A Silent Voice Review

The premise invites a lecture and Oima never delivers one. Shoya bullies Shoko out of their school and is then abandoned by the classmates who laughed along, which leaves him isolated through his teens and eventually standing in front of her with nothing prepared. Critics praise how carefully the book refuses the easy moves. Shoko is not sanctified, Shoya is not absolved, the adults are neither monsters nor rescuers, and the deafness is written as a daily practical reality rather than as a metaphor for something else.

The Japanese Federation of the Deaf reviewed the serialization as it ran, and the specificity shows in every scene involving interpretation, note passing and lip reading. Oima's art is plain by comparison, at its best in faces and in the crossed out marks she uses to show a withdrawn boy blocking people out. The middle volumes crowd in a supporting cast some readers find underserved, and one late turn tips toward melodrama. It is short, difficult and remarkably clear eyed about guilt.