The movie tells a story about Shoko
who after moving to a new school gets bullies and teased by her classmates,
especially by a young boy called Shoya. Shoko is then forced to transfer after
the bullying becomes more aggressive, thus turning Shoya’s friends and
classmates away from him and his cruel behaviour.
Fast-forward
and enters a young adult Shoya, after being friendless and everyone hating him
from elementary school now leading up to high school Shoya is shamed with guilt
over what he had done as a child and is now determined more than ever to set
things right with Shoko.
The
beginning of the movie made me confused as it started out with a young adult
Shoya, selling his stuff, his calendar ripped from the rest of the month,
closing his bank account and finally giving his sleeping mother money with it
saying, ‘what I owe’ on the envelope. We then see Shoya on a bridge with the
impression that he was going to jump as we see a small scene of him actually
jump off the cliff, but this was just an image as we see him snap out of his
thoughts as a few children set off fireworks down near the river under the
bridge.
From
there we are then taken into the past we enter what most anime’s have which is
an opening, showing Shoya and his friends hanging out with My Generation by The
Who playing in the background, this then switches to us seeing a young Shoko
being introduced to the class, she takes out a notebook which she has written
in to tell the class to use the book to speak to her.
This
is when the bullying takes place, Shoya begins to torment her and make fun of
her, at one point a girl called Naoka joins in and notices that Shoko is
wearing hearing aids, and starts playing catch with the to Shoya, this whole
scene in general makes me angry, even though it’s an anime to see that nobody
helps Shoko, it’s even heart breaking to see that she just smiles at them and
even asks Shoya to be her friend through the means of sign language.
After
Shoko is transferred, Shoya is then ostracised by his classmates and his friends
who also were the ones that bullied Shoko as well, this carried on from
elementary school all through middle school as well although it’s not quite
clear whether it was carried through to high school.
After seeing how it was all caused
through elementary school the movie then stays consistent when Shoya is in high
school, we see him change after his ‘suicide attempt’ I say this lightly as he
luckily never went through with it. We see him change as a character to try and
make amends with Shoko, even seeing that he started to take up sign language,
and make new friends in the process
This
movie is such a whirlwind of emotions, hating some characters but loving
others, it deals with hard hitting subjects such as suicide and bullying, which
educates viewers in these themes. The animation itself is gorgeous with a
really nice setting in a small town of Japan, it is very aesthetically pleasing
to the eye.
The only disappointing
thing through this movie was some of the relationships building between the characters
especially for Shoya and Kazuki after the end of the friendship I would have
like to have seen them have more of an ending then they did. However I wouldn’t
let one issue change my mind about this movie at all and I do highly recommend
this too others to watch.
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