The thread is open, @GB and @Kate.
It has 11 episodes on Viki. All released and subbed.
Here’s the dorama’s (long) recap from Viki.
As high school students, Tsumugi Aoba (Haruna Kawaguchi) and So Sakura (Ren Meguro) shared a keen interest in music. With their interests so similarly aligned, it was only natural for a friendship to blossom between them. Over time, that friendship developed into something deeper, a relationship that might have come to last a lifetime, if not for So’s sudden change of heart.
Calling their relationship off without any warning or reason, So not only broke Tsumugi’s heart, but his immediate disappearance afterward left her completely crushed. Eight years later, Tsumugi may occasionally wonder what happened to So but has, in all other ways, moved on with her life. Now living in Tokyo, Tsumugi works part-time at a large music store where she is free to completely immerse herself in the music she loves so dearly. Perfectly happy with her life, Tsumugi might have eventually forgotten about So completely, if fate hadn’t decided their paths needed to cross once again.
Noticing So at work one day, Tsumugi musters up the courage to approach him, only to find that in the eight years since they last spoke, he has almost completely lost his hearing. With sparks of their old flame beginning to reignite within her heart, will Tsumugi find a way to solidify her place in So’s now-silent world?
A story of fate and second chances, “Silent” is a 2022 Japanese romance drama directed by Hiroki Kazama.
Enjoy the show!
Thank you my dear @pkml3! This is one of those shows I don’t mind rewatching. Poignant, lingering, with some of the nicest protagonists in love triangles. Not a show to be silent about LOL.
🙄 🤫 😑 😂
Many thanks @Packmule3!
This is such a lovely drama – a gem – with very strong performances.
I am looking forward to the discussion!
I’ve been looking for a new drama now that Dr Cha is over (and I finished One Day Off). I look forward to discussing it with you all here!
I have watched a trailer after Easter I think and here is a thread about it.
I don’t know if I am going to watch it right now, but I want to. I have heard nice things about the show.
Hi @Cleo! It would be great if you can join us in watching and commenting here about Silent. I’m rewatching it now and getting the feels. Both sweet and happy feels plus the pathos.
We can hear it in the music which is lovely too. I like the ‘Silent Main Theme’ that is repeated a lot and ‘Subtitle’. Here’s the link to the OST and the Google Translated titles of the tracks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZT4o0U1fds
00:00 – 1. silent snow
03:58 – 2. Important people
07:27 – 3. I want to love you for the rest of my life
10:20 – 4. Favorite voice
14:02 – 5. A Closed Heart
16:59 – 6. I didn’t want to make you sad
21:54 – 7. Silent main theme
27:36 – 8. I loved you, so I wanted you to forget me
30:11 – 9. It would have been better if I had suffered
33:40 – 10. The time spent talking to someone you love was meaningful
36:00 – 11. Discomfort
38:42 – 12. A painful love triangle
42:34 – 13. The main ingredient is kindness
47:07 – 14. Unbearable Feelings
49:54 – 15. Don’t go
53:02 – 16. Secret
55:55 – 17. Love triangle
01:01:58 – 18. Even if we break up
01:05:48 – 19. Love Christmas
01:08:29 – 20. I’m happy just to have you
01:10:50 – 21. I want to deliver this feeling
01:14:35 – 22. silent snow piano
Hope to see you here soon! (I am all over the place with TNONT 1938… will get back to it.) 🙂
Unnie,
I don’t know if I can manage to watch “Silent” at the moment.
I want to finish “Here We Meet Again” and “Tale Of the Nine Tailed 1938” first and then start something new.
When I will watch it though, I will come here to comment. 😊
Thank you for giving me the OST, I will listen to it and then come back to report!
Just looking at the first Episode and there’s so much to think about, to notice, to enjoy. It was a happy-sad but mostly happy episode. All thanks to the sunny attitude of our FL, Tsumugi Aoba.
EPISODE 1
I’m rewatching and noticing more than I did before how the first episode underscores Show’s premise with silence and music and references to being quiet/too loud, liking voices/phone calls/music, being able to get a friend’s attention by calling out to his back. We see a couple able to hold hands and talk There’s a lot we take for granted in terms of being able to hear.
