This review may contain spoilers
One Big Meh.. Could Have Been Better
Ok let’s get the good things about Silent out of the way before I air out my grievances. There are so many silent moments in this J drama of just talking in sign language and it forces me to focus on the conversation as if it’s happening to me, as if I’m really there in the scene. The use of silence is nice and oftentimes there’s either total silence or a soft piano in the background and it makes the experience feel quite real.
With that said, there were many cons I found in this series. The characters were very one dimensional, their relationships, conversations, and scenarios felt repetitive and shallow, and it felt like the story wasn’t really moving at all- not to say a slow moving story is a bad thing but a slow moving story needs depth, and this series was stuck in the shallow kiddie pool for 11 episodes. If I’m going to dedicate my time to watch 11 long episodes, I’d like some more deeper exploration like character development, maturation of the characters or deep changes to happen over time. I felt like the main characters especially Sakura-kun didn’t change much from beginning to end. They were terribly boring, including their contrived yawn worthy high school story. Yes Sakura kun started to open up and became a little happier and more expressive but it was all surface level and I didn’t feel anything while watching it. He also seemed quite rigid in his thinking and was fixated on hearing Tsumugi’s voice. Something about him seemed really wooden- was it his acting or his emotional toll from the loss of hearing.. I don’t know. I guess it’s unfair to expect a hero’s journey when he’s just a regular dude going through hearing loss where he’s stuck in the past. I didn’t find his or Tsumugi’s character to be interesting at all. They were like NPCs that I don’t care about no matter what song they play on their iPod or how many CDs they arrange in their room. It felt like the whole show was a lot of regular small talk which I would yawn at and get bored with. Even after the whole show is over, I’m left with the thought- “Ok but why should I care about this relationship?” I simply don’t care- like Minato says in the end- “I don’t care if you get with SO or don’t get with SO, whatever it is just get on with it.” (My version)
On the other hand, the side characters like the sign language teacher, or my favorite Nana were far more interesting than the leads. Minato and Nana were very giving, always sharing and helping others from the heart, but weren’t really appreciated much. Minato’s relationship with Tsumugi in the beginning seemed fine and boring but as soon as Sakura kun came along he turned into an insecure mess- I guess the most badass thing he did was break up with her, but after that it felt like his character just froze and was looping and spinning his wheels like an NPC in the same ditch from beginning to end. Tsumugi was grieving for a whole 2 minutes about Minato and then the script simply dropped him and they became like wooden strangers while she moved onto the next dude as planned. So weird, predictable and …yawn! I don’t care.
I loved the story of Nana and the interpreter teacher- they were both so sweet and so was their backstory, how the guy wanted to see her smile and do more for her. And yes Nana’s smile is so bright and beautiful and I found her to be the most interesting and dynamic character in the whole series. Even though she was the only one who was deaf from birth, she was an expressive communicator and usually direct and brutally honest with what she wanted to say. I loved that about her. She was far ahead than the others. She wore her heart on her sleeve even though she got hurt twice with two different men- Sakura kun and the interpreter guy (although there is hope for them two). How is it that everyone else pretty much sucks at communicating except for Nana? Even at the end at the final scenes of the last episode on Christmas, she buys a big bouquet of flowers to give to the sign language dude (shouldn’t he be buying her flowers? She also sent him a handwritten letter!) and then gives little parts of the bouquet to Minato (who in turn gives it to Tsumugi) and to Sakura-kun. Then at the very end they both share Nana’s gift to each other. Like seriously Nana being the one who cannot hear from birth is the one who shares her heart most expressively with everyone, from her smile to her sharp words, to her flowers. I just loved Nana. And let’s not forget that she is the one who pulled Sakura-kun out of his frozen state after his hearing loss and listened to him and healed him and taught him sign language. And she was also the one who inspired the interpreter guy to become an interpreter who ended up teaching Tsumugi, so basically she is the force behind the entire series that moves everything along. They should just call the series Nana. I wished she could be happy always for being so honest and expressive. Everyone else is stuck and frozen in their characters and spinning their wheels, with repeated conversations like it just gets boring and by the end I just wanted to see if Nana would get with the interpreter guy. I didn’t care about Tsumugi and Sakura-kun because they just bored me to death with their tired old conversations and shallow high school cliche relationship. I’m all about the slow burn, but this series was more like a slow groan.
