This is the character list for the manga A Silent Voice. Potential spoilers ahead.
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Protagonists
Shoya Ishida
- Voiced by: Miyu Irino, Mayu Matsuoka (child) (Japanese), Robbie Daymond, Ryan Shanahan (child) (English)
The protagonist who wants to redeem himself
The main character and narrator. He bullied Shoko Nishimiya in elementary school and when she transferred away was ostracized and bullied by his former friends. Ishida started to ignore those around him and was driven to the point of suicide, however, he changes his mind after he apologizes to Nishimiya and begins to spend time with her.
- Affectionate Nickname:
- His mother calls him "Sho-chan", and his niece Maria calls him "Sho-tan" (with "-tan" being a childish pronunciation of "-chan").
- Nagatsuka starts calling him "Ya-sho" not too long after they start becoming friends.
- Allergic to Routine: His motive for bullying Shoko, mixed with It Amused Me. Basically, his primary motivation as a kid was to "defeat boredom."
- Anime Hair: His hair is stylized in upward spikes, especially in his childhood.
- The Atoner: His defining character trait. After completely ruining Nishimiya's days in elementary school by bullying her relentlessly, he ultimately found himself feeling tremendous guilt after discovering that she was actively defending him from being bullied by his own classmates. He spends the entire series trying to make up for what he did. He succeeds.
- Beady-Eyed Loser: He has beady eyes and by high school, he has become an ostracized former bully with no friends who was planning to kill himself.
- Break the Haughty: Bullied Nishimiya to the point where she wanted to die, and when he was called out for it he was abandoned by basically all of his friends and was humiliated even more when he discovered that the girl he was bullying was actually trying to prevent others from bullying him.
- Bully Magnet: After everyone turned on him for bullying Shoko, Shoya became the target of severe bullying and ostracization all the way to high school.
- Bully Turned Buddy: His character development.
- Byronic Hero: He spends all his time being The Atoner, dealing with self-doubt and remorse for what he did in his past to Nishimiya when they were kids. He has become a depressed loner who contemplates suicide, but in the end the situation gets better.
- Classical Anti-Hero: Constantly dealing with self-doubt and remorse over what he did to Nishimiya in their youth.
- Clueless Chick-Magnet: Both Ueno and Nishimiya like him, but he is unaware of this.
- Convenient Coma: He falls into a coma after saving Shoko from her suicide attempt. Which leads to Shoko Putting the Band Back Together.
- Cool Uncle: To his niece, Maria.
- Determinator: No matter what he has to do, no matter what situations he finds himself trapped in, he will make up for what he did to Nishimiya.
- Disproportionate Restitution: Inverted. He is ashamed of his past treatment towards Nishimiya, to the point of contemplating suicide. He doesn't go through with it, because she forgives him for his past actions, which instead compels him to make up with her.
- Driven to Suicide: After growing up and realizing just how horrible he was to Nishimiya, Shoya resolves to leap to his death off a tall bridge. His last loose end to tie up was returning Shoko's notebook. After realizing that Shoko was asking if they could be friends years ago, and the urge to atone for what he did, keeps him from going through — she doesn't realize it, but he considers her as having saved his life as a result.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He wasn't evil as a kid, he was more or less just cruel. As most are. As such, he couldn't understand why Nishimiya would just not fight back when she was being so blatantly bullied by him; that said, she once did fight him back, also biting him.
- Eyes Always Averted: Shoya develops an extreme aversion to eye contact with anyone that he does not have any personal connection with and admits that it's easier for him to look at the ground instead. Severe enough that it causes panic attacks.
- Face of a Thug: He really did act like a thug when he was a kid, being a vicious bully and all that. But with age comes Character Development, and he eventually plays this trope so straight that it honestly makes the audience root for him more.
- Friendless Background: While he had friends in elementary school, he loses them all and doesn't make any more until reconnecting with Shoko in high school.
- Happily Failed Suicide: In fact, he was planning on killing himself out of severe depression, loneliness, and self-loathing after years of social neglect. When Shoko forgave him for his past transgressions, she effectively saved his life.
- Held Back in School: He ended up being held back twice after becoming ostracized due to bullying Shoko, to the point at which when he enters high school, his friends are already third-years. In the group's Coming of Age Day ceremony in the Distant Finale, Shoya is about to graduate.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Saves Shoko from her suicide attempt at the cost of falling into a coma for two weeks.
- Humble Hero: After his vicious Break the Haughty, he becomes a very insecure individual who finds himself constantly pushing to become a better person.
- Hypocrisy Nod: As he is (rightly) concerned about how Ueno reentering Shouko's life might be a bad thing, considering how cruel Ueno was to Shouko in elementary school, he concludes that the same could be asked about him.
- I Hate Past Me: Bullying Nishimiya beyond all reason out of fear of being bored is one reason for this. To the point, he'd imagine killing his younger self.
- Insecure Love Interest: The main thing keeping him and Shoko from getting together is his inability to accept that he could ever be worthy of Nishimiya's affection after what he did to her in their childhood.
- Irony: The fact that he bullies Nishimiya to avoid the boredom of routine only ends up creating a routine in and of itself.
- It Amused Me: As a kid, he always sought a life free of boredom and was actually afraid of the thought of having nothing to do. This fear of his led him to do outright terrible things to Shoko just to excite him. He hates himself for it to this day.
- Jerkass Has a Point: On two occasions, although he was rather blunt and harsh than a jerk.
- As he pointed out to the class, he's not the only one involved in bullying Nishimiya, and pretty much everyone (including their teacher) found it funny. Consequently, nobody believes a word he says after being made into a scapegoat.
- The second time, during the Drama Bomb at the bridge, as harsh and cold might be, he rightfully called out everyone (sans Shoko and her sister) for their flaws. Long list short, he called out Ueno for being an unrepentant bully with petty jealousy issues, Sahara for not standing up for herself or others when she needs to do so and just runs away from her problems; Kawaii for being even worse than Ueno, as she refuses to take any responsibilities for Shoko's bullying; Nagatsuka for being too clingy to him, despite helping him only one time; and (in the manga) Mashiba for being a Bully Hunter full of resentment. It says something that after Shoya ends up comatose, Mashiba has a Jerkass Realization, Sahara realizes she is a Dirty Coward and Ueno learns she is a petty girl.
- Jerkass Realization: For Ishida, when Nishimiya transferred out of his school. That's when he realized that her daily ritual of cleaning abusive graffiti from the classroom wasn't her attempt at dealing with bullying against her — it was her trying to prevent, as much as she could, bullying against him. Sadly, he kept trying to bully her right up until her departure.
- Laser-Guided Karma: His beyond cruel bullying of Nishimiya utterly destroyed his reputation several times over and is a major focal point of the conflict in the story.
- Maybe Ever After: With Nishimiya by the end of the story. In fact, it might as well be a Pretty Much Ever After, considering how the two obviously have feelings for each other.
- Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: While in high school, Shoya is socially ostracized by his peers for his anti-social behavior and rumors concerning his past as a bully. Little does anyone really care to actually try talking to the guy. They'd find out he's a big bag of regrets and a determined Atoner.
- Must Make Amends: His actions since reuniting with Nishimiya at high school involve making up with her for his past actions towards her during their elementary school days.
- Nice Guy: Becomes this through Character Development. After spending years to become a Reformed Bully, Shoya is kind of aloof, but means well for people around him so long as they don't go out of their way to spite him. And he will completely go out of his way to make things up to someone if he feels he's wronged them in the slightest. But the moment someone pushes around Nishimiya, or tries to blame him for things long past, he does not take it lightly.
- "Not So Different" Remark: In his "The Reason You Suck" Speech to his friends, he says Ueno isn't much different from Kawai when it comes to bullying Shoko and refusing to take responsibility for it.
- Oblivious to Love: He has consistently been ignorant of female attraction. As a kid, he's completely blind to the hints that Ueno likes him (said hints only pile up when flashbacks to the past are shown from Ueno's perspective). In the present, not only has Ueno's feelings grown stronger, but Shoko also grows enamored with him, and he's still unaware of it. At least with Shoko, it's somewhat justified by his own guilt over his bullying her. He's even oblivious to his own feelings towards Shoko by the end of the story, lampshaded by Ueno near the end. But with the implications of the Maybe Ever After above, this may not last very long.
- Reformed Bully: Being a bully led to one of the most humiliating and painful moments of his life. His subsequent attempts at making up for being a bully serves as the impetus of the story.
- Say My Name: He screams out Shoko's first name for the first time when he runs to stop her suicide attempt.
