Silent Episodes 2~11

All renai jdoramas are about keeping the couple apart until they can profess their love in the end of the series or in the case of Silent, show how they got together in the beginning and separated on got back together in the end. The key to a fun renai jdorama is for the characters to face interesting obstacles until the end.

Unfortunately for Silent, it has the most useless obstacle I have ever seen in jdoramaland ever with the name Minato, Kawaguchi Haruna's boyfriend at the start of the series. You know how in jdoramas, they always pair the main girl with someone who they have no chemistry with so that the audience wants the heroine to be with the hero?

Well, Minato is that guy plus he is a complete pushover. He is not evil, he does not scheme, he just lays down and raises the white flag. Completely unnecessary character. The writer needed Minato to be friends with Kawaguchi Haruna's ex Sou but being with her in the beginning of the story did nothing for the story. I bloody fast forwarded every scene with him. Everytime he is on screen I want to slap him around because his character has no urgency and does nothing for the story.

I fast forwarded through a lot of episodes but I always stopped for the Kaho scenes. She is that good especially her facial expressions because she can't speak and I thought she should be the main character. Now Kaho is playing an interesting character and I am glad because she has too much acting talent to be playing simple supporting character. Kaho's character of Nana is interesting because she was born death and instrumental in teaching Sou how to sign. She is also interesting because it is through her that we learn there are distinctions between people who are born deaf and people who are deaf later in life and she has a negative view of deaf people hanging out with 'normies'.

Part of the appeal of disability jdoramas is watching people navigate life and solve problems that people without disabilities would never consider. As I said in my review of ep 1, I want to know how Kawaguchi Haruna manages to pay for her spacious apartment with two freeter salaries because the details and world building make the character.

Luckily for Kaho, we see how her character managed to go to university without being able to hear and that is by having volunteers transcribe the lectures for her. We also see that it has a negative point in that she cannot be lazy when the lecture is going on unlike most people at the lecture. It is small details like this that make Kaho's character of Nana more real and interesting. We also see that she is cynical and suspicious of people's motives. 

 For me, Nana was the main character of Silent. Her relationship with Kazama Shunsuke is the highlight of the show. Kazama Shunsuke will always be in my good books because of his acting in Soredemo Ikite Yuku. The Kawaguchi relationship was good in some parts but also slow. 

If you skip all Minato scenes, there is a watchable show here. If you are a Kaho and Kawaguchi Haruna fan like me or like disability jdoramas give this a go. Flawed but watchable and don't be afraid to fast forward scenes.