Film Name: 声之形 / The Shape of Voice / Koe no katachi / A Silent Voice / 聲の形
The film rarely features loud sounds. The male lead is a gentle, warm-hearted gentleman, while the female lead is simply silent. Yet from the very beginning, the film seems to be issuing a heart-wrenching cry to the audience—a cry to pull oneself back from a despised self to a beloved one. I imagine that if sound truly had a shape, it would be this kind of force, this tugging presence.
Perhaps everyone has moments of self-loathing. Many have walked—or contemplated walking—the bridge the male lead traverses, confronting past mistakes and the inescapable isolation of their current predicament, tempted to leap. I’ve been there myself, so I deeply understand the silent inner turmoil behind his silence. How desperately he needs a shout to pull him back.
Thus came his mother’s cry. Amidst utter hopelessness, the harbor of familial love remains. It was this very force that transformed into the silent cry within the protagonist’s heart, granting him the courage to confront that despised version of himself once more.
The film’s depiction of his classmates marking his face with crosses is a bold form of expression. For the protagonist, who possesses normal hearing, being isolated after making mistakes and losing friends is akin to deafness. Throughout the film, he strives to save himself. Deep within, a desperate cry yearns to be heard—a yearning to make amends, to have friends, to become someone he can like. As each cross falls away, his life no longer resembles the black hole of the opening scene. Instead, vibrant colors and beautiful faces emerge.
The female lead, Nishimiya, is genuinely deaf. She strives to present her best self rather than her perceived disability, constantly offering thanks and apologies—unaware this makes her seem even less authentic. She too becomes someone she dislikes, a burden requiring care and pity. She too climbs to the rooftop. But the male lead’s self-sacrifice stirred waves deep within her heart. From the silence, she cried out—yearning to be needed, to be acknowledged, to find the self she loved.
Ueno’s rebellious harshness was something she herself might not truly relish; Sawa, timid by nature, was overly sensitive to the world’s opinions, a trait she constantly sought to change; Ketsuru’s constant camera became an escape from school life, yet for her, it only piled on more pressure… On the surface, all the pressure seemed to rest on the male and female leads, but in truth, each character carried their own burdens, each despised a part of themselves, and each harbored a silent cry for change within their hearts.
The film skillfully uses its visual language to depict this despised self that even the characters themselves dare not face. You’ll notice numerous shots where characters are cropped at the waist, showing only their lower bodies or the part below their eyes. For instance, when Kawai publicly exposes Ishida’s bullying of Nishimiya in the classroom, Ishida remains off-camera for nearly a minute without a single full-face shot. And when Yuzuru opens up to her grandmother, the grandmother’s kind, full-face expression starkly contrasts with Yuzuru’s half-body shot, curled up in her chair. Because those are the parts of themselves they refuse to confront.
Thus, rather than a conventional happy ending, the film transforms each lost self. Whether through earth-shattering change or cautious, incremental shifts, all stem from the inner cry to embrace the self we truly desire. Such is The Shape of Voice—perhaps one day, it too will profoundly resonate within each of us.
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