- The Scapegoat: Bullied Nishimiya relentlessly because he was afraid of getting bored, and when he was called out for it by his teachers, all of his friends pinned the blame on him... despite being in on the whole thing. This led to his Heel–Face Turn and his prompt to atone for his actions.
- Socially Awkward Hero: After discovering the depths of his douchebaggery to Nishimiya, he ends up a social recluse, only able to cope with his own self-loathing by internally chastising his classmates. By the end of the story, he generally becomes much more socially open towards others and has managed to make many friends.
- Tears of Remorse: Weeps these after finding out how needlessly cruel he was to Nishimiya.
- Took a Level in Kindness: He went from a bully who mercilessly tormented a deaf girl to a well-meaning guy who wants to atone for all the bad things he did in the past.
- Unlucky Everydude: Exhibits the traits of one.
- Used to Be More Social: When he was in elementary school, he was close to many of his classmates like Ueno and Shimada and was frequently seen hanging out with them. By high school though, after becoming the lone scapegoat for bullying Nishimiya and the ostracization that resulted from it, he becomes socially withdrawn and asocial, refusing to even look at his classmates.
- Work Off the Debt: Ends up having to work for five years to pay back for the hearing aids he took off Shoko. And then his mom burns it by accident.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: He gives a speech like this to Ueno toward the end of the manga.
Shoko Nishimiya
- Voiced by: Saori Hayami (Japanese), Lexi Cowden (English)
Our Cute Mute heroine
A deaf girl who was bullied by Ishida in elementary school to the point where she had to transfer away. Despite being a victim of continuous bullying, she always keeps a smile on her face. Years later, Ishida searches for her to apologize. She accepts his apology and starts to spend time with him, even falling in love with him when she sees his efforts to redeem himself.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Though most manga artwork depicts her with reddish hair, some pieces of art show that it's just stylized. Her canon color is a dark brown. The film, however, uses the pinkish-red color.
- All-Loving Heroine: Forgives Ishida (and all others who've had a hand in bullying her) almost immediately, even finding the courage to give a Love Confession to the guy relatively early in their rekindled relationship.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: She gives one to Ishida when Ueno re-enters his life. A combination of her Speech Impediment and Ishida's obliviousness makes it fall flat.
- Apologizes a Lot: Is aware of how much her deafness can obstruct the daily lives of those around her, and as such apologizes frequently for causing everyone trouble. Unfortunately, everyone just becomes annoyed at her when she does this.
- Betty and Veronica: The Betty to Ueno's Veronica. Nishimiya is the sweet and demure new friend who forgives Ishida and supports his attempts to make up for bullying her in the past.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Mixed with Beware the Quiet Ones due to Shoko mostly communicating through sign language. Shoko is for the most part a Nice Girl even to a fault, who only wants to make friends, especially with the one who bullied her in grade school. However, she eventually retaliated against Shoya by biting his hand and fighting him. She is also furious with Yuzuru when Yuzuru frames Shoya and gets him suspended.
- Broken Bird: A lifetime of being bullied because of her deafness has made Shoko easily depressed and suicidal.
- Bully Magnet: Experienced bullying throughout most of her life for being deaf.
- Byronic Heroine: A different example of this trope. Shoko certainly has an immensely good heart and is an All-Loving Heroine, but she's still a lonely, depressed and suicidal girl, who genuinely hates herself and thinks she's a burden to everyone, being deaf.
- Cute Mute: She's deaf, and while she's able to speak, her Speech Impediment makes it hard to understand her when she does, so she chooses to communicate through Sign Language and a notebook to make things easier.
- The Dog Bites Back: Literally. When Ishida sees Shoko cleaning his desk and starts pushing her, Shoko bites his hand and starts hitting him. This is the only time we see Shoko physically fight, and the frustration at trying to get Ishida to understand that she's trying to help him is clearly seen. After this incident, Shoko transfers to another school.
- Driven to Suicide: It's implied that Shoko's considered it in the past, something her sister tried to alleviate to no avail. She genuinely tries after blaming herself for everyone falling out with one another, but Ishida manages to save her life at the cost of falling into a coma as a result. This tears her up even more but gives her a second chance to re-examine what Ishida means to everyone, not just her, and take steps to fix what she can.
- Extreme Doormat: This is deconstructed, as her deafness has made her so alienated with social norms that she tries to make do with neutral responses, unaware that her refusal to actually stand up for herself and her tendency to Apologizes a Lot becomes a matter of contention among her classmates.
- Fatal Flaw: Her extremely low opinion of herself leads her to make the rash decision of committing suicide due to how her deafness would obstruct the lives of others. This leads to Ishida falling into a coma in his attempt to save her from falling to her death.
- Freakiness Shame: Downplayed in that she seldom expresses it (see Extreme Doormat, above), but Shoko is clearly embarrassed about her deafness, and her frequent apologies stem from this. It most becomes evident when she sees Ueno not only re-enter Ishida's life but also attempt to flirt with him. Shoko's response is to not only change up her hairstyle but also attempt to communicate solely through speech (when she's quite aware Ishida is at least conversant in sign language, and she could just text him if she was worried about nuance). As for how well that worked out, see above under Anguished Declaration of Love.
- Friendless Background: She always had a hard time making friends due to her deafness.
- Friend to All Living Things: Not only does Shoko treat everybody with unconditional kindness, but her hobby is also feeding bread to birds and fish.
- Hair Color Dissonance: Shoko's hair is a medium brown but quite a few official colors give her a red, almost pink, tone.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: Shoko has made clear that she doesn't have a high opinion of herself and the reason why she refuses to get angry at others for hurting her is that she blames herself for all her problems. This takes a turn for the worse after Ishida ends up fighting with the group and consequently loses all of his friendships. Shoko blames herself for this and eventually tries to commit suicide. Fortunately, Ishida saves her and convinces her to be the one to help him live on.
- Hidden Eyes: While Ishida is in the hospital, her eyes are often obscured by her bangs, reflecting her mental state.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Shoko's attempt to verbally confess to Ishida, even after he encourages her to sign, implies such. She seems to hope she'll have a better chance with Ishida if she can appear as more than "the weird deaf girl".
- Inconsistent Coloring: Her dark brown hair is frequently colored pinkish red in the official art. The film adaptation used the red color.
- Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Oh yes. Despite the way she's treated by others, she remains kind, helpful and forgiving towards everyone, and doesn't have a mean bone in her body. Sadly, she also hates herself and thinks she would be a burden to everyone, to the point she tries to commit suicide.
- Insecure Love Interest: Taken to the extreme. She likes Ishida, but she believes she's dragging him down and she will only bring him trouble if he stays with her.
- Interrupted Suicide: When Ishida and the other characters end up fighting each other because of the unresolved issues of the past, Shoko blames herself for it and attempts to commit suicide. Ishida saves her from leaping off the balcony of her apartment, and in effect ends up in a coma as a result of him falling.
- It's All My Fault:
- Blames herself for Ishida's comatose state.
- Yuzuru speculates that this is the reason she never got angry at people who bullied her.
- Love Confession: Vocally gives one to Ishida at a relatively early point in the story, but because of her deafness, she pronounces the words wrong. Ishida, in turn, cannot understand her, and she runs away completely embarrassed.
- Maybe Ever After: With Ishida, by the end of the story. In fact, it might as well be a Pretty Much Ever After, considering how the two obviously have feelings for each other.
- Nice Girl: To the point where the other, cynical characters find themselves flabbergasted at how nice she is. Deconstructed, as she is so nice that everyone who bullied her would just bully her more because her niceness just aggravated them.
- Rose-Haired Sweetie: In the film, she has rose-colored hair and she's sweet, kind and forgiving.
- Shading/Colour Dissonance: Her dark brown hair looks somewhat lighter in regular manga panels due to its gray shading. As a result, the anime adaptation gave her pinkish-red hair.
- Shrinking Violet: She's very shy and lacks self-confidence.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Fell for Shoya after seeing his many efforts to redeem himself for the past.
- Speech-Impeded Love Interest: Shoko is deaf and has a very pronounced Speech Impediment because of it. Her Love Confession to Shoya is ruined by him misunderstanding her.
- Speech Impediment: Her deafness leads to her words being extremely strained and extremely hard to understand. She struggles to verbally communicate coherently.
- Stepford Smiler: Holds a lot of pain behind her smile, but smiles anyway, whether because she's just that nice or she's trying not to offend anyone.
- Talking with Signs: She communicates, or at least tries to, with a notebook. This failed early on because her fellow students saw her muteness and the notebook as reasons to mock and torment her.
