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

The Shape of Voice

Konbanwa~

On this fine Sunday evening I’ll be reviewing a shounen oneshot called Koe no Kitachi by Ooima Yoshitoki. Soon after being published it won the 80^th Weekly Shounen Magazine Newbie Best Mangaka Award and has been on my reading list for quite some time. Today I finally read it and I can see why it won. Its an impressive slice of life, dramatic but still down to earth, and the art is rough but realistic, I think it really brings out the ugliness of many of the characters. Lets begin with the summary:

Shouya Ishida is the primary protagonist in this story and Shouko Nishimiya has just transferred into his class. When asked to introduce herself, she pulls out a notebook and begins writing. She explains that she’s deaf and that they can use this notebook to communicate with her. Though most of the class tries to get a long with her, Shouya straight out hates her, finding her creepy and annoyed by how she “slows everyone down”. Soon the rest of the class starts to feel the same and he leads them as they terrorize her day after day, the teacher turning a blind eye because he’s of his choleric attitude towards her. The optimistic Shouko who had been eager to make friends now constantly apologizes for her disability, and eventually Shouya learns this.

For some reason I found this scene really
beautiful

The story is very serious and it’s heartbreaking watch a group of brats torment this young girl, a young girl who just wanted to make friends and have fun like everyone else. They’re bullying is quite vicious and you know its not that exaggerated. Students and teachers bullies are cruel and much too common in the United States (mainly in the middle states, its not too common in the coastal states). Its also pitiful, but also karma, when Shouya realizes how bad and worthless his "friends" were.But its also heartwarming watching Shouya mature, watching him repent for his cruelty. 

Apparently this oneshot is going to be serialized, chapter one of it has already been scanlated. I hope that it'll give more on Shouko's perspective, I really liked her. Despite being bullied, she always tried to be kind, she always treated others the way she wanted to be treated. I’ll review it after the first volume comes out. That’s all for now, bye-bye

~Nadeshiko-chan

Blue Spring Ride

Kou and Futaba: Their love seen to be cursed,
something always getting in the way

Konnichiwa~

Nadeshiko-chan here and I forgot to post yesterday. I’m a little late, but anyway I’ll be reviewing Ao Haru Ride by Sakisaka Io on this fine winter day. The ongoing series begins with the heroine, Yoshioka Futaba, in middle school; she’s a timid, cute, and feminine girl who dislikes boys, since she finds them loud and obnoxious. Well, except for Tanaka Kou, a gentle and rather quiet boy, that also has feelings for her. They decide to go to the festival together, but because of a series of misunderstand and mishaps, he stands her up. She wants to confront him and work things out, but when she goes to school she finds out he’s transferred to another school, thus she’s left without closure. Then she begins gaining the attention of other boys because of her cute, girly attitude, causing her female “friends” to ostracize her.

The story then skips to her first year in high school, Futaba working hard to reset her image, becoming a tomboy and making her large appetite known in order to keep boys away. She has very shallow relationships with her new “friends” that only like her because even though she’s cute, she’s too boyish to pose a threat to them. Towards the end of her 1^st year, she reunites with Tanaka, but like her self, he’s changed; first of all he goes under the name of Mabuchi Kou now and more his masculine and sarcastic. He tells her that he felt the same way as she did when they were younger, but that they can’t go back and she agrees, just happy to have closure. Her feelings for the past him are done, but she soon starts developing feelings for the present him, for Mabuchi Kou. Also, after she meets him, she befriends Yuuri Makita, who was ostracized by the girls because she’s cute and popular among boys like Futaba was in middle school. Though their friendship takes some time to develop, they soon become true friends that care about each other. Later, they become a trio with Shuuko Murao, the cool “lone wolf” of their class. Though it’s hard to tell whether she likes them at all at first, it soon becomes apparent that she cares about them and she steadily begins opening up to them.  Anyway, as Futaba stops worrying about what others think, her crush for Kou continue develops and her concern for him leads her to helping him deal with his family issues. After which, he also begins to fall for her once again, the only problem is he isn’t very honest with his feelings and someone from his past keeps distracting him. But he better hurry, because he’s not the only one interested in Futaba. I’ll end it at that, I don’t want to spoil too much.

Now the characters: I originally didn’t like Futaba as a heroine, trying to change herself just to make “friends”, but then I realized that it must have been traumatic for her after being abandoned by all those who she thought

Futaba; Kou; Yuuri
Youchi (Kou's older brother); Shuuko; Aya

were her friends. And after awhile I realized she was rather honest, always doing her best and putting in all her power when she’s determined about something. She’s got a lot of spunk and is working on another one of her major character faults: avoiding a problem instead of facing it head on. As you read you might notice this bad habit of hers and see moments where she’s able to over come it. Then there’s the male lead Kou, dishonest and distant Kou, keeping himself away from the rest of group. Originally Futaba simply reminded him of his happier days before his family turmoil, but he starts to developing feelings for the present Futaba as well. These feelings become more apparent after she helps him deal with some his family issues, but he doesn't feel it’s the appropriate time to act on his feelings. Overall he's very kind and looks out for her, he simply can’t be honest with his feelings. The only one whose aware of his situation and his feeelings for her are Aya so far, someone he meets because of Futaba and became best friends with. But the series is ongoing, so things might change. There are 29 chapters out so far and I highly recommend reading those and waiting for the next chapter in this love-fillled high school drama

~Nadeshiko-chan