“From now on I will look everyone in the face and say ‘Good morning.’ And I will listen to their voices… the good and the bad.”
Creative Staff:
Story & Art: Yoshitoki Oima
Translation: Steven LeCroy
What They Say:
SEE YOU LATER
Shoya’s life hangs on by a thread after he jumped just in time to save Shoko. Despite the despair, Shoko is determined to move forward and get back what she thinks she has ruined… But broken friendships can heal, too. Quietly, but surely, the disbanded crew finds their spirit — the show must go on! As the movie-making reconvenes, the kids begin to transform the world that had once been so cruel to them. What could the future hold for everyone?
Final volume!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With this being the last volume left, we’re left with a laundry list of loose-end-tying, starting off with the drama concerning Shoya’s hospitalization. Having just woken up for the first time in weeks, a groggy Shoya works his way out of the hospital and to the bridge in the middle of the night where Shoko is already. It’s all so overly dramatic and akin to something you’d expect from a more straight-laced shojo, so to find such a setup in A Silent Voice feels a bit too out-of-place, Shoya bringing up said point not making it feel any less so.
If anything, a reunion between the two would have been just as effective in Shoya’s hospital room, though I do understand that author Oima needed a means to bring the location of the bridge back into the story as well as a means for having the two protagonists alone together. Still, the setup and eventual resolution concerning Shoya being at the hospital could have been better handled.
Following that, we switch gears to the school festival, where the gang’s movie project receives its first showing. And while it’s rewarding to finally see the fruits of everyone’s labor, the clearer purpose of this scene is to reunite Shoya with the rest of his friends, not having seen them for some time now. The amount of determination Shoya musters as well as his acceptance of his own personality as well as those around him really gives the feeling that this would have been the closing scene for the series. So to have the series continue on for five more chapters is a bit jarring to say the least.
We’re next treated to yet another, more public, screening of the gang’s movie as it’s harshly criticized by a pompous movie critic. The scene plays out in an uncharacteristically meta way, as characters are insulted by the critic’s cruel interpretation of their hard work, mirroring what I can only assume to be negative reactions from readers concerning A Silent Voice as a whole. It’s borderline goofy, and seeing the cast take such pride in their rudimentary project does remind us as readers of the cast’s maturity and age, but at the least it does serve as a transition to the series’ final moments.
The last chapters of the series feel significantly more lighthearted, leaning towards focusing on the daily lives of each character, as they figure out their future plans for their careers following high school. Small hints of characters thinking about what jobs they’d eventually like to take up have been sprinkled here and there in earlier volumes, so these last chapters don’t necessarily feel out of place—just unnecessary to the overall plot which has already been resolved. Regardless, it’s almost melancholic seeing the series move on from its more dramatic roots to something far more typical of a series revolving around a high school cast. This all eventually leads up to the cast being reunited at their Coming of Age Ceremony, Shoko and Shoya about to be reunited with their grade school class, bravely facing their past as well as future together (in a purposefully unclear manner, leaving plenty of room for whatever headcanon you may subscribe to).
In Summary:
The final volume of A Silent Voice covers a lot of ground, finishing up all the drama at the hospital as well as finally showing the gang’s completed movie project and slowly transitioning into everyone’s daily lives as they figure out what they want their futures to be like. The series’ overall message of valuing friendship and learning to listen and understand others was resolved a lot earlier than anticipated, making any other plot points following it feel not as important.
Whatever the case, having followed the cast for seven volumes, you still feel invested in their lives, as humdrum as they may be. Seeing the progress they’ve made in that time is rewarding, with the open-ended last chapter leaving just enough unexplained for readers to reach their own conclusions—a sufficient enough ending for an overall moving series.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: A
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Kodansha Comics
Release Date: May 31, 2016
MSRP: $10.99