- Tears of Remorse: After Ishida falls into a coma, she becomes so engrossed in her own self-loathing that she can't help but cry.
- Tragically Disabled Love Interest: Shoko goes through a lot of misfortune because of her deafness, especially from bullies in her elementary school years. However, later in life, she becomes a potential love interest for one of her former tormentors, Shoya Ishida, who wants to make up for everything he's done to her.
- Turn the Other Cheek: No matter how anyone cruelly treated her, she's forgiving to nearly everyone over one apology. This is deconstructed; Shoko doesn't mind forgiving the people who talk ill of her because she hates herself and agrees with most negative sentiments regarding her.
- Vocal Dissonance: Played for Drama. She keeps her childlike voice well into her teens. It's justified, as her deafness has resulted in her Speech Impediment.
- What the Hell, Hero?: After learning that Yuzuru got Shoya suspended, Shoko demands that Yuzuru apologize to him.
- Womanchild: A mild example. She is somewhat childlike for an 18-year-old woman, making her all the cuter and more endearing.
Major Characters
Yuzuru Nishimiya
- Voiced by: Aoi Yūki (Japanese), Kristen Sullivan (English)
Shoko's protective little sister.
- Bifauxnen: Yuzuru makes such a convincing boy that Shoya actually believed her when she claims to be Shoko's boyfriend.
- Big Sister Instinct: Inverted; she's very protective of her older sister, who's gone through a lot of bullying throughout her life due to being deaf.
- Book Dumb: She may be street smart, but her grades are terrible.
- Boyish Short Hair: She cut her hair short so their mother would not cut Shoko's. This is one of the reasons why she's mistaken for a boy.
- Calling the Old Man Out: She really lets her mom have it for doing nothing about Shoko's bullying issues and forcing her to keep going to the school where it happened on the grounds it would toughen her up.
- Camera Fiend: She's usually seen with her camera in hand and prefers to spend the day goofing off and taking photographs instead of going to school. When we get to see her bedroom, the walls are plastered in photographs.
- Deadpan Snarker: She's never shy about making a cutting remark at someone else's expense.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: She's initially cold and hostile to Ishida because of how he bullied her sister in the past and tries to keep him away from Shoko. However, upon learning that Ishida has changed, she mellows down, accepts, and even encourages him to go out with her sister.
- Frame-Up: She frames the incident of Ishida jumping off a bridge to retrieve her notebook as him being a daredevil, getting him suspended from school. Ishida lets it slide because he knows why she did it, Shoko doesn't and demands that she apologize.
- Hidden Depths: She has a talent for taking photographs, even if they are pictures of dead things. This gets an extra layer of depth when, after Shoko's suicide attempt, she reveals that the reason for those specific pictures was to discourage Shoko from killing herself.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Yuzuru tells her mother that she has no right to dictate who the girls befriend because Ms. Nishimiya hasn't been there for her daughters when they needed her. Her mother is actually stunned.
- Jerkass Realization: A subtle case, but seeing firsthand how hostile and unwilling to forgive her mother was to Ishida despite his good intentions plays a factor in Yuzuru deciding to ease upon him.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's mainly rude and aloof to people if they seem to threaten her sister, including their mother. She will mellow if people prove prove that they won't hurt Shoko, and underneath her attitude she really has a good heart, taking care of her sister instead of herself.
- Lady Looks Like a Dude: Looks a lot like a boy, and actually manages to fool Ishida and Nagatsuka into thinking she is one for quite some time. The deception lasts up until Shoko clarifies the situation.
- Laser-Guided Karma: When she first came across Ishida in the present, over multiple interactions she barred him from interacting with Shoko, physically assaulted him, and intentionally got him suspended out of spite for what he did to Shoko, which despite her motivation, was little better in comparison to Ishida at his worst. Ishida was forgiving to her due to her motivation. His then new-found friend, Nagatsuka, on the other hand, was not so forgiving, showing himself to be just as vengeful and violent as her in his friend's stead until he discovered Yuzuru's true identity and gender.
- Mature Younger Sibling: Justified. She behaves in a mature way and takes good care of her older sister, but not because Shoko is immature but because being disabled and having very low self-esteem, Yuzuru has been forced to cover the role of older sister for her.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Only takes pictures of dead stuff. Subverted later when it's revealed she was only doing it to discourage Shoko from committing suicide.
- Promotion to Parent: A variant; because their mother refused to protect Shoko when the latter was in elementary school, and their father left the family, Yuzuru has taken it upon herself to be her sister's protector. She hasn't forgiven her mother for being aloof, even though Ms. Nishimiya has changed.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: In the localization of the manga, she tries to get Shoya to go away when he asks for her sister by saying "She's. Not. Here."
- Relative Button: Hurt Shoko, and she will counterattack with as much fury as a teenager can contain.
- Relative Error: She invokes this by claiming to be Shoko's boyfriend when she first meets Ishida to keep him away from her sister. Ishida is pretty surprised when he finds out Yuzuru is Shoko's little sister.
- Shipper on Deck: She doesn't hide the fact that she ships Ishida/Shoko.
- Tomboyish Name: Yuzuru is a name often given to boys. This makes the reveal that she's a girl all the more surprising.
- Tomboyish Voice: She has such a raspy, vaguely deep voice that she can easily pass as a teenage boy that hasn't broken his voice yet.
- Tritagonist: The third most prominent character after the two leads; there are several parts from her point of view, through which we gain another perspective on Shoko.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: She acts very mature for someone her age.
Tomohiro Nagatsuka
- Voiced by: Kensho Ono (Japanese), Graham Halstead (English)
A short, fat and lonely boy who is a habitual liar. After Ishida helps him out when he's in trouble, Nagatsuka swiftly becomes Ishida's self-proclaimed best friend.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Tomohiro was always a good guy in the manga, but his negative characteristics such as his frequent lying and selfish nature are heavily toned down in the movie.
- Bad Liar: Nagatsuka lies a lot, mostly to cover for his own poor self-esteem. Nobody buys it for a second — in fact, it backfires when Nagatsuka tries to tell the class that Ishida fell into a coma because he saved Nishimiya from committing suicide, but nobody believes him.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: When someone tries to steal his bike, Ishida offers his to be taken instead. Nagatsuka sees this act of kindness as an unbreakable act of friendship and starts to idolize Ishida because of this.
- Character Development: In the manga, Nagatsuka learns that his self-written depictions of reality are not true and has done more harm towards Ishida than intended. Once Ishida recovers, Nagatsuka makes more efforts to be honest with himself and engage in friendlier interactions with Ishida's other friends.
- Compulsive Liar: In the manga, Nagatsuka frequently lies as a means of protecting his self-esteem and not having to accept his cruel reality. A common lie would be how he claims to have tons of friends when asked about it even though that's far from the truth.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: He becomes defensive and (comically) hostile when Ishida starts to hang out with different people, especially other boys.
- Curly Hair Is Ugly: He's routinely bullied because of his afro, but he takes pride in his curls.
- Establishing Character Moment: When he retrieves Ishida's stolen bike after it was lent to the student who pressured Nagatsuka to lend his bike.
- Fat Best Friend: He's pretty fat and he's Ishida's self-proclaimed best friend.
- Fighting Your Friend: Nagatsuka ends up fighting Ishida in the manga when Ishida furiously calls him out over how little he cared about Nishimiya and barely had her involved in the movie project. Nagatsuka fights back by saying how Ishida cared more about her and barely thought about his own needs.
- Friendless Background: Although he pretends otherwise for a long time, the truth eventually comes out that he doesn't have any friends besides Ishida. His first major appearance is of him eating lunch by himself.
- Hero-Worshipper: To Ishida. His idea for a movie is based on how the two of them first met, with him imagining Ishida as tall, athletic and heroic.
- Hidden Depths: He's interested in making movies and was the main director for the movie project the kids were involved in regarding the manga. While they lose the movie contest, Tomohiro isn't bothered and intends to major in film studies when he goes to college.
- I Reject Your Reality: In the manga, Nagatsuka prefers to live in his own idealized reality where the world is cruel and unjust towards him, and Ishida is his infallible big friend who can do no wrong.
- Inferiority Superiority Complex: He likes to show-off to hide his own lack of self-respect.
- Lonely Rich Kid: Implied to be one. He fits the former since he had no friends until Ishida came along. As for the latter, he somehow has large amounts of yen at his disposal and uses it for Ishida without question. Ex. On their first day out together as friends, Nagatsuka was somehow able to rent out an entire theater room just for him and Ishida.
- Meaningful Name: His first name means "friend" (友) (tomo) and "great, vast" (宏) (hiro). He was Ishida's first best friend after so many years of social isolation.
