This review may contain spoilers
Beautiful, Challenging, and Soul Healing
This is genuinely the first time I’ve ever felt compelled to write a review for a television show. Silent is more than just a romantic drama—it’s a deeply human, emotionally resonant exploration of love, identity, and growth. From the very first episode, I was drawn into the quiet intensity of the characters’ lives and the emotional weight they carry. As an American viewer, watching how these characters interact within the framework of Japanese culture—and more specifically, the culture of the Deaf community—was not only captivating, but eye-opening. I watched this show for the first time three weeks ago and have rewatched it all the way through three more times with various friends and family members. Each and every time something new and profound strikes me.At its core, Silent is a story about change: how people change, how relationships shift, and how we must learn to make space for each other’s growth. The characters aren’t static or idealized—they are flawed, evolving, and deeply relatable. Tsumugi’s compassion and inner conflict, Aoba’s emotional restraint and eventual vulnerability, and even the supporting characters like Minato and Rika each reflect different responses to love, loss, and change. What struck me most was how the show treated these transformations not as plot devices, but as emotional truths that unfold quietly over time.
The show does a brilliant job exploring the perspective of those in the Deaf community without romanticizing or pitying them. It gives room for silence, for sign language, for miscommunication—and for the quiet beauty in learning to understand each other in new ways. The show also explores the guilt and emotional weight felt by hearing individuals who feel helpless or unsure of how to support their Deaf loved ones. That guilt is never overdramatized; instead, it’s presented as a quiet ache—a desire to connect, to not fail the people they love, even when words fall short.
And then there’s the music. The score in Silent is subtle, intentional, and devastatingly beautiful. Each character seems to have a musical motif that echoes their emotional state—sometimes swelling with hope, other times disappearing into the background, as if giving space for silence to speak louder than sound ever could. The use of music in contrast with literal silence is one of the show’s most powerful tools. It teaches the viewer to listen—not just with ears, but with the heart.
Watching Silent felt less like watching a show and more like being invited into someone’s lived experience. It exercised my empathy in ways I wasn’t expecting, challenging me to reflect on how I show up for others, how I handle grief and love, and how I view those whose experiences differ from mine.
This show isn’t loud, flashy, or dramatic in the typical sense—it’s tender, thoughtful, and hauntingly sincere. Silent will stay with me for a long time.
Was this review helpful to you?
The Ending Lost the Stories Purpose
Bulgasal: Immortal Souls is a dark, slow-burn fantasy drama that aims much higher than most genre shows, and for the majority of its runtime, it succeeds. Drawing heavily from Korean folklore, the series builds a grim, moody world centered on immortality, reincarnation, vengeance, and the emotional cost of carrying memory across lifetimes. It’s patient, often intentionally restrained, and clearly more interested in themes and atmosphere than quick payoff.One of the show’s biggest strengths is its sense of purpose. For most of the series, it knows exactly what it wants to say. Immortality is framed as a curse rather than a gift. Reincarnation is exhausting rather than romantic. The story repeatedly emphasizes cycles; of violence, guilt, and obsession, and how difficult it is to escape them. There’s a heaviness to the show that feels earned, not performative.
Visually, Bulgasal is inconsistent but often effective. The special effects go through noticeable ebbs and flows. Some sequences are haunting and cinematic, especially those tied to folklore and past lives. Others feel undercooked, briefly breaking immersion. That said, the overall aesthetic; dark palettes, slow pacing, and eerie framing, does a lot of the heavy lifting and keeps the tone cohesive even when the effects falter.
The performances are a major asset. The leads carry the emotional weight with restraint, selling centuries of pain and fatigue without excessive exposition. Supporting characters add moments of grounding and humanity that prevent the show from becoming emotionally monotonous, even when the story gets bleak.
Where Bulgasal ultimately stumbles is the ending. It comes incredibly close to being amazing, close enough that the disappointment stings. Rather than concluding in a way that reinforces the themes and lessons the show has been building from the beginning, the finale pivots toward a romance-focused payoff that felt like it never truly got started. The emotional groundwork for that shift simply isn’t there.
The problem isn’t romance itself. It’s that the show spends so long prioritizing ideas about consequence, loss, cyclical suffering, family, and forgiveness, only to set those aside at the finish line in favor of a relationship that was never meaningfully developed and was only hinted at. The result is an ending that feels smaller than the story it’s trying to conclude; less thoughtful, less earned, and oddly disconnected from the show’s own strengths. It’s so close but ends up just unsatisfying.
Was this review helpful to you?
