Shoya Ishida

Shoya Ishida (石田将也) is a major character introduced in Koe no Katachi. He is the main

male protagonist of the series. Ishida has lived a 'lone wolf' life style after being blamed for the sole bullying of Shoko Nishimiya during elementary school in the 6 grade. Six years later after meeting Nishimiya again and befriending her, he starts to gather new friends together, along with old ones he had during elementary school. Despite the changes in his life, Ishida still struggles to make up for what he did in the past.

Background[]

Personality[]

During grade school, Ishida loved to go on self-imposed adventures and played a lot, in what he described as a battle against "boredom". He always played pranks with living things or other kids. After Nishimiya transferred to their class, Ishida became more devious as he always mocked Nishimiya, in which resulted in him receiving scoldings from his teachers or mother very often. He was also afraid when learning that his mother would have to pay for Shoko’s replacement hearing aids.

After he became the scapegoat for the bullying of Nishimiya, Ishida was isolated from everyone and became a very introverted individual despite saying that he hated her when she transferred to a different school. Sometime later on he was shocked when his former friends told him to stop doing the same old things. As he got older he sold all his stuff and was deeply filled with regret for all the things he did to Nishimiya, and started to contempt others. He also slowly grew to hate everyone and see them as "pretenders", such as Mashiba (who he thinks that having brown hair doesn't suit him), or Miki Kawai (calling her a hypocrite though initially, it was not a complete lie). Above all, Ishida hated himself for having bad thoughts about everyone else.

After reuniting with Nishimiya in high school, Ishida starts to gain friends, hang out and laugh more. Throughout this time, he has the objective to give Nishimiya back the former happiness that he once took away and helps her find the old friends she once had. Even with these acts of atonement, Ishida still struggles in moving on when he remembers his past mistakes and the isolation that followed.

Despite getting mad at someone, later on, Ishida usually is the first one to apologize for his actions and thinks he doesn't have the right to do so. He admitted to Tomohiro Nagatsuka that he became the way he is now because of Nishimiya. He also imagines how life would have been like if he befriended Nishimiya, if Nishimiya had remained friends with Sahara and if he never bullied her.

This self-hatred is shown at the very beginning in a scene where he imagines jumping from a tall bridge and planning to do so, only prevented by his mother taking note of his actions leading towards it such as selling all his things and ripping off the rest of his calendar, along with his eerily cleaned room. Others see him being dense and awkward around others, though his close friends know he means no harm and wants to get along, but tries too hard at times- and accidentally comes off as fake.

Appearance[]

A Silent Voice[]

Quotes[]

I Said Don’t Thank Me (English version)
Back then, if we could have heard each other's voices, everything would've been so much better.

I want to tell you that I’m really sorry. I never apologized for all the stuff I did to you when we were kids, or any of the other stuff afterwards either, so I’m sorry. But the thing is, even though you were going through a lot, I was being selfish and focused on myself. More than anything, I wanted to have a conversation with you. I wasn’t trying to hurt you but I must have because I made you feel so bad about yourself that you decided to go and do the unthinkable.

I chose to isolate myself, maybe because I wanted to believe I wasn't isolated.

You're stuck between what you want to do and what your mom wants to do? You should definitely go with the one you want to do. Otherwise, you'll regret it. And I'll cheer you on every step of the way!

Relationships[]

Shoko Nishimiya[]

Spoiler Warning: This content provides spoilers for the anime adaption A Silent Voice & Manga.

In grade school, Shoko introduces herself as deaf and instantly breaks Shoya's small worldview, having never met someone disabled before, thus his childlike mind doesn't seem to grasp the concept of how much it hurts to not be able to do everyday things. As a child, Ishida wanted to get along with his peers and make many friends, and would do anything that his class agreed with. At first, the class found Shoko polite, but begun to see her as a burden as she didn't fit in with the class dynamic, going as far to encourage Shoya to bully her, and bully her he did. Many others joined in on this in the manga, though less seen in the anime adaptation. Shoya at this point only sees himself as having fun, that it's only a joke his peers enjoy to fight boredom.

Shoko, however, continuously wants to be friends with Shoya and the class, causing Shoya to get teased for it in grade school, causing a further gap between them. Eventually, the bullying goes too far when Shoya tries to seem cool and suddenly takes her hearing aid out- not for the first time, yet for the last as it caused a permanent scar. Once the teacher got involved, he refuses to blame anyone other than Shoya and the class goes along- going as far as to say that he was the only one bullying her. When Shoya tries to explain himself, he is shut down for "making excuses", and walks home wet after his best friends shoved him into the fountain and dumped all his notebooks out.

From there on out, Ishida didn't have any friends until highschool. Shoko moved schools after Ishida's mom had to pay for the lost hearing aids, and life resumed- this time around, Ishida was now the victim of the harassment and believed he deserved it for his earlier mistreatment of Shoko- guilt possibly caused by the actions of the entire class dumped on his shoulders. He wants to make it up to Shoko- making it one of his main goals before killing himself, only to end up not doing so and becoming friends with her along with Tomohiro Nagatsuka.

As they begin to bond, other characters start to come into play and note on how they feel about their friendship, such as Yuzuru Nishimiya, Shoko's younger sister calling Ishida a bastard, though this changes later on. Nagatsuka on the other hand, is oblivious to the past. They begin to find feelings for each other through small interactions- causing Shoko to prepare to ask Ishida out- only to fail when he couldn't understand her speech.

Later on, Ishida is actively worried for Shoko and feels the same way, too dense to notice and is slightly protective over her. At the climax scene when seeing the fireworks, Ishida is asked to get Yuzuru's camera, who has since warmed up to him. He enters the apartment to see Shoko attempting suicide by jumping off the balcony, and barely makes it in time as he scurries across the room to her in a hurry. She is dangling off the side of the balcony, held up by Shoya as he screams for her to start grasping onto the wood and pull herself up, knowing he isn't strong enough to save her- begging god that if she could live another day- if he could have just a little more strength right then and there, then he would do better. Through this, he manages to convince Shoko to grab on, only to fall down himself in the process, resulting in a coma.

Shoko is visibly and mentally anguished by this, as she wanted to commit suicide as a way to no longer burden others, yet only caused Ishida's family grief and for him to become hospitalized. Yet, she starts going around apologizing and stating that she'll start to love life because Ishida tried so hard to help her live.

Once he is out of his coma and back at school, Shoko is one of the first people to help him return and overcome his social anxiety. He enters class not expecting much but rumors, only to be surprised by his friends creating a giant chain of origami swans for him, due to their worry and want to help him in some way. Full of gratitude, he is much happier throughout the day.

At the end of the movie, he is seen overcoming his social fears thanks to the support of Shoko and many others, becoming able to hear the voices of others clearly for the first time and truly listen to them.