A Silent Voice is a story of a boy trying to redeem himself from horribly mistreating a girl. She joined his class when they were much younger. Shōko Nishimiya a girl who uses a notebook to help her communicate with her classmates due to her being deaf. This is where the bulling begins and the story takes off.
For the first 20-25 minutes i was really into this movie, Shōko Nishimiya is a character you instantly adore, so lovable and strong, and quick to forgive. But this is where my biggest problem stems from ... they do such a great job making Ishida (the main character) hated, even despised. And to me i felt that no matter where the story would go it felt hard to redeem such a horrible human being. But i was more than happy to be convinced otherwise. Sadly this just didn't work for me, and seeing how it ended even though i was happy it didn't go predictable places (e.g them dating) it felt that there were a few key shots that the story needed to get to for artistic reasons. An example i would give is that all the people surrounding Ishida's everyday life have crossed out faces if he doesn't feel comfortable around them or if they are not considered "approachable", to me this was obvious that at some point there would be a "mass acceptance" situation where all the crosses fall to the ground and he feels accepted again. And low and behold this happened ... and for all its worth, it did look really cool. But like i was saying, just an example of how there was a point the creator wanted to get to, and that the journey there didn't feel all that earned.
Story: 6/10 It started strong, got a little slow in the middle, and the end wasn't to my personal liking. (Once again the ending wasn't outright bad, just undeserved)
Art: 9/10 Solid all around. Nothing to complain about honestly, just one moment i felt could have been animated better.
Sound: 9/10 Great stuff on this front.
Character: 6/10 very tough one, great for Shoko, her sister, and Ishida's mom. But some of the others felt throw away.
Enjoyment: 3/10 ... i honestly cant say i "enjoyed" this ... it's a little tough to watch at moments just because of the subject matter, but its not outright bad, Just when i finished i knew i would never want to watch this again.
Overall: Id give Koe No Katachi a 6/10 its a little better than okay, but not outright good also. It's 2 hours and 10 minutes, and i was a little worried this would drag, and sure the middle gets a little slow, but never to the point i felt i was counting down the minutes till it was over. And Shōko Nishimiya is the one thing i can say was great in the movie.
