A Silent Voice Vol. 1: A Silent Voice 1
- ISBN
- 9781632360564
- Publisher
- Kodansha
- English release
A Silent Voice begins with Shoko entering a classroom where Shoya makes her deafness a target. This is the starting volume for the seven-book paperback run, and its opening makes the classmates' participation as important as the chief bully. Approach it as the history that an apology will have to answer for. The complete box contains these same seven volumes; buying the first single is a way to try that history before committing to the whole run.
Spoilers — why this volume matters. Tap to reveal.
Shoya's eventual isolation does not cancel the harm he inflicted on Shoko. Kodansha describes the classmates encouraging each other's cruelty, then leaving him to carry the blame when she transfers. That sequence makes the opening more demanding than a simple exchange of victim and bully: the group can abandon its leader without accounting for its own conduct. Shoya's suffering may give him a reason to reconsider his behavior, but suffering alone is not restitution. The strongest reason to begin here is that the later wish to reconnect has this collective failure behind it. An apology between two people cannot by itself settle what a classroom did.
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