Issues arise right from the premise, the concept that a small fragile little deaf girl would be bullied by several classmates, be physically assaulted constantly by one, and have this absurdity go on for a whopping 5 months without intervention from the school or any bystanders is impossible to take remotely seriously. The fact that the mother has to call the school after her daughter experiences such brutal behavior from her classmates in order for anyone to finally step in and do something is beyond unacceptable. Sadly, the worst part of this entire nonsense is the sheer stupidity that is the reasoning behind her having to take all this abuse.
The reason she is abused is because essentially she changes the dynamic of the classroom, that's it. The girls start teasing her because she starts slowly bringing changes in the classroom, such as the fact that they start learning a little bit of sign language every class, or the fact that even though she is deaf she is allowed to participate in their choir, thus resulting in them having no chance at winning anything. Yes, these are the very well thought out, deep reasons that 6th graders start teasing this girl. Our very likable main character notices these things, and in turn decides to act like a deranged psychopath in order to restore the original classroom atmosphere before she arrived. He does acts against her that would warrant a suspension for the first time, and expulsion for repeated offences, well he assaults her about 9 different times throughout this film, so safe to say he would have gotten his ass expelled if this movie had any semblance of reality and realistic writing.
Probably the worst part in all of this, is the fact that once the mother finally steps in, the principal is there to inform the class that they now know of the horrendous behavior their darling students have been committing for 5 months. When he asks who were the prominent individuals in the bullying, the teacher of the class, the very same lame duck teacher who somehow never once meaningfully intervened during the acts of abuse, singles out our main character, I have to assume this was in some vain attempt to save his job due to his sheer incompetence. The thing is, this lets on that he knew to some extent what was happening, yet chose to do nothing about it. When the main character is ousted, he attempts to deflect blame onto others who are guilty in the bullying, they ignore him since they are such sweet children and he becomes a complete outcast in no time at all.
The film just skips ahead a few years to him as a late teenager, where he decides he wants to kill himself, we are given no context at this point, however this attempt fails, and we have to unfortunately watch more of this atrocious piece of media. The main character has undergone such a dramatic shift in character that its practically unbelievable, while before willing to assault a disabled person, he is now incredibly kind, meek and unwillingly to engage in any confrontation. This would be a nice character ark, if it actually was one, we see no shift in his personality between the section of this movie showcasing him as a child, and then him as a teenager, essentially we just have to accept that he has changed for the better.
Due to the events of his childhood, our main character has no friends and is unable to hold proper conversations. By sheer luck/poor plot device, he meets up with the deaf girl once again, as any sane person would do she initially runs away from him, however after tracking her down, and seeing after only one conversation that he has changed for the better, they both decide to attempt to forge a relationship. Of course, he still hasn't actually apologized yet, that comes near the end of the film, which makes no sense as no sane individual who had horrible things happen to them by another person would accept a possible attempt at fixing a relationship before at least receiving an apology and an understanding from that person that what they did was wrong and they truly grasp to never do it again. But, this is anime, where no one knows how to write people, even in a serious story, so moving on.
The rest of the film is a guilty circle jerk, the main character meets up with his old friends, the same individuals who bullied the deaf girl. What a surprise, they take zero responsibility for their actions, two of the girls even attempt to justify or rationalize their behavior. Even after seeing the fact that especially one girl is still willingly to assault a disabled person, he for some reason doesn't grow a pair and cut her off for the sake of the deaf girl he is supposedly friends with, nope, he attempts to somehow get them all to be friends even though as mentioned before it just simply will not happen. Not after all the trauma, bullying and lack of owning up to the horrible behavior they displayed as children. Of course since this is anime, they just attempt to throwback their own insecurities and ego at the main character to make him feel bad. Its fine to have characters who are not nice in a movie, its another to have your main character have the intelligence of a potato, obviously witness how horrible these people are to him and his new friend, and not realize that maybe hanging out with them isn't the most brilliant idea in the world.
The most utter cringeworthy aspect, is the fact the deaf girl takes the awful behavior from the main character's former friends as somehow being her fault. This poor little girl is just made to suffer nonstop due to the fantastic writing, leading to the fact she even attempts to kill herself due to the guilt she feels about the strained relationships the main character has with his horrible friends. This was the last straw for me, seeing her bow down and throw her pride away to ask for apologies from people who should in reality get their heads bashed in with a shovel was so disheartening that I wanted to turn off the film right there.
Its utterly repulsive when the end of the film, features all the characters together enjoying themselves without a care in the world. The support characters get to laugh it up as they continue taking advantage of the pissant main character. While he and his friend had to go through hell due to illogical anime writing and character relationships.
This is an overrated disaster, that is only saved by the art and animation. Sorry, but this is simply not a good film. End of story.