- Nice Guy: He's a bit awkward but friendly, supportive and grateful.
- Shipper on Deck: Near the end of the manga, he shows strong signs of being on board with Ishida/Nishimiya as well.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Nagatsuka has a large role in the story, but his trope applies in the sense that he is the first person that Ishida removes an 'X' from his face symbolizing Ishida's willingness to trust and interact with other people.
- Supreme Chef: He's a surprisingly decent cook.
Naoka Ueno
- Voiced by: Yuki Kaneko (Japanese), Kira Buckland, Gia Grace (child) (English)
A girl from Ishida and Nishimiya's elementary school and the girl that Ishida was closest to at school. She was Ishida's main helper in bullying Nishimiya. After having separated from him since middle school graduation, Ueno runs into Ishida years later. Unlike Ishida, Ueno never learns her lesson and continues to hate and bully Nishimiya, blaming her for everything that went wrong in the past. She has feelings for Ishida but is bad at expressing it and only ends up pushing him away.
- Adaptational Jerkass: In the manga, she is eventually cast in a more sympathetic light and is undergoing a Heel–Face Turn by the end. This is lacking in the film, which stops short at her big Pet the Dog moment. Her relationship with Sahara, which is one of her biggest redeeming qualities in the manga, is also not granted much focus in the film.
- This trope is somewhat downplayed in that her Jerkass actions are also toned down in the film when compared to the manga. For example, her beating of Shoko following Shoya entering his coma, while having a somewhat more understandable reason for transpiring, is even more prolonged, excessive and hateful in the manga, and the manga showing that she bullied Shoko all by herself (well after Shoya had become scapegoated for all the bullying) as a child out of jealousy is completely removed in the film, as are her creepy actions and thoughts while Shoya is in his coma.
- Adaptational Karma: Inverted. In the manga, she's on the receiving end of a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown by Yaeko after Naoka dished out her own attack on Yaeko's disabled daughter. In the film, however, after attacking Shoko, apart from one slap, she and Yaeko have an equally matched, childish catfight before being broken apart by Miyako. Her loss of Shoya's feelings to Shoko is also much more downplayed in the film, as the extent of her feelings isn't explored in-depth like in the manga.
- Alpha Bitch: As a child, she was frequently seen talking with a Girl Posse who laughed along with her bullying Nishimiya and Sahara. She was also the main female bully to the former in their 6th-grade year, although at this point she's no longer an Alpha and is instead just a bitch.
- The Atoner: Towards Ishida, as she feels guilty for selling him out as a scapegoat and doing nothing when he was getting bullied in the past.
- Betty and Veronica: The Veronica to Nishimiya's Betty. Ueno is the Tsundere, borderline Yandere former friend who likes Ishida, but her advances only make him feel uneasy.
- Blunt "Yes": After Shoya demands to know whether Ueno slapped Shoko on the Ferris wheel, Ueno says "Yep."
- Brutal Honesty: As a teenager, Ueno embraces this philosophy to an unhealthy degree, likely out of guilt for lying about her lack of involvement in Shoko's bullying which caused Shoya to become isolated and bullied himself.
- Bullying a Dragon: After attacking Nishimiya earns her a slap from her mother, she merely smacks her back in a rage and turns her tirade onto her, despite the latter, a grown woman, being far more capable of fighting back.
- Childhood Friends: Ishida described Ueno as his closest female friend when they were in Elementary School. Ueno is clearly trying to push this towards a Childhood Friend Romance.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Pretty much the real reason why she hates Nishimiya so much. Ueno has always been jealous that Ishida pays more attention to Nishimiya than her. That feeling has gotten worse now that Ishida and Nishimiya are friends and it's clear they have feelings for each other. Ueno is actually aware that her personality and her conflicts with Nishimiya just pushes Ishida further away but doesn't know any other way to handle things.
- Composite Character: Kawai's Adaptational Heroism basically makes Ueno the one that is unable to move on or actually learn something like in the manga, with only a hint that she might change for the better toward the end with her learning sign language for Nishimiya's sake even if it's used to insult her.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: She deconstructs the Tsundere pretty hard. Her attempts to win Ishida over either fall flat or backfire completely, her Cannot Spit It Out tendencies confuse him, and her abrasive attitude only pushes him away. Her failure to properly talk to him leaves her frustrated and angry which she channels by lashing out at the world and bullying Nishimiya - which only pushes Ishida further away.
- Dirty Coward: And how! Her trying to shift the blame on Ishida to avoid getting into trouble for being involved in bullying Nishimiya says a lot, as does her present-day attempts at rectifying what she's done to hurt Ishida while still dogging responsibility for bullying Nishimiya.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Ueno refuses Nishimiya's offers of an umbrella when it's raining several times before finally giving in.
- Dude, He's Like, in a Coma!: Ueno kisses Ishida while he's in a coma.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Ueno was the first of Ishida's classmates to throw him under the bus and blame him for bullying Nishimiya.
- Everyone Has Standards: When all the baggage comes out in the present concerning the bullying of Nishimiya in elementary school, Ueno is shown to have little patience for Kawai's Wounded Gazelle Gambit and calls her out on it.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: She doesn't understand that Nishimiya genuinely hates herself and doesn't think ill of her despite everything. This changes by the end of the manga following a Heel Realization.
- Exact Words: She tells Shoya that since she and Shouko hated the same thing, and thus thought they could connect, while trying to make it seem as though she made a good faith effort to befriend Shouko. The thing they both hate is Shouko herself.
- Food Slap: When Shoya confronts her over slapping Shoko, Ueno throws her ice cream cone at him and storms off.
- Golden Mean Fallacy: She attempts to invoke this when she has a serious talk to Nishimiya, suggesting that they just both admit they hate each other and get on with their lives — if Nishimiya hates her, then she feels she doesn't have to feel bad about the way she's treated her because they're "both at fault". This is why Nishimiya's answer that she hates herself makes Ueno so angry; this gives her no way to easily shrug off her guilt.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Her resentment of Shoko largely stems from jealousy, with her wrongly thinking that she's only pretending to be weak in order to get Shoya's attention.
- Hate Sink: Gets invoked in-universe; as Ishida opens himself up to his classmates his mental blocks on their face peels away. Because of Ueno's hostile personality towards Nishimiya, it tends to come back repeatedly. It's downplayed in the manga after her Heel–Face Turn (see below) and by the end, she has all but been supplanted by Miki in this category.
- Heel–Face Turn: In the manga, she makes peace with Nishimiya after it becomes clear that she's "lost" to her for Ishida's heart and joins Nishimiya's friend Sahara in a modeling career.
- Heel Realization: Sahara is her Only Friend. Ueno also slaps Sahara when the other girl protects Shoko from her. After she's cooled off, Ueno is sorry and doesn't understand why Sahara says they'll still be friends. She also remarks that she hates herself and that maybe Shoko really is similar to her in that regard.
- Hopeless Suitor: She lost any chance to win over Ishida's affections the moment he started to bond with Nishimiya. It's partly her own fault for how terribly she has handled her relationship with him, even if she doesn't want to admit it.
- If I Can't Have You…: A mildly tamer version of this. In Chapter 50, Ueno claims that she would rather have Ishida never wake up from his coma than have him pick Nishimiya over her.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: In Chapter 61, she relinquishes any hopes of a romantic union with Ishida and instead gives him a subtle cue that Shoko likes him and that he should reciprocate those feelings given that he clearly feels the same toward her.
- Jerkass: Participated in bullying Nishimiya, but unlike Ishida, shows no remorse for it. She also puts down Sahara from time to time, and harshly insults Nagatsuka when a mix-up leads to him thinking she was interested in him. Later, she, too, has the nerve to address Nishimiya's mother condescendingly.note
- Jerkass Has a Point: Most of her scenes:
- As inexcusable as her later treatment to Shoko was, Naoka was completely right that her teacher expecting her to solely assist Shoko in all her notes, and thus fall behind herself, was unreasonable.
- Though he doesn't see it when she says it, Naoka is right when she tells Shoya he's not that different from her, it's especially clear in her spotlight chapter, where it's revealed that she wants to atone for her elementary school regrets, like Shoya.
- She also sees through Shoko's Stepford Smiler facade and points it out to her.
- Naoka also deserves credit for being the first to call out Miki on her shit, especially for pinning the blame of the bullying Shoko in elementary school on Shoya, and never admitting she played a role (Even Naoka said in the bridge scene that they all had a role in it).
