Denying to hear what's around you. How scary can that be? Feeling like you do not deserve to do it. You don't have the right to do it. You keep telling yourself that. The little pieces, you keep ignoring them until their voices become too much. You keep telling yourself that it is fine, I am progressing. But you are ignoring the voices. And... you finally hear it.
That's pretty much the chaining of emotions I had while watching this movie. This is the best way to represent. But... how? How is it able to tell such a story? Well, you came to the right place. Then, let's begin.
One thing KyoAni does really well is letting the actions of the characters speak for themselves. They do this really well. The character does not have to monotonously talk about themselves to express who they are, and how they feel. Their actions are enough to give us a deeper understanding of their inner self. another thing they do quite well is to make the writings reach their potential. It does not use the texts as a way to have an easy way out. They try their best to set up the pacing so they can tell exactly what the writer intended to tell at that exact moment. Thanks, KyoAni.
That was for the KyoAni series in general, but let's get to the spicy parts of this show now.
First, I want to talk about the interpretation you don't control how you feel. Sometimes it feels like you understand how you feel. But as you get more of an understanding of feelings, you realize that what you might have felt was probably more complicated than you initially thought. And the way characters think, and do what you are supposedly afraid of. (PS: another show that does this really well and potentially better is Beastars) In this movie, this effect feels subtle. But it is definitely there and added to the overall emotional attachment. Because it is a way of developing the characters. Haha, who would have thought?
The characters in this movie feel like well-fletched humans, you can see the reasonings behind their actions and how it develops them in a way. All of the main cast and most of the supporting cast were handled with care. (if I were to point fingers, Shimada's development was abrupt, we'll come to the negatives in a bit.)
A sensitive topic was chosen for one of the main characters, Nishimiya. I am no expert when it comes to knowing how deaf people feel. Because I never had a friend like that. All I can say about the topic chosen is that the emotions felt genuine. And another sensitive topic that was mentioned as well. Suiciding is not a joke, and it should be handled carefully. This is where we come to the beginning of the review. A voice that you can not hear, a light that you can not see. Not all suicides happen because of this, but some of them are and since some people refuse to give an ear or an eye to these, they end up wasting their lives. This show speaks to people that went through similar emotions. Like, a lot.
The tricks I mentioned earlier were used in such ways to lead to this emotional build-up. Every time a major emotional outburst happens, you can instantly tell the reasoning. And it adds up. Each interaction gives you a better idea of the characters and you enjoy some characters' admiration to cling to life. (ehm ehm, you will know who I am talking about after watching)
And while watching the final scene, I told to myself: "Life is beautiful, isn't it? Enjoy your life man."
But that is not the only peak I would like to add. There are many different ways you can interpret this story in. And the moment you feel the most emotional can change from person to person because of it. But there are moments that will eventually get you, pretty much scattered around in the last 20 minutes. But that was my interpretation of the series.
Before I leave, I want to talk about the negatives as well. You know, not every writing is flawless, so the adaptation is. There are limited budget and time to deliver this on. These may seem really nitty gritty, and you may not agree with what I picked but this movie had not that many flaws overall and I am really just being mean here.
Shimada. His character is the most lacking of them all, his motives were unclear and we didn't get to see much of his perspective overall. I guess he had the least amount of screen time out of the entire support cast from school. So that is understandable why he was neglected. But I would love to see him somewhat grow as well.
I was not planning on adding this but it felt sorta unclear why Ishida didn't give up his life in the first minutes of the show. But the question got slowly tackled, and a clear answer was given in the last 15~ minutes of the movie. So it's fine.
Not a lot of in-depth deliberating on deaf people, yes it really did not need to have this but it would be cool if it was mentioned a little bit more.
That's all for tonight.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk, read more of my reviews if you came this far, will ya?
(Final Rating: 9.6/10)
( I am currently breaking down another KyoAni series, Hibike! Euphonium. And I will go really in-depth with my review in a form of YT video, so if you don't want to miss that out, follow my profile as well. SHAMELESS PLUG)
