A Silent Voice 1

Shoya's Mission in life is to find a cure for boredom. He does this by being a daredevil and his class's worst bully. His friends put up with him because he's fun, but after a deaf transfer student, Shoko enters his class, he puts all of his energy into torturing her. Eventually, his bullying forces her to leave school, then the table turns and Shoya gets a taste of his own medicine. However, 6 years later, after Shoya understands the error in his ways, the two meet again, can he make up for his past sins, or is it too late? As a homeschooled kid, I have no personal parameters of what school life is like. But as someone with a conscience, Shoya is a major bully and a slight part of me felt the retaliation he felt after Shoko's transfer out of his school was deserved, but just as he never let up on Shoko, his classmates didn't let up on him. It's one thing if he learned a lesson from the childish retribution, but instead, he was bullied with intensity, but for longer. No one deserves that, not even a bully. The art was wonderful, it's a bit more realistic than general manga style, and along with the attention to detail, it really helped to pull me into the characters world and their emotions, which was also on point. Like the art, the story itself felt very realistic which made me feel even more for the characters, and want to know more about them, and if Shoya can redeem himself. This was a great volume, and I believe it will be a fantastic series, one that I'm very looking forward to getting the following volumes so I can follow Shoya and Shoko's story.

Bullying in any shape or form is something that causes more than just surface damage. This book seriously shows what can happen, and how to come back from a bad past. I absolutely fell in love with it within the first 10 pages.