Silent

It was very apropos that I coincidently waited to watch this at Christmas time - not knowing that the final episode would be centered at Christmas. Had this on my watch list all this time and decided to watch the oldest one - for no other reason than that. I rate the acting 10 stars, especially the male lead Meguro Ren who played Sou, who I know absolutely nothing about, but thought that he did he great job portraying his emotions to the viewers through sign language, gazes, the looks on his face whether happy or sad and the personal struggles he is going through- not wanting to hurt others and getting hurt himself internally by wanting to remember his girlfriend's voice so much.

The lesson to be learned from this drama is that communicating is different from understanding especially when someone has a disability such as in Silent and we can all learn something from watching it and it is a touching a beautiful love story.

I had to take off a couple of stars because of the script made Kaho, who played the friend of Sou, absolutely annoying to me - always trying to but in with his former relationships at a critical time in his life.

Another thing that was annoying to me was the sound track of the series - not sure if this was intentional or not to get the point of silence across to the viewers, but practically on every scene change the sound (music playing or background noise, whatever) is cut-off abruptly for a couple of seconds of silence. I am thinking it is intentional to get your attention of what silence is like or something but I found it annoying and unpleasant to watch for that reason.

Like the title of this series suggests, there are many silent moments in this series. Most of the time they are executed well to create a more intimate and vulnerable moment. I particularly love that about this series.

This series is pretty slow-paced, but not in a bad way. Some scenes could be shorter, but in most cases, I loved the slowness. It made the series feel more personal, like a diary.

Sometimes there's too much back and forth between the couples in this show, which can be slightly frustrating at times. Sometimes the editing is throws you off as well.

Although, nothing can beat the unique story in this series, it's just so beautiful and touching.

"Silent" has to be one of the best dramas I have recently watched. The story follows Sou and Tsumugi, two young people who dated in high school-only for Sou to break up with her over text and disappear. Years later, they meet by accident, and Tsumugi is shocked and heartbroken to see that Sou is not speaking, instead, he is signing to her. It turns out, Sou has ousted everyone because he was diagnosed with an illness that causes his hearing to deteriorate quickly. By the time they meet again, he is completely deaf.

I LOVED that the drama brought a topic of disability, and how they went about it. Sou is only new to his new condition, and he is struggling in many areas in life. I loved Ren Meguro's portrayal here, I was honestly impressed by his acting. He was so natural and I was able to understand Sou's actions sometimes even before they were explained, because Meguro somehow manages to be so on point. His performance alone is 10/10.

It is a bit slow and mellow, but it works for the topic and it makes sense in the context. I especially loved the instances where they play with sound and the absence of it. One scene, where Tsumugi hears the water drops hitting the sink and the meaningless hustle from the outdoors, just after finding out he can't hear- it's such a short scene but so impactful. Many times the scenes would go from quite loud to dead silent, and I loved how this was done.

I also enjoyed the friendships in the drama, especially the one between Sou and Minato. I was just entranced with the emotion that goes on between them, two men that are friends, and obviously care for eachother. It made me more emotional than the love story.

And there we come to the part I dislike. The love story was... well. I believed Sou loves Tsumugi. But I don't believe her for a second. I am not sure whether this is the actress or the plot, I just do not trust her. I do not see genuine romantic feelings in her for neither Sou nor Minato. I only actually believed she liked Sou as a teen. But later, despite learning sign language for him, the chemistry is not coming from her. And I see in other scenes that she can act, but it looks like she just can't portray love, at least to me. Sadness, she does it well.

Overall, I would say this is an important one to watch. Silent has reminded me to remain in tune with myself in so many ways- it is a slice of life, a bittersweet one, but there is a cherry on top.

That was my first Japanese drama. I found the storyline unique and intriguing. However, I felt that the performances and cinematography came across as amateurish. The dialogues were also lacking. I couldn't connect with the main couple's emotions, and I found the reason for the male lead's disappearance to be absurd.

It would have been much more interesting if they had simply continued their lives as friends. To me, they never truly seemed like lovers.

The lack of a musical score, combined with the numerous scenes in sign language, created an unpleasant impression and tired the viewer.

The main lead actress had a great performance.

These past few years I've been immersing myself with a lot of Japanese dramas. Their attention to subtle details is just unrivaled. I love the moody atmosphere, the moments of stillness, the soft background music... they evoke strong feelings that for some reason I could only ever experience in Japanese dramas. I can safely say that "Silent" is one of the best I've seen that showcased all these aesthetics so naturally.

From the sentimental script, sensible characters, to the beautiful photography, Silent had everything I wanted to see in a drama piece.

I also wanted to show appreciation to Haruna Kawaguchi and Ren Meguro who delivered moving performances respectively. Their chemistry was prominent too despite the show being more of a slice of life drama than romance.

Lastly, I realized there's truly a lot of things to reflect on and to be grateful for in life after watching this heartwarming drama. Genuinely glad to have stumbled upon this gem on Viki. 10/10.