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: At first she seems remorseful for bullying Nishimiya and even attends an amusement park with her. However, this was just an opportunity for Ueno to be cruel to Nishimiya again. Except even this isn't all that it seems; Ueno is mostly trying to get Ishida and Shimada to be friends again.
- Karma Houdini: In the film adaption, Naoka suffers zero consequences for her bullying, selling out Shoya for it to save herself, and callousness towards her actions five years later. Her beatdown from Yeako after assaulting Shoko is replaced with one slap and an equally matched catfight, and her pain of "losing" Shoya is also significantly downplayed as her feelings for him are not nearly as explored, whereas in the manga she's had feelings for him since childhood. The worst she gets is a slap on the wrist by being mildly embarrassed in front of the group at the very end for messing up at sign language, which is Played for Laughs and part of a mild Pet the Dog moment.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: In the manga, she is never punished for bullying Shoko and throwing Shoya under the bus for it in her childhood, but later in her teenage years, she's plagued with self-loathing for not doing anything to stop the bullying Shoya faced after being scapegoated, and because of how bad she handled her relationship with him, as well as her delusional Self-Serving Memory of Shoko being the root of everything that went wrong, she loses any chance to win his heart to Shoko and has to learn to accept it if she wants to have some kind of relationship with Shoya, which prompts a Heel–Face Turn. Oh, and Ms. Nishimiya beats her up badly in front of her friends, which forces Ueno to have a Heel Realization when she finds herself smacking Sahara in the middle of the melee.
- Kick the Dog: Yes, Ueno. You go on and beat up a suicidal deaf girl who is literally at the lowest point of her life and tell her You Should Have Died Instead. That certainly isn't going to worsen her already rock bottom self-esteem, self-loathing, and non-existent self-worth in any way whatsoever!
- It's much worse in the film version, as in the manga this moment occurs due to Ueno having a lapse in emotional and mental stability due to what has happened to Shouya after he'd gotten closer to Nishimiya (which is still unjustifiable but at least understandable) plus followed a period of time where she had been genuinely trying to hold a truce with Nishimiya regardless, and is met with much harsher physical retaliation from Nishimiya's mother than just a slap, but in the movie it comes off as entirely unprovoked and not really dealt with appropriately, with Ueno still remorseless about her actions and playing the victim by continuing to blame the Nishiyamas instead of having the My God, What Have I Done? reaction that she had in the manga.
- Lack of Empathy: For Shoko, whom she unjustifiably blames for all the problems that befall the rest of the cast even though Shoko was the victim.
- Male Gaze: Naoka gets a bunch of leg and thigh shots in the film for no other reason besides Fanservice, there's also this
in the manga. - My God, What Have I Done?: In the manga, Ueno actually realizes just what a moral line she'd crossed in her physical and verbal beatdown of Nishimiya outside the hospital once her rage has subsided, driving her into a state of emotional anguish that it takes a good while for her to overcome.
- Never My Fault: She blames Nishimiya as the reason she has grown apart from Ishida, even though Ueno is one of those who ostracized him to escape the consequences of participating in Nishimiya's bullying. She gets out of this in the manga, acknowledging toward the end that she still hated Nishimiya due to jealousy but that this doesn't justify anything she put her through and that she alone is the reason she and Ishida grew apart beyond the possibility of a romantic relationship.
- "Not So Different" Remark: To Ishida in the present. As he does to Nishimiya, Naoka tries to reconnect Ishida with old classmates from elementary school and regrets watching him get bullied in the past. This is point-blank invoked when he realizes she's doing exactly what he was doing to Nishimiya, and she tells him in response that they're more alike than he thinks.
- Not Quite the Right Thing: She nurses Shoya back to health all by herself after he falls into a coma, but she also locked everyone else outside to take care of him by herself. Invoked in-universe by Miki when Shoya finds this out, and when he tells Naoka he knows she visited him, Miki tries to point out that isn't the full truth, but Satoshi stops her.Miki: But Ishida-kun she-...
Satoshi: Oh, it's fine for now, don't you think? - Pet the Dog:
- Her Unbroken Vigil at Ishida's bedside, even accepting help from Nishimiya and eventually making peace with her.
- Also, her learning sign language to better communicate with Shoko, even if in a Tsundere way. In the manga, the friendship and later professional partnership she develops with Sahara also qualifies.
- Earlier in the manga, Shoko writes an honest letter explaining her feelings to Ueno following their ferris wheel confrontation. Ueno actually accepts this and holds a truce with Shoko for a long time afterward. Unfortunately, this all gets undone following Shoko's attempted suicide, with Ueno even ending up accusing Shoko of lying in that letter.
- Psychological Projection: Ueno is deeply remorseful about abandoning Shoya, her childhood crush, but deals with these feelings by projecting onto Shoko and insisting that she was the cause of what happened. Ironically, Shoko basically agreeing with her due to her lack of self-worth just infuriates Ueno even more.
- Psychopathic Womanchild: Her callous, spiteful and entitled behavior makes it clear she hasn't matured at all since grade school, as though her long unresolved guilt at throwing Shoya under the bus stunted her growth.
- Self-Serving Memory: Ueno blames Nishimiya's "snitching" to the adults as the reason why Ishida ends up getting ostracized from the others. This conveniently ignores that Ueno also played a role in Nishimiya's bullying and she was quick to divert the blame onto Ishida. Also qualifies as Psychological Projection in the manga, as Ueno comes to realize.
- Shadow Archetype: Ishida has changed, Ueno hasn't. If anything, she's become worse. She now represents a lot of what Ishida hates about his past. It's doubled down on when it's revealed that feelings of remorse are behind both Ishida's change and Ueno's lack of change — Ishida's remorse for bullying Nishimiya helped change him, while Ueno's feelings of remorse for abandoning Ishida caused her to shift blame onto Nishimiya to avoid actually dealing with these feelings and her culpability in it.
- Took a Level in Kindness: She goes from Jerkass to genuine Jerk with a Heart of Gold status at the end of the manga following her Heel–Face Turn.
- Tsundere: Harsh type. She still likes Ishida but sucks at expressing it and is too proud to admit her own fault in their estrangement. Also, she likes to stick with the abrasive attitude even when it's obvious that she has developed some genuine fondness for Nishimiya. Exemplified in the film by her learning sign language just to call Nishimiya an idiot, then blushing when Nishimiya is happy about this and corrects her on her spelling of the word.
- The Unapologetic: Years later, she still doesn't think she was wrong to bully Nishimiya. This does end up changing in the manga, with her admitting in the penultimate chapter that she's been "an awful person" for all that she's done to Nishimiya.
- Unbroken Vigil: While Ishida is in hospital, she stays in his room to care for him, but doesn't want him to know it.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: With Sahara. The vitriol comes from Ueno disliking Nishimiya while Sahara does. It becomes more playful after Ueno makes peace with Nishimiya, and ultimately, she and Sahara end up as partners in a professional career.
- You Should Have Died Instead: When Ishida nearly gets himself killed saving Nishimiya from committing suicide, Ueno tells Nishimiya she should have died instead.
Miyoko Sahara
- Voiced by: Yui Ishikawa (Japanese), Melissa Hope, Catie Harvey (child) (English)
A kind girl from Ishida and Nishimiya's elementary school. She was the only person willing to make an effort to learn sign language and befriend Nishimiya, however, this singled her out for bullying too and started to take all her classes in the nurse's office. Ishida finds Sahara several years later so she can reconnect with Nishimiya and she becomes her friend again.
- Ambiguously Bi: In the manga, the nature of her relationship with Ueno at the end is highly questionable.
- Bifauxnen: She gives Yuzuru a run for her money in this department.
- Dirty Coward: Shoya calls her this during his "The Reason You Suck" Speech. He accurately notes that at least he was making an effort to fix his problems; all Saraha did was run away and become an Extreme Doormat, refusing to show she had a spine. Sahara considers this may be true after learning that Shoya saved Shoko from a suicide attempt and is shaken to realize she may have stood there and done nothing, going Deer in the Headlights.
- Grew a Spine: Shoya disparagingly points out that Sahara lacks the ability to stand up for anyone, least of all herself, and she runs when the going gets tough. After Shoya ends up comatose, Sahara in a case of O.O.C. Is Serious Business stands up to Ueno when the latter was beating up Shoko and shields the latter from some of the blows. Everyone is appropriately shocked. Then she goes to seek out a remorseful Ueno and tell her there's no hard feelings.
- Huge Schoolgirl: She's shown to have grown quite tall when Ishida meets her again as a high-schooler. And she wears heels on top of that.
- I Got Bigger: When Ishida meets her again in high school, she's grown a lot taller.