Among the themes/messages being conveyed, this Show definitely speaks up for the disabled and in particular for the hearing impaired. There’s a comment made by the sign-language teacher, Haruo Masaki, about how anyone working with or in relation to those with disabilities is often considered kind or considerate.
This implies that society generally avoids the disabled, has difficulty engaging with them or considers them in a negative light. Much later on we hear that statistically, 80% of the deaf marry another deaf person because hearing people seldom want to be in a relationship with them. Anyone who has any work to do with the disabled is a ‘saint’. But he says even this is a “half-hearted” belief.
This might be true culturally, although I don’t personally notice that sentiment where I am. However it is true that many do avoid the disabled.
= = =
As precursor or foreshadowing of the plight of the young couple, we are first introduce to snow falling silently and to a cheerful Tsumugi Aoba (TA) who enjoys sound, even the sound of silence. She meets Sou Sakura (SS) who’s invariably listening to music with ears buds on. They enjoy chatting about inconsequential things, listening to music and even stop to listen to the silence of the falling snow.
The event that brought SS to TA’s attention was his essay. ‘Words’ which he read aloud to the assembled school. TA was so attracted to him, his voice and the sentiment in his essay that she more or less took the initiative to get to know him better. She even confessed to him first. She gets him to give her his essay which she keeps. In their relationship, they shared many spoken words.
However very painfully at the ‘first’ break-up, there was only a one line text message, that contained a lie, and SS never again spoke to TA.
(To be continued…)
(Continued…)
When TA meets SS again as adults, we get to see what looks like A Second ‘Break-up’. This time SS tried to communicate without success, many words in sign language, when TA did not even know that he could not hear any of the many words she’d said, when she had run after him.
She’s bewildered by his distraught silence. He finally says in sign language: : “I can’t understand you no matter how hard you try. After all, I can’t hear. Don’t talk so joyfully. Don’t smile so happily. I was diagnosed immediately after we graduated. My hearing gradually faded away, and three years ago, I went completely deaf. Now you know why I couldn’t call, and why we broke up, right? (We see later and we know that there are a couple of ways to communicate. But SS was too caught up in his pain to even consider the alternatives he had.)
“I didn’t want to speak to you anymore, Aoba. One day, we wouldn’t be able to have calls. We wouldn’t be able to listen to music together. I wouldn’t be able to hear your voice. Staying together, while knowing all that was too painful. I loved you and that’s why I didn’t want us to meet. I wanted you to hate me. I wanted you to forget about me.”
TA : “I’m sorry. I can’t understand.” She wants to take out paper and pen to write but he continues and she has to stop to look at him.
SS : “You cannot understand what I’m saying, right? We can no longer communicate.”
He walks off and she runs after him to stop him again.
He accuses her of being too loud, and walks away.
The couple who’d talked to each other nineteen to a dozen faced what would have been unthinkable to their teen selves before. They had a communication breakdown that rendered both parties verbally silent.
TA was literally dumbfounded that SS was deaf and that he’d hidden it. She was also perplexed that a person who could speak so well just 8 years previously was now silent. But her tears bring her into a sort of solidarity with him, as he too cries in grief and frustration.
(To be continued…)
(Continued…)
The song lyrics of ‘Subtitle’ (the last song in Episode 1) are particularly poignant because they seem to reflect the emotional distress of SS. The lyrics even mention how words are like snow that melt and disappear, and the beginning of the episode gives us exactly that as the snow of youth gives way to the rain of adulthood.
Knowing what words meant to SS, it was added heartbreak to know that he lost the spoken word as his world slowly became silent.
One version of just a bit of the lyrics on how words are like subtitles:
“Words are like snowflakes, as if I gave you a present
When time passes, most of them overflow from my memory and melt away
Even if they disappear
Like the subtitles that are constantly attached to our stories.
When I look back, when I suddenly look up
I want to keep looking for something that shakes your heart
Until love reaches you more than I love you
just wait a little longer.”
