A Silent Voice Characters

As an elementary-school boy he is a restless ringleader who hates being bored, and he leads the class in bullying Shoko, the deaf girl who transfers in. When the principal steps in, the class makes him the only one to blame and his friends turn on him; by high school he is isolated and full of self-loathing, and the film shows him seeing X marks over the faces around him. He teaches himself sign language, returns Shoko's old notebook and sets out to make amends, with her and with the classmates he left behind. In the manga he later trains as a hairdresser so that he can take over his mother's salon.

Born deaf, she transfers into Shoya's sixth-grade class and introduces herself through a notebook, hoping to make friends through it. She wears hearing aids, uses sign language and finds speaking aloud difficult; years of failed conversations have left her with a habit of smiling and apologising to avoid trouble. Kind, patient and forgiving, she accepts Shoya's friendship when he finds her again, but she quietly blames herself for much of what has gone wrong around her. In the manga she moves to Tokyo after high school to train as a hairdresser.

Shoko's younger sister, a middle-school student who keeps her hair short, calls herself by the boyish word 'ore' and acts tough so that she can protect her sister. She first passes herself off as Shoko's boyfriend to drive Shoya away, then gets him suspended by posting a photo of him jumping into the river. After she runs away from home and he takes her in, she starts to trust him. She seldom goes to school and spends her days taking photographs with the camera her grandmother bought her.

Shoya's classmate at high school and the first friend he makes there: short, round and curly-haired, he calls Shoya 'Ya-sho' and sticks to him from then on. They become friends after Shoya steps in when another student tries to take Tomohiro's bike, and Tomohiro is the first person in years whose face Shoya can look at without an X over it. Loud, loyal and a little possessive of his friend, he dreams of becoming a film director; in the manga he talks the whole group into making a film for a contest.

Shoya's classmate from elementary school, who joined in bullying Shoko; in the manga she had first been left to help Shoko keep up in class, and came to resent her for it. She has had feelings for Shoya since they were children and blames Shoko for the years he spent alone. When she comes back into his life she tries to pull the old group together on her own terms, and at the amusement park she takes Shoko up on the Ferris wheel to tell her exactly what she thinks of her. Blunt to the point of cruelty, she begins, slowly, to change by the end of the manga.

The one elementary-school classmate who tried to learn sign language so that she could talk to Shoko, which made her a target too, and she stopped coming to Shoko's class. Shoya tracks her down in high school so that the two can meet again, and they pick up their friendship at once. Tall, freckled and newly confident, she is friendly and gentle but shies away from conflict, and she works throughout the story at facing things instead of avoiding them. In the manga she studies fashion design and wins a design contest with Naoka.

Class representative in elementary, middle and high school, serious and eager to be seen as fair. In sixth grade she never joined the bullying openly but never stood up to it either, and when the principal stepped in she cried and helped make Shoya the only one blamed. Back in his class at high school, she joins his new circle largely to be near Satoshi, whom she likes, and when tensions rise she is the one who tells the others about Shoya's past.

A clever, good-looking classmate of Shoya's at high school who is curious about him and wants to be his friend, and has Miki pass the message on. He cannot stand bullies, which is why finding out what Shoya did to Shoko strains their friendship. In the manga he was teased as a child over his thick eyebrows, plays the lead in Tomohiro's film and plans to become a teacher.

Shoko and Yuzuru's mother, who has raised the girls without their father since her divorce and works long hours, leaving much of their upbringing to her own mother, Ito. Strict and guarded, she wants Shoko to grow strong enough to live among hearing people, and she wants Shoya nowhere near her daughters. In the manga she never learns sign language, and she begins to soften only after Ito's death.

Shoya's mother, a single parent who runs a hair salon from the family home and helps look after her granddaughter, Maria. Warm and hard to rattle, she disapproves of what her son did to Shoko; in the manga she pays for the hearing aids he broke and takes him to apologise to the Nishimiyas. When Yuzuru runs away from home, Miyako lets her stay with the family.

Shoya's best friend in sixth grade and, in the manga, his partner in daredevil contests, who joined in bullying Shoko. Once the class turns on Shoya, Kazuki leads the bullying against him, and in the manga he makes sure everyone at their new middle school hears that Shoya drove a girl out of school. Years later Naoka sets up an awkward meeting between the two of them at the amusement park. Their friend Keisuke Hirose follows the same path, first bullying Shoko alongside Shoya and then turning on him.

Shoko and Yuzuru's grandmother, who took over raising the girls so that their mother could work. She learned sign language so that she could talk with Shoko, and she bought Yuzuru the camera she is never without. Her death hits Yuzuru hard, and afterwards Shoya takes the sisters out of town to lift their spirits.