- Nice Girl: Compared to the rest of the cast, one of the most kind-hearted and well-meaning characters in the series. Back in elementary school, she was the only one who tried to reach out to Nishimiya by volunteering to learn sign language.
- Statuesque Stunner: She's fairly tall, and it shows when she's modeling.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: With Ueno. The vitriol comes from Ueno disliking Nishimiya while Sahara does. It becomes more playful after Ueno makes peace with Nishimiya, and ultimately she and Sahara end up as partners in a professional career.
- What You Are in the Dark: Sahara struggles with this question in her spotlight chapter. For all that she is unquestionably the nicest peer Nishimiya had in middle school, Sahara was hurt so badly by being taunted by classmates that she just hid in the nurse's office for much of the year, as opposed to standing up for Nishimiya. She also feels guilty that she never sought out Nishimiya after the latter transferred or asked Nishimiya how she was holding up. She explicitly compares herself to Ishida, who she felt made that effort in the present day despite what he had done. She also questions herself as to what would have happened if she had been there instead of Ishida when Nishimiya attempted suicide. She doesn't have a satisfying answer to that.
Miki Kawai
- Voiced by: Megumi Han (Japanese), Amber Lee Connors, Annabelle Corigliano (child) (English)
A girl who was the Class Representative at Ishida's elementary school. Kawai's accusation of Ishida being a bully is a catalyst to his isolation among his classmates. Kawai becomes Ishida's classmate again in high school and takes part in Nagatsuka's film shooting, bringing Mashiba, whom she has a crush on, in tow.
- Academic Alpha Bitch: Ishida sees Kawai as one, and he has plenty of reason to think this, considering that most of Kawai's actions are made with her academic reputation in mind.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Kawai comes off as a much worse person in the manga than in the movie, because in the manga, we see Kawai joining in on Nishimiya's bullying by laughing along with it, so Kawai looks like a hypocrite when she cries about her innocence later. But in the movie, we really only see Kawai being nice to Nishimiya, so the only real hint of Kawai's original manga characterization is when she gets Ishida in trouble by telling everyone about his past misdeeds, which can still be interpreted as her simply being scared of being tarred with Guilt by Association by her peers, so Kawai comes off as much nicer in the movie.
- Beauty Is Bad: As Kawai grows closer to Mashiba, she begins wearing contacts and her hair down. After Ishida calls her out for not being that different from him, she begins to realize her classmates also see her as insincere, she returns to her original hairstyle.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She feigns innocence when pressed on her role in bullying Nishimiya. Then again, as later chapters show, she has a major Self-Serving Memory regarding her childhood.
- Break the Haughty: After been such a self-serving narcissist for the entire series, Kawai starts getting bullied by her classmates when she tells the class that they will make paper cranes as a wish of recovery for Ishida, who is hospitalized after saving Nishimiya. She quickly breaks down at having to experience the feeling of getting bullied for the first time and Kawai resolves to become more empathetic with others from now on.
- Class Representative: In their elementary school class and in their high school one.
- Crocodile Tears: When everyone turned on Ishida in elementary school, she immediately turned on the tears when he tried to bring up how she let the bullying happen. In a later chapter, when Ishida again brings up how she was just as bad as him, she turns on the tears and announces to the entire class that Ishida was the one who bullied Nishimiya.
- Everyone Has Standards: She, of all people, is the one to call Naoka out on locking everyone outside of Shoya's hospital room when he's in a coma, overlaps with Jerkass Has a Point.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Of all the characters who bullied Nishimiya, she was the only one who didn't understand why the others felt remorse, nor does she understands why she should.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: She seems to fit the image of a sweet girl with glasses at first glance, but it's later made clear that she's actually a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who's hypocritical, self-centered and refuses to acknowledge that she played a part in bullying Nishimiya.
- Hate Sink: Both she and Ueno refuse to acknowledge their parts in bullying Nishimiya. While Ueno eventually realizes how she's projecting her own insecurities onto Nishimiya and has a Heel–Face Turn, Kawai also realizes that she's not as innocent as she thought but never really tries to move beyond that, making her more unlikeable. This doesn't apply in the film, where she doesn't join in on the bullying.
- Heel–Face Turn: Downplayed unlike Naoka. She ends the manga deciding to love her own flaws along with her self-acceptance, fitting for such a static, self-motivated character. After her aforementioned Break the Haughty, the only real change at all she undergoes is pledging to become more empathetic to people who are bullied.
- Hopeless Suitor: She has a huge crush on Mashiba, but at first he doesn't notice and later he's not interested in a relationship.
- Hypocrite: "Please, don't fabricate memories! Face the truth!" So says Kawai, who, unlike Ishida, refuses to accept her role in Nishimiya's bullying. Almost immediately after, at the bridge, she shouts that she never insulted anyone. When Nagatsuka tries to calm everyone down, Kawai immediately calls him a disgusting blob.
- I Reject Your Reality: In the manga, Kawai's refusal to acknowledge or accept and responsibility for bullying Shouko arguably makes her the worst of the group. It's later shown she can't even acknowledge it to herself, making her rejection of the truth delusional.
- Ignored Epiphany: Late in the manga, she almost has a Heel Realization moment regarding her past bullying of Shouko, but she either doesn't realize just how bad she was, or her mind won't let her.
- It's All About Me: In Kawai's perspective, the whole world revolves around her and everyone should adore her.
- Karma Houdini: The worst Kawai gets is realizing that other students are bullying and talking about her behind her back for having the class make paper cranes for Ishida while he's in a coma, fitting given that she tossed him under the bus for everyone else to demonize not that long prior. To Kawai, this is a Break the Haughty moment that causes her to pull a minor Heel–Face Turn as it causes her to internally flip out; to the audience, this is a slap on the wrist compared to the kind of treatment and hell the rest of the main characters go through even despite her direct involvement in it all.
- Narcissist: A textbook case. She has a strong need to be seen as important and to be admired, claiming that she works and studies harder than everyone else, and so shouldn't be seen as anything less than great by her classmates. She is bothered when people talk badly about her, thinking that it must be because they are jealous of the relationship she has with her crush. She also believes that she was bullied back in elementary school, just like Nishimiya was, even though in reality she was a bystander who laughed at the bullying and was responsible for turning Ishida into the class scapegoat. But, of course, Kawai appears incapable of acknowledging these flaws, and ultimately believes she can do no wrong.
- Never My Fault: Refuses to admit to any culpability in Shoko's bullying. Even during her Heel Realization she only goes so far as to think she might not be as innocent as she thought.
- Nice Girl: Subverted in the Manga but played straight in the movie where she is nothing but friendly to Shoko.
- Self-Serving Memory: Her memories of past events include her being completely supportive of Nishimiya, trying to stop the bullying against her, being bullied by Ishida herself, later being bullied by Ueno, and in general being the perfect child. Even if you accept that she wasn't actively bullying Nishimiya in middle school, she did laugh along with the bullying, has been a complete Jerkass to Nagatsuka, and slaps Nishimiya when the latter is trying to think of a way to make things better.
Satoshi Mashiba
- Voiced by: Toshiyuki Toyonaga (Japanese), Max Mittelman (English)
A boy who becomes interested in and joins Ishida's group of friends upon learning they are making a movie.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: His toxic Bully Hunter behavior is excised in the film.
- Association Fallacy: In the film version, due to his Bully Hunter status being removed, Ishida's beef with him during the bridge scene is just assuming that he's as bad as Kawai since he's the target of her affections who's serving as moral support for her in that moment, a judgement that Mashiba clearly resents.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: Had thick eyebrows in his youth, which he got teased for.
- Bully Hunter: Has a great disdain for bullies, becoming violent if he suspects that someone is engaging in the act due to being picked on when he was younger for his thick eyebrows. This later gets deconstructed in his spotlight chapter where it reveals he has a total complex about it and has trouble moving on for those who slighted him in the past.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Mashiba is one of the classmates that Ishida thinks about early on when he muses at his solitary life before apologizing to Shoko, though his face (like most people's) is obscured by an X.
- Hidden Depths: Seems like a regular popular guy at first, but it's later shown that he can't stand for bullying, having been on the receiving end of it in the past. He also proves to be a pretty good actor, surprising Shoya when the latter see the completed movie.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: A mundane version — Mashiba has heavily internalized his issues with his appearance and how it led to being bullied, and he wants nothing more than to be considered just another guy. The reason he reaches out to Ishida multiple times (the first even before Ishida starts opening up to others) is that Ishida is even stranger, and Mashiba wants to feel normal by comparison. Mashiba deconstructs this attitude in his spotlight chapter.