This reminds me of how I chase subtitles in every non-English drama, that keep disappearing faster than I can transcribe them. LOL.
Another translation of the song which may clarify the meaning a bit more has these words:
[Chorus]
Words are like snow crystals
Even though I gave you them as a gift
They would usually overflow, melt away
And disappear from your memory as time goes by
But like subtitles that are always added to our stories
When we remember
When we abruptly take a quick glance
I want to keep looking for things that vibrate your heart
Instead of “I love you,” wait for a little bit
For my love to reach you
We see that in their final high school year which was a year of dating, their times together were marked by many, many words. They spoke on the phone for hours. They liked the sound of each other’s voice. According to the lyrics, these were the words given as a gift to each other but like subtitles attached to the story of their romance, the words and the memory of them melted away. I imagine the song represent Sou’s thoughts in which then he would like to find an alternative to the spoken word, to show that he still loves TA. The song gives us hope.
Nice Aspects of the Production
I like the things this production does to augment the unspoken parts of the story. From the silent snow which young TA enjoys with SS, we come to a blackout of screen, to indicate a shift and see TA waking up to noisy rain with Togawa Minato ( TM ) beside her. The snow and silence however are treated more positively than the rain and its noise. TA disliked the noise of the rain and was happy it stopped. An indication, perhaps, that she would be happy even in silence with SS.
CAMERAWORK, MIRRORING AND REVERSE IMAGES
The Long Take
The camerawork is interesting. We have at least 3 long, continuous takes of the front view of either TA and SS or TA and TM talking as they walk. That means that the camera crew had to precede the actors smoothly down the stairs, along paths or across a road without a break. I thought it was very well done to show how much talking or silence was going on between the protagonists even when they moved. They literally covered a lot of ground together but their topics of conversation were generally inane LOL.
The Dividing Line
When TA and TM walk together along a path, we see that the middle line on the path divides them. Sometimes they come together close enough to hide the middle line but often not. It is temporarily hidden when TA takes TM’s hand. Even when they hold hands and we watch them walking from a distance, the line still divides them. No prizes for understanding what this implies. However this scene includes another long take, this time showcasing how TA feels about SS and TM, and how TM feels about SS.
In addition, I noted that time and again TA and TM failed in their house hunt. They could not even get to view a house together. An indication that they were not meant to be?
(To be continued…)
(Continued…)
Reverse Images / Confession on a Bridge
We get 2 other long continuous takes: first when young TA met SS on a bridge and they chat about snow while enjoying the silence, and again when adult TA comes upon SS unexpectedly and practically chases him across the road to another bridge, chatting non-stop. She did not understand his silence and sought a response from him. Neither one of them was happy with the silence any more.
The first time when they were in high school, SS had playfully complained that TA was too loud and had shushed her. The second time mirrored the first time with TA doing most of the talking, but this time SS responded in sign language and said a lot. However he also ended up telling TA that she was too loud when she ran after him to grab his arm. By ‘too loud’, I’m guessing that SS meant that he felt TA was invading his silent world too suddenly, too forcefully, before he was ready or willing to let her in.
Back in school, TA had also chased after SS to confess to him. She runs up to him from behind and says : “I like you. Please go out with me.”
He didn’t seem to hear her at first because she’d started talking before he knew it and he was listening to music. He asked what she had said but she was too embarrassed to repeat herself.
After talking about liking the group, Spitz, and finding themselves reduced to only saying ‘Uhm.’ in acknowledgement to each other, they seemed to dissolve into silence. But the hallmark of this twosome was that they were not able to be quiet for long.
They start crossing the bridge home and SS takes the initiative (maybe he had heard her the first time and was taking her cue?) and says : “I like you. Go out with me.”
TA stops and it’s her turn to be startled : “Huh?”
SS repeats : “I like you. Go out with me.”
She again says ‘What’ and he asks if he should repeat.
She says no but : “Oh, it’s fine if you say it.” LOL “You’ll say it? You’re saying it? Please say it.”
He laughs.
TA : “Oh wait. Record…Let me record it.”
He looks amused at her trying to get the recording function on her phone.
