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james_desantis 's review for:

A Silent Voice, Vol. 1 by Yoshitoki Oima
5.0

This is so cute, and so sad, and I feel emotional now.

So the story starts off fairly simple. Shoya is our main character here, and to be frank, he's a asshole. He's a kid but he's truly a little bully who gets worse and worse as his "friends" cheer him on the more he abuses and hurts Shoko, the other main character of this series. Shoko is deaf and so she's trying her best to be a normal kid but with the disability plus the bullying that's becoming near impossible. But what happens when Shoya becomes the victim and gets bullied? The tables turn in this emotional rollercoaster.

Good: I love the art. It's simple but very effective, especially the emotions. Shoko is the most adorable child ever and I want to protect her from these mean piece of shit kids. It hurts even more since I can relate to Shoya sadly, as I was a bully and then got builled. It's a nice wakeup call but it also is hard to relive in a lot of ways. The ending leaves it open to some interesting future developments!

Overall, a great manga about real issues that people don't understand or deal with. Kids can learn to be bullies or get bullied really quick, and this shows it well. A 4.5 out of 5.