A Silent Voice story analysis

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I first watched A Silent Voice earlier this year and it is in my opinion one of the greatest stories ever told. It displays the struggles of depression, anxiety, guilt, and self-hatred in such a realistic way without dramatizing these topics that so many young people go through. It brings a sense of comfort or belonging to know that others go through the same things you are. As someone who cares a lot about these things, this story means a lot to me. Here is my analysis of Oima Yoshitoki's story, A Silent Voice.

One of the first things that are portrayed well in this story is anxiety. The way that the author showed Shōya in the hallway with everyone's faces crossed out is a good way of showing how anxiety can feel, the camera is mostly faced to the floor as well, displaying his fear of facing others and looking at them in the eye. In most scenes, he is not making eye contact with who he is talking to, and even at the end story when he made amends with Shouko he still struggles to look people in the eyes.

That specific scene is very important because it is showing the viewer visually how the character feels without him directly saying anything. Him covering his ears at the beginning of the movie symbolizes how he shuts everyone out and doesn't want to listen to people around him. The way the music is played at such a high frequency I felt also was similar to how anxiety can feel. Like a high-pitched noise in your ears that makes your head hurt. The people around are just like noise in your head that is overwhelming and you want to drown it out. In vol. 1 chapter 5, Shōya makes up in his head what his classmates are thinking about him. I think he does this because of how he had been judged since middle school. How he had been remembered as a bully made him harsher on himself. Also in that chapter, it shows him looking at his classmates and judging them for different things whether it's the relationship they're in or their appearance. Anxiety can make you worry about what others think of you, which makes you harder on yourself, which then comes back around again and makes you judge others.

A second topic that I felt was portrayed very well in this story was depression. The author doesn't show depression as sitting in a dark room listening to sad music and crying because that's not how it is. Depression is different with everyone, and more often than not you won't even notice someone is dealing with it, maybe they don't even know and it sucks, it really does. And most of the time nothing helps, it feels like it'll just be there forever and nothing can make it go away.

Quoting Jonathan Deckers opening line from his video on youtube titled 'Therapist Reacts to A Silent Voice', he says "depression doesn't go away, doesn't lift for most people. But there is a capacity to feel again. There's a capacity to feel joy, the cure for so many things, is connection. And we may think no one wants to connect with me. But we just need to find the right people". The main purpose of this story is about a bully who learns from his mistakes and works up to make up for them, as well as finding the "true meaning" of friendship as cringe as that sounds. Sometimes the right people can make a big difference in somebody's life so it's good to connect with others even though it's hard to.

You can see Shōya's struggle with depression from the beginning of the story when it shows him standing at the edge of a bridge ready to jump off. His reasoning for this was a build-up over time of guilt and loneliness after what happened in middle school. When Shouko transferred schools and Shōya was blamed for all the bullying that happened to her, he became isolated from everyone else even though other people bullied Shouko as well.

The guilt came from how his actions affected others, including his mom. After he and other kids in the class destroyed Shoukos hearing aids and he was singled out, his mom had to pay for them. His mom didn't have a lot of money and worked hard running her hair salon and he knew that so to see the look on her face that was not angry but disappointed and sad was hard for him to see. All of this built up caused him to feel guilty over the pain he caused his mom and after a few years, he regrets what he did to Shouko as well and wants to make amends.

Shouko's struggle with depression is less obvious but still there. Similar to how in real life many people suffer from "smiling depression". A term used to describe someone who seems happy and like a "normal" person but in reality, they aren't doing as well as they may let on, I've met multiple people with this and it's hard to spot. Her problems began because of the bullying and harassment she received for being deaf. Specifically from her classmates Shōya and Ueno. Shōya would often toss her hearing aids out the window and take them out of her ears forcefully. Ueno continued to bully her from childhood all the way until they were teenagers, saying that she hated her and that she was just a nuisance. But like many people with a disability, that sadness also came from not being able to hear and the frustration that came with that. Not being able to hear what people are saying and feeling like you're causing others problems by needing more help from them. Like when she asked for people to talk to her through a notebook but eventually the class got tired of that.

When she became a teenager she still felt that she was a nuisance or that everyone would be better off without her. Which led to her attempting suicide and even after being saved she still felt like everything bad that had happened was her fault.

Throughout the story, Shōya struggles to find the meaning of friendship as cliche or cringey as that sounds. When Nagatsuka and he first hang out outside of school together he says "What is the definition of "friends"? Is it a kind of license, or right or something like that, to become friends with someone?". He thinks back to his childhood and wonders even if he has the right to even try to become friends with Shouko. Further on in the story, he starts to introduce Shouko to other people from their old class.

While he, Shouko, and other friends go to the amusement park he started to enjoy himself and wonder if he really deserves to have so much fun and be so happy when he has caused pain for others. "Wait...Can I...? Am I allowed to have this much fun? It almost seems like we're friends?!". Like I said before, the right people can make all of the difference. Ueno decides to re-introduce him to one of his old friends from middle school but ends up walking away. He was frustrated with her because she knew that they didn't end their friendship on good terms..Then he realized that he was partially doing all this to help her but a big part of him doing that was to feel better about himself. In the scene, it is drawn so that Shōya is separated from Ueno, showing how he started to grow apart from his friends again.

Often when you feel guilty for something, you try to do good things to help yourself make up for it. But sometimes you have to realize that you have to face what you did in the past and not cover it up, coming to terms with how you used to be and growing is a good way to heal.

Another theme from this movie is that everyone can change from the mistakes they've made in the past. Shōya changed from the way he used to be by spending time with Shouko to make up for the lost time and the pain he caused her. But even if you change, the damage from the past still doesn't go away, but you can learn from past mistakes and move forward. When Shōya was holding onto Shouko's hand over the railing trying to save her from falling he thinks to himself "... Starting tomorrow, I'll look at everyone's face, I'll listen to everyone's voice starting tomorrow, I'll do everything properly starting tomorrow..." he also thinks back to if he ever apologized for taking her hearing aids and realizes he never asked what she thinks of him, and as she grabs for his hand, he falls from the balcony. It goes to show that people can be here one moment and gone the next, and sometimes they won't ever get to know how you feel about them until it's too late. But there are always the what-if questions you ask yourself such as "what if I had said/done this", and asking yourself those questions leads back to guilt again.

As I am writing this I am realizing that guilt is another main theme of this movie, it's true in real life as well, everyone has guilt about various different things. Sometimes people don't even know what they're guilty about, maybe they did nothing wrong. The way the brain works just sucks.

I think I have said everything I wanted to say but to summarize, anxiety and depression can occur in everyone, and it sucks, it really does. Many people deal with it every day, even people close to you. Finding people you can connect with is very important, after all, wasn't that what this story was telling us, that these feelings of guilt and loneliness may someday lift even if there is just one person you have a connection with. And lastly, your mistakes from the past don't define you as a person, you can learn from them and not make the same ones again.