt and alienation get paved over by forced smiles and conformity-lite.
But what kind of message is that? That we should bury our trauma, deny our quirks, and join the crowd? To be honest, I can't really see a better alternative for Ishida—but I don't have to like it.
Because in the larger scope of things, no single person can undo centuries of cultural weight. The layers of hierarchy, the rigid social codes, the unbalanced family roles, the pressure to belong, the distrust of otherness—they're bigger than any one individual. And A Silent Voice doesn't pretend otherwise.
To its credit, the film's ending suggests that people can change, but only with tremendous effort, and only by relinquishing those silent voices of miscommunication. Redemption isn't handed out. It's earned. Slowly. Painfully. Sometimes incompletely. And while that might not be satisfying in a Hollywood sense, it feels more honest—more human.
And to be fair, there's a lot to admire in Japanese social conventions. It fosters incredible collaboration, a strong sense of social duty, and a deep care for its own. But that's the thing—it cares for its own. The system is built to protect those who play by its rules. Those who don't—or can't—become outsiders. And the outsiders are growing in number.
In that way, Japan is both hyper-unified and increasingly isolated. It's a paradox. Within the country, harmony reigns. But in a global sense, it risks becoming the odd man out. And within Japan itself, those who don't conform—the misfits, the hikikomori, the Shokos and Shoyas of the world—are quietly forming a new majority.
Whether A Silent Voice meant to comment on all this or not, I can't say for sure. But it made me think about it. And that gives the film lasting weight. It doesn't scream—but it lingers. It hums. It echoes. It makes us reflect. And in a society where people often suffer behind closed doors, that whisper might be just the nudge needed to break the silence.
Final Verdict | A Silent Voice Review
A Silent Voice may not have set out to comment on Japan's otherness, but from an outsider's perspective, it kind of did. Intentionally or not, it shines a light on a slew of issues that, while not unique to Japan, shape how people connect—or fail to connect—across the country's many social layers.
Don't judge it by the flimsy official trailer, which makes it look like your average spineless teenage drama. A Silent Voice is daring—at least between the lines—and tackles social issues in Japan that are far graver than many outsiders might realize. And for that very reason, it deserves to be heard—and seen.
It's no breakneck Shinkai trip, and it doesn't rely on Ghibli-style whimsy or precision-crafted tearjerking. It prioritizes message over entertainment, but that's not to say it lacks the latter. It's just more serious, more in-your-face, and arguably just as worthwhile in the long run.
Once the first blow lands, its artwork, subtle humor, and raw reflections offer a rare glimpse into Japanese society that feels more real than most of its contemporaries.
In that sense, A Silent Voice is anything but silent—it echoed in my head for weeks after I saw it. And if my nose for anime classics is as sharp as I'd like to think, this is one of those films that will never grow old, but keep finding new audiences as the years go by.
Do yourself a favor—when you're in the mood for something deeper, give A Silent Voice a chance. I doubt you'll regret it.