If it weren’t for Nana and the interpreter guy, I would have switched this off several episodes ago. At the end I don’t feel satisfied, just bored having watched that. Meh. Like having eaten a lot of calories with zero satisfaction and nutrition. I rate it one big MEH.
With that said, there were many cons I found in this series. The characters were very one dimensional, their relationships, conversations, and scenarios felt repetitive and shallow, and it felt like the story wasn’t really moving at all- not to say a slow moving story is a bad thing but a slow moving story needs depth, and this series was stuck in the shallow kiddie pool for 11 episodes. If I’m going to dedicate my time to watch 11 long episodes, I’d like some more deeper exploration like character development, maturation of the characters or deep changes to happen over time. I felt like the main characters especially Sakura-kun didn’t change much from beginning to end. They were terribly boring, including their contrived yawn worthy high school story. Yes Sakura kun started to open up and became a little happier and more expressive but it was all surface level and I didn’t feel anything while watching it. He also seemed quite rigid in his thinking and was fixated on hearing Tsumugi’s voice. Something about him seemed really wooden- was it his acting or his emotional toll from the loss of hearing.. I don’t know. I guess it’s unfair to expect a hero’s journey when he’s just a regular dude going through hearing loss where he’s stuck in the past. I didn’t find his or Tsumugi’s character to be interesting at all. They were like NPCs that I don’t care about no matter what song they play on their iPod or how many CDs they arrange in their room. It felt like the whole show was a lot of regular small talk which I would yawn at and get bored with. Even after the whole show is over, I’m left with the thought- “Ok but why should I care about this relationship?” I simply don’t care- like Minato says in the end- “I don’t care if you get with SO or don’t get with SO, whatever it is just get on with it.” (My version)
On the other hand, the side characters like the sign language teacher, or my favorite Nana were far more interesting than the leads. Minato and Nana were very giving, always sharing and helping others from the heart, but weren’t really appreciated much. Minato’s relationship with Tsumugi in the beginning seemed fine and boring but as soon as Sakura kun came along he turned into an insecure mess- I guess the most badass thing he did was break up with her, but after that it felt like his character just froze and was looping and spinning his wheels like an NPC in the same ditch from beginning to end. Tsumugi was grieving for a whole 2 minutes about Minato and then the script simply dropped him and they became like wooden strangers while she moved onto the next dude as planned. So weird, predictable and …yawn! I don’t care.
I loved the story of Nana and the interpreter teacher- they were both so sweet and so was their backstory, how the guy wanted to see her smile and do more for her. And yes Nana’s smile is so bright and beautiful and I found her to be the most interesting and dynamic character in the whole series. Even though she was the only one who was deaf from birth, she was an expressive communicator and usually direct and brutally honest with what she wanted to say. I loved that about her. She was far ahead than the others. She wore her heart on her sleeve even though she got hurt twice with two different men- Sakura kun and the interpreter guy (although there is hope for them two). How is it that everyone else pretty much sucks at communicating except for Nana? Even at the end at the final scenes of the last episode on Christmas, she buys a big bouquet of flowers to give to the sign language dude (shouldn’t he be buying her flowers? She also sent him a handwritten letter!) and then gives little parts of the bouquet to Minato (who in turn gives it to Tsumugi) and to Sakura-kun. Then at the very end they both share Nana’s gift to each other. Like seriously Nana being the one who cannot hear from birth is the one who shares her heart most expressively with everyone, from her smile to her sharp words, to her flowers. I just loved Nana. And let’s not forget that she is the one who pulled Sakura-kun out of his frozen state after his hearing loss and listened to him and healed him and taught him sign language. And she was also the one who inspired the interpreter guy to become an interpreter who ended up teaching Tsumugi, so basically she is the force behind the entire series that moves everything along. They should just call the series Nana. I wished she could be happy always for being so honest and expressive. Everyone else is stuck and frozen in their characters and spinning their wheels, with repeated conversations like it just gets boring and by the end I just wanted to see if Nana would get with the interpreter guy. I didn’t care about Tsumugi and Sakura-kun because they just bored me to death with their tired old conversations and shallow high school cliche relationship. I’m all about the slow burn, but this series was more like a slow groan.
If it weren’t for Nana and the interpreter guy, I would have switched this off several episodes ago. At the end I don’t feel satisfied, just bored having watched that. Meh. Like having eaten a lot of calories with zero satisfaction and nutrition. I rate it one big MEH.
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