- Jerkass Realization: He's not pleased when having punched Shoya when the latter said his behavior was toxic. What's more, Shoya redeemed himself by saving Shoko's life, and the last thing Mashiba did was treat him with hostility.
- Knight Templar: He's such an avid Bully Hunter that he punches Ishida square on the jaw when Ishida admits his past bullying of Shoko out loud. He has a minor My God, What Have I Done? reaction to this in his spotlight chapter, when he realizes that this behavior is leaving him feeling as empty as when he was bullied.
- Oblivious to Love: He is oblivious to Kawai's crush on him until Ishida pointed it out.
- Tranquil Fury: While he has strong reactions to bullying, he does it with a calm expression.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: He delivers one of these to Ishida when the latter has emerged from his coma and has hidden in the bathroom rather than face their classmates. He never once criticizes Ishida for what he's done and in fact points out that Ishida has never insulted him. This gives Ishida the courage to come forward and start facing first Mashiba, then the rest of his friends, then the school.
Miyako Ishida
- Voiced by: Satsuki Yukino (Japanese), Sara Cravens (English)
The kind and loving single mother of Shoya and his older sister who owns a hair salon.
- '80s Hair: Miayko sports a 1980s Ziggy Stardust-styled mullet that's dyed blonde.
- Anger Born of Worry: The one time she gets really angry at her son is when she realized he was planning to commit suicide. She even threatens to burn all the money he saved up to repay her if he tries to kill himself again (she accidentally burns the money anyway).
- Ear Ache: Yaeko yanks off one of her earrings in anger after the latter's apology for her son's bullying off-screen. When Miyako appears to Ishida afterward, her earlobe is torn and bleeding. Years later, Ishida briefly remembers Miyako's torn earlobe and feels guilty for what his actions put her through.
- Good Parents: She's a very loving mother to Shoya and she never gets angry at him or blames him for the troubles all his bullying brought to her. She also frequently looks after her granddaughter Maria while Shoya's sister is at work.
- Morality Chain: She starts being one to Shoya after she goes into debt to pay for Shoko's hearing aids, which Shoya damaged. Shoya feels really guilty about how much she had to spend, especially since it takes a decade for him to make back the money. He immediately stops planning to kill himself when she yells at him for even thinking about it.
- Mum Looks Like a Sister: She's actually a grandmother, and yet she doesn't look much older than her teenage son. It doesn't help that her hair is dyed and cut in a way that makes her look even younger.
- Nice Girl: She's a very kind and motherly woman.
- Parents as People: She's too busy at work and oblivious that her son wanted to commit suicide and when Shoya fell into a coma, she was so overwhelmed by the situation that she doesn't know what to do.
- Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: In a Mama Bear fashion, she tells Shoya all the money he earned doesn't matter if he's going to kill himself. And even after she burns the money by accident, Miyako maintains that stance.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- In the anime, she got a call from school that her son caused injuries and damaged hearing aids belonging to another student. Cue her coming home in a fury and making Shoya tell her what the hell happened.
- When she realized her son had been planning to commit suicide, she absolutely rips into him, screaming to high heaven at him for even thinking of doing so and completely freaks out Ishida.
Yaeko Nishimiya
- Voiced by: Akiko Hiramatsu (Japanese), Lipica Shah (English)
Shoko and Yuzuru's stern mother.
- Adaptational Heroism: The anime cuts out her keeping Shoko in school to toughen her up. As a result, she comes off as an overprotective mom when seeing Shoya again as a teenager.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: She's very authoritarian, emotionally detached, and shows complete disdain for Ishida. However, after her mother's death, she begins to warm up to Ishida and thanks him for being Yuzuru's friend.
- Demoted to Extra: Yaeko arguably gets hits the hardest by Kyoani's cuts made to the film adaptation; Yaeko's entire Parents as People side plot and her eventual forgiveness towards Ishida gets entirely Adapted Out.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: She realized that Shoko couldn't tough out the school bullying when Shoya damaged 3 million yen worth of her hearing aids to the point where she was bleeding, after insisting that the bullying would make her stronger. For the first time ever, she defended her by demanding compensation from Shoya's mother and an apology, as well as pulling Shoko out of school after hearing that she did fight back and bit Shoya in response. It was too late; Shoko communicated to Yuzuru that she was suicidal, and Yuzuru called out her mother for being so cruel and cold. Since then, Ms. Nishimiya has tried her best to make amends but neither of the girls trusts her, and she's not even aware that Shoko was contemplating suicide.
- Heel Realization: She got one when Yuzuru not only called her out for failing to protect Shoko, but also refused to forgive her for years on end. This made their relationship frosty, even as Yaeko proved she was better.
- Mama Bear: She'll always protect her daughters' well-being whenever it's necessary, after some Character Development. She does not take too kindly to Shoya reentering in Shoko's life after he bullied her in elementary school, smacking him in the face, and she advises her daughters to stay away from him. A big one is where she fought against Ueno when the latter was beating up Shoko.
- Misery Builds Character: Deconstructed. When she found out about Shoko's issues with bullying, she refused to pull her out of school and made her put up with it, thinking it would toughen her up. All it succeeded in doing was ruining several million yen worth of hearing aids, leaving Shoko suicidal, and ruining her relationship with both her daughters for years.
- Parents as People: She was well-meaning, but harsh to her daughters to toughen them up, resulting in friction between her and her daughters, especially Yuzuru. She got a Heel Realization about this when Yuzuru called her out for not actually being a parent. Part of her tragedy stems from her taking care of her two daughters after her ex-husband left her and she's doing what she feels will protect her daughters from being bullied, especially Shoko who was born deaf.
- Perpetual Frowner: She's always scowling in the film. Not that she has many reasons to be happy.
- Tough Love: She made Shoko stay at the elementary school where she was bullied for so long in the hopes it would toughen her up and prepare her for how people would treat her. It didn't work, and Yuzuru holds this against her for years.
Minor Characters
Kazuki Shimada
- Voiced by: Ryo Nishitani, Sachiko Kojima (child) (Japanese), Michael Sinterniklaas, Spencer Rosen (child) (English)
Ishida's best friend in elementary school. He helped him bully Nishimiya. When Nishimiya moved away, Shimada placed all the blame on Ishida and soon became the ringleader of the people bullying Ishida.
- Bully Turned Buddy: Inverted. He was friends with Shoya in elementary school until he starts bullying him after the latter is made a scapegoat for the class.
- Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Although it might be due to the artist's design choice, Shimada seems to always have a blank look in his eyes regardless of expression.
- I Was Just Passing Through: How he and Hirose treat pulling Ishida out of the water before he drowned. They were actually just following him to cause trouble when they spotted him in the end.
- Fair-Weather Friend: He and Hirose only hung out with Ishida because it was merely "fun", and they were quick to abandon Ishida when the latter's bullying went too far. Near the end of the series, Ishida himself admits to Ueno that he never really knew Shimada beyond surface interests.
- Karma Houdini: He and Hirose suffer absolutely no consequences for bullying Nishimiya and later Ishida, especially when they go out of their way to make Ishida as friendless as possible.
- Pet the Dog:
- After Ishida was outed as a scapegoat, Shimada stops bullying Shoko altogether; and that was before she transferred out of the school. He does this again for Shoko when she couldn't communicate with the police properly.
- He (along with Hirose) saves Ishida from drowning and later ask if he really wants to be acknowledged by the arrogant movie judge.
- Tsundere: Maybe, despite his ended friendship with Ishida. He lightly chuckles when he sees that Ishida is having fun with the others at the amusement park, though he quickly becomes stone-faced when the latter actually notices him, then coldly tells Ueno to mind her own business once he correctly deduces that she led Ishida there in the hopes of getting the two to meet. Much later, when Ishida is about to try to convince the judges to watch their movie again, he tiredly chides Ishida by calling him a lame-ass, yet also brings up a point for his benefit: "Do you really want the praise of that sort of asshole?"
- Then there's the fact that despite following Ishida from the festival to see what he was doing for the sake of sheer amusement, he DID work with Hirose to save their old friend from death after he fell from the balcony while saving Nishimiya. He requests that Nishimiya, who witnesses him at the scene, not tell Ishida that he was there.
- We Used to Be Friends: He used to be friends with Ishida, but wasted no time in bullying and turning on him afterward.
- What You Are in the Dark: While he and Keisuke were fair weather friends to Ishida and quickly turned into his bullies after he became The Scapegoat, the two of them don't want Ishida to die, and have standards. So after following Ishida thinking they'd see something funny, they're quickly horrified when he falls into the river unconscious and quickly rush to his aid, pulling him out and saving his life. Nishimiya, who witnessed this, they ask to keep quiet about it since they know they don't deserve any praise after the crap they did to Shoya, and they default to the excuse of I Was Just Passing Through when asked.
