The Shape of Voice ~ The Series

Ishida messing with Nishimiya

Konnichiwa~

Today I’ll be reviewing Koe no Katachi by Ooima Yoshitoki. Some of you might have read my earlier post about this story. That was the original oneshot.

Here’s a link to that review:

http://monohorns.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-shape-of-voice.html

Anyway, the oneshot grew into a series! It is ongoing, currently on volume 3 in Japan. It has been scanlated to chapter 20, its updated reguraly Now let’s begin:

The story begins with the protagonist, Shouya Ishida, in primary school. He is fun-loving, selfish, and simple-minded; he’s goal is to chase away the boredom that threatens each day. One day a girl named Shouko Nishimiya transfers into his class. When she introduces herself, she uses a notebook to explain that she is deaf, but will uses this notebook to communicate with them. For a short while, the class tries to get along with her. Soon these insensitive children and homeroom teacher grow tired of her. Ishida leads the class in bullying her, thinking of her as a toy he can torment each and every day. Despite this, Nishimiya holds onto her dignity, even attempting to look past his cruel actions and make friends with Ishida. He brusquely rejects her.

But soon he is punished. The principal finds out about the abuse Nishimiya has been enduring and demands answers. The class that had happily followed his lead turns on him, turns him into a scapegoat and burns him.

By high school, Ishida hated everyone
around him

As horrible as he was, it broke my heart to see Ishida lose all his friends, even if his friends were also horrible monsters. It made me hate the homeroom teacher even more when he did nothing about him being bullied, blatantly calling him a liar. Ishida doesn’t realize Nishmiya’s kindness, not until she transfers. He spends years hating everyone around him, rejecting them from his reality and living unhappily alone.

One day he imagines his future and believing it’ll only be suffering, he decides to kill himself. But before that, he wants to apologize to Nishimiya for his cruelty.

During their reunion, he suddenly asks if they could be friends. He hadn’t planned on this at all, he was simply going to apologize and then commit suicide. But after she happily accepts his request, he decides he won’t kill himself; decides to be her friend, to be someone who is worthy of being her friend. Though aware he can’t give her back her happy elementary school days, he wants to make her as happy as he can right now.

It’s was a beautiful oneshot and an even more beautiful series.

The main character of the series is the reflective Shouya Ishida. As a child he was cruel, selfish, obnoxious, and insensitive, but after enduring bullying and isolation, after seeing how ugly humans can be, he learns. Even as a child you could see he cared about his family, so he wasn’t a complete jerk. As a teenager he is

After becoming friends, both of them
worried whether the other really
thought of them as one.
After they clear things up, they happily
feed the fish together.

awkward, but very kind. He’s a dutiful son, a caring brother, and a loving uncle. Eventually, he proves to be a good friend to not only to Nishimiya, but to her arrogant younger sibling and his dorky classmate. There is something very noble about him and I really admire his desire to grow as a person

Then there’s Shouko Nishimiya who is just as admirable; she’s endured years of bullying because of her disability, yet she hasn’t become bitter or cynical. She’s remained sweet, optimistic, and gentle. She’s not weak; I think many people mistake her ability to forgive others as meekness or weakness, but it’s definitely strength. After all, it takes a lot of strength to forgive and smile at someone who deserves to be punched in the face. Plus she’s so adorable, I simply love her character.

A slow love is blossoming between these two characters and the author is doing a great job of developing it. Its slow and steady, shown more from Ishida’s point of view. I hope that the author will take time to show Nishimiya’s perspective. That’s probably the stories only fault, we don’t get to see her point of view as much as we’d like.

The art is rough, but very realistic. Usually I don’t like this type of shounen art, but I like this one, it suites the series well. I found it very hard deciding what pictures to use for this post, many of the stood out to me. Really I found all the pages had their own charm that deserved to be shown off; which I think is the sign of a great artist. 

Anyway, I highly recommend it. It’s a beautiful slice of life, I hope you all check it out. Bye-bye

~Nadeshiko-chan

ARISA

Arisa and Tsubasa

Konbanwa~

Today I’ll be reviewing the shoujo manga ARISA by Ando Natsumi. The manga is 12 volumes in Japan and has been completely scanlated. Lets begin:

The heroine of this mystery story is the bold, brash, and tomboyish Tsubasa whose often mistaken for a delinquent because of bleached blonde hair and tough attitude. Poor Tsubasa died her hair because she thought it be cute and dreams of being a normal school girls who goes to cute little shops with her friends. Anyway, her parents divorced when she was rather young and she was separated from her twin sister Arisa, who went to live with their mom while Tsubasa stayed with their father. They communicate through letters and one day, Arisa invites her sister to come sleep over. Things seem to be going well, until Tsubasa witnesses Arisa’s sudden suicide attempt. She is shocked, having formed this idea that her gentler sister led a joyful and peaceful school life. She wants to know what drove her sister’s desire to end her life, but since she’s in a coma, Tsubasa decides to take her place at school and find out for herself. She soon discovers that on Friday, during free period, Arisa’s class send their wishes to a mysterious figure known as KING.  The mighty KING will only grant one wish weekly and often uses violence to grant it. Also, if someone angers the KING, the class will make sure to erase their existence; ignoring them, throwing garbage on their desks, and other vicious forms of bullying until they finally leave school.. Tsubasa becomes determined to stop the KING and find out who it is, hoping that this will save Arisa since he may be the reason of her attempted suicide. She soon partner ups with one of Arisa’s classmates, Akira Manabe, who also wants to stop the KING and their violent, unjust methods.

The KING manipulates the class, is able to use others as a chess piece to get what it wants, them easily tosses them aside. And the psychological effects they have on the class is frightening.

The story overall doesn’t have much romance, but there is some here and there. The mystery and action itself

Manabe

is entertaining. Even when you know who the KING is, its difficult to understand their motives, goal, and plan. And though Tsubasa isn’t the smartest, she makes progress following her instincts and is brave to face the cruel KING, is determined enough to protect others. Sure sometimes she does fall into the KING’s trap, but she always manages to make up for it, to learn her lesson so that it doesn’t happen again. Something I particularly liked about this manga is the psychological aspect, how the KING affects the class, why characters do what they do. Inferiority complexes, loneliness, twisted love: the mangaka shows you how it developed inside a character and in some cases, how it drove them to near madness. There isn’t much romance in the manga, though Tsubasa does “fall in love” it was more like she was being manipulated. I do enjoy the relationship between Tsubasa and Manabe: they’re partners who take care of each and watch each other’s back. It’s a wonderful friendship and probably could’ve been a great romance, but they never get to that point. Its implied that Manabe has feelings for Tsubasa, but we don’t really know how she feels. I wouldn’t really call it a romance manga, its more about the malpratices of the KING and how Tsubasa wants to stop them. So I recommend reading this manga and seeing Tsubasa’s battle against the cunning and twisted KING.

~Nadeshiko-chan