Keisuke Hirose
- Voiced by: Takuya Masumoto, Hana Takeda (child) (Japanese), Brian Berkele (child) (English)
Ishida's other best friend in elementary school. Like Shimada, Hirose shunned his friendship with Ishida and bullied him for having bullied Nishimiya.
- Babies Ever After: No, really. In the Distant Finale, his kid actually walks right into Ishida's leg before moving on towards him and his wife. (Keen-eyed readers will notice that the woman he is with looks like a slightly older version of the girl that was in his avatar picture when Ueno texted him after Ishida's accident, which would indicate a high-school romance between the two.)
- Bully Turned Buddy: Inverted. Along with Shimada, he too was friends with Shoya until the latter is made a scapegoat in the class, thus bullying his former friend in return.
- Fair-Weather Friend: He and Shimada only hung out with Ishida because it was merely "fun", and they were quick to abandon Ishida when the latter's bullying went too far. Near the end of the series, Ishida himself admits to Ueno that he never really knew Hirose beyond surface interests.
- I Was Just Passing Through: How he and Shimada treat pulling Ishida out of the water before he drowned. They were actually just following him to cause trouble when they spotted him in the end.
- Karma Houdini: He and Shimada suffer absolutely no consequences for bullying Nishimiya and later Ishida, especially when they go out of their way to make Ishida as friendless as possible.
- Pet the Dog:
- After Ishida was outed as a scapegoat, Hirose stops bullying Shoko altogether; and that was before she transferred out of the school.
- He (along with Shimada) saves Ishida from drowning.
- We Used to Be Friends: He used to be friends with Ishida, but wasted no time in bullying and turning on him afterward.
- What You Are in the Dark: While he and Kazuki were fair weather friends to Ishida and quickly turned into his bullies after he became The Scapegoat, the two of them don't want Ishida to die, and have standards. So after following Ishida thinking they'd see something funny, they're quickly horrified when he falls into the river unconscious and quickly rush to his aid, pulling him out and saving his life. Nishimiya, who witnessed this, they ask to keep quiet about it since they know they don't deserve any praise after the crap they did to Shoya, and they default to the excuse of I Was Just Passing Through when asked.
Takeuchi-sensei
- Voiced by: Fuminori Komatsu (Japanese), Marc Diraison (English)
Ishida's teacher at elementary school.
- Adaptational Heroism: The manga depicts him as being half-assed in his attempts to stop Nishimiya's bullying and eventually stopping altogether before the crap hits the fan and he cues the class to make Ishida a scapegoat. In the movie adaptation, however, he sternly tells Ishida off every time he catches him antagonizing Nishimiya without fail. By the time things get ugly, he is seething in Tranquil Fury and seems to more so be trying to make Ishida take responsibility for what he's done like a man rather than looking for an easy target to pass the blame off to.
- Apathetic Teacher: In a nutshell. He doesn't encourage the bullying, but he doesn't step in to stop it until the principal got involved. And once Ishida started getting bullied, he tells him that he brought it on himself for everything he did.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He wears glasses and is arguably the biggest Jerkass in the manga.
- Hate Sink: Rivals Naoka and Miki in this regard. It's bad enough that he has no regrets over his halfhearted response to and later outright complicity in Shoko being bullied, but he has the gall to suggest that the Nishimiyas are faking Shoko's disability as a con and to claim that Shoya being scapegoated was good for him.
- Hypocrite: His early lecture about morality to a young Shoya falls flat once his Apathetic Teacher traits come out.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- He points out that he did tell Ishida to stop (at first) and that it's his responsibility for setting an example for the others by bullying her to relieve his boredom.
- He also points out to Ishida that regardless if Shimada and Hirose were actually bullying him (which is correct), the boy had no right to judge his former friends considering his own actions towards Nishimiya.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: Mashiba makes him face it when he hears the teacher saying that Shoya getting bullied turned him into a better person.
- Perpetual Frowner: He's mostly seen with a dull expression, and whenever he actually smiles in the current time, it's notably filled with condescension.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: He started this way. But once he started getting tired of slowing down the class to deal with Nishimiya, he starts letting Ishida's actions slide to the point where he just outright ignores the bully until the Principal of the school threatens to have the police get involved in investigating why so many of her hearing aids were being destroyed. Then he promptly turns on Ishida. And then, after five years, he states that the bullying was good for him in the end.
- The Stoic: Nothing really seems to faze him, even when Mashiba splashes his water bottle at the man's face after giving a brief No Sympathy lecture about the disabled.
- Suddenly Shouting: He only does this twice, and that was yelling at Ishida to stand up when the latter's bullying went too far and scold him for (rightfully) pointing out that nobody had a problem with what he was doing.
- Would Hurt a Child: Not directly, but the fact that he made Shoya a scapegoat to avoid the blame for Nishimiya's bullying getting out of hand shows he has no problem with ruining a student's social life.
Ito Nishimiya
- Voiced by: Ikuko Tani (Japanese), Barbara Goodson (Credited as Janis Carol) (English)
Shoko and Yuzuru's maternal grandmother.
- Dead Man Writing: Left a letter behind for Yuzuru to get along with her mother.
- Eyes Always Shut
- Doting Grandparent: Cares for her granddaughters, looking after them when their father left them.
- Granny Classic: She's kind, patient, loving, wise, and practically raised the two girls while their mother worked to provide for the family. Speaking of which, she was the only person who stayed by Shoko's mother's side after her husband and in-laws abandoned her and Shoko. Her death profoundly influences all three Nishimiya women.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: In a story where a character is either a Jerkass or
The Woobie, Shoko and Yuzuru's grandmother is one of the few truly good characters who lends moral support to her granddaughters, especially Yuzuru. Sadly, the last time she's seen is in a framed picture on top of her coffin one chapter after she's introduced.
Maria Ishida
- Voiced by: Erena Kamata (Japanese), AnnaBelle Deaner (English)
Shoya's niece and the daughter of his sister.
- Anime Hair: Her braids are constantly sticking up, and the ends are shaped like crab's claws.
- But Not Too Foreign: Half-Japanese from Shoya's sister's side, half-Brazilian from Pedro's side.
- Cheerful Child: She's a cute and upbeat little kid. The only time she's seen getting truly upset is when she cries in shock when Shoya comes home after waking up from his coma, since she thought he'd died.
- Eyes Always Shut: We never see her with her eyes open.
- Never Bareheaded: She's always seen wearing some kind of hat.
- No Indoor Voice: In the movie, she shouts pretty much all of her lines.
Shoya's Sister
- Voiced by: Ayano Hamaguchi (Japanese), Stephanie Sheh (English)
Shoya's older sister.
- The Faceless: On the few occasions that she appears, she's always drawn such that her face is obscured. The only hint that we have to her appearance is that Shoya mistakes Ueno for her when the former is lying under some blankets.
- Happily Married: To Pedro, a Brazilian.
- Lazy Bum: During her high school days, she's always shown to be napping away.
- No Name Given: The manga never gives us her name, so she's known only as Shoya's sister.
- Really Gets Around: Before meeting Pedro, she's been with 30 other guys according to Shoya, much to the surprise of Shimada.
Pedro
- Voiced by: Ryunosuke Watanuki (Japanese), Chris Jai Alex (English)
The spouse of Shoya's sister, and his brother-in-law.
- Age-Gap Romance: Implied and downplayed, but Pedro does look notably older when dating Shoya's sister, who is a highschool teenager at the time.
- Cool Big Bro: Implied to have been this to Shoya, if his Declaration of Protection is of any indication.
- Dad the Veteran: In the English dub of the movie, his absence is explained by military service, though which military (The Brazilian Armed Forces or the Japan Self-Defense Force) or branch he served in is not mentioned.
- Declaration of Protection: Says that he'll protect Ishida in case he gets assaulted again.
- Disappeared Dad: He's briefly seen earlier in Shoya's childhood and isn't seen for most of the story, with Shoya and the rest of his family looking after his daughter; Maria. Ends up being averted when he shows up in the end, apparently having just been gone job hunting and is expecting a second child with Shoya's sister.
- Happily Married: To Shoya's sister.
- Token Minority: The only Afro-Brazilian man in a cast of Japanese characters.
- Vague Age: It's unknown how old Pedro is when he started dating Shoya's sister, and the amount of wrinkles he has doesn't really help.