TA notices his look : “What. I haven’t, like, given my answer.” (So she can read him in his silence.)
SS : “Yeah. Your answer.”
TA : “How should I answer you?”
SS : “You’re asking me to decide for you?”
TA : “Yes, you can decide for me.”
He laughs : ” ‘I look forward to going out with you’, isn’t that it?”
TA repeats with a bow : “I look forward to going out with you.” He laughs, puts his ear buds into her ears and lets her listen to what he’s been playing on his device. He takes her hand and they walk away together.
(To be continued…)
(Reverse Images / Rejection on a Bridge Continued…)
What a great difference 8 years later when they parted. They were again on a bridge. It was more heart-breaking because as kids, the bridge was the place where they had sealed their connection as boyfriend and girlfriend, with the sharing of the ear buds and music.
The reverse took place when adult SS walked away from TA, saying she was too loud. They were not able to communicate. Instead of hearing but not believing each other out of the shock of receiving a love confession, this time they really could not hear each other. Once again TA was telling SS to speak with her… to ‘say it. Please say it.’ But he was only able to sign it to her.
There was no music to share and when SS walked off, he had inadvertently kept TA’s ear bud instead of returning it to her.
In actual fact, when SS had first broken up with TA, he’d done again what as kids, TA had told him to do. “Yes, you can decide for me.” And he had done so by breaking up without consulting her.
What a sharp contrast to the time they had started dating. I feel that for TA, with the memories of the first time also on a bridge, this seemed like the second time she was being rejected. They had come full circle but ended up contradicting all that had brought them together.
The True Silence?
In Sou Sakura’s case, I felt that the silence was not entirely imposed by the disease he had. The true silence was created by Sou himself. Perhaps, as he said, it was too painful to deal with it. He was in denial and refused to admit that he would lose his hearing. He chose not to speak when he could, to preempt his friends, so in the end, no one knew or could be prepared for the shock.
His refusal to inform his closest friends hurt them more than a simple rejection. It was not so much his loss of hearing that was the problem but his attitude towards it and how he judged that others would feel or react. He did not give his friends a chance to learn how to communicate with him. They could have continued with their friendship. Even without hearing there would not be silence if he had not imposed it upon himself and others. He was his own worst enemy when it came to making the silence.
Where Tsumugi Aoba was concerned, I feel that he should not have presumed to decide for her what was best for them. As usual it was a case of taking away her agency when it came to a decision that should have involved both ie whether to weather the storms of the relationship or not.
Worse of all he had broken up unilaterally, using a lie, in a terribly hurtful way, to make her hate him. It was as if she meant so little to him, that she was not even worth meeting face-to-face. Noble idiocy rears its ugly head again.
Fortunately this dire state of the friendship does not last.
SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT
This is poignant and enjoyable with clever pacing of the story and allowing it to unfold in a very realistic and organic way.
I used to watch a lot of Scandinavian dramas and there’s something equally pared down about ‘Silent’.
Where I am finding it more difficult to watch is in the (Ep 4 onwards) sequence where Minato is like a turkey voting for Christmas and letting go of TA.
I think I would find it easier if there was the usual battle of the MLs for the FL. Instead it is as if Minato’s co-dependency and desire to please TA with minimal resistance to her wishes leads, for him at least, organically into his becoming the means by which she is free to choose someone else.
M has created this warm bubble for TA where she even describes him as not being interesting. She can relax. She doesn’t have to be girly. She ‘glows’.
He, on the other hand, carries with him this deep sense of unworthiness and insecurity. Without allowing TA to go through a process of decision-making herself, he does however take the lead on breaking up and makes the decision for both of them. But this decision too is founded on a sense of not being enough to compete for her with SS.
He makes the decision without risking a successful outcome with her. Just as you @GB point out SS did when he hid the real reason for his break up with TA.
TA has this strange/child-like perhaps/ go with the flow attitude to her 3 year relationship with Minato. She is upset but to my mind also not putting up much of a fight to persuade him otherwise.
It feels slightly incongruous to me. As if a key step has been missed in the process.
@GB – I very much like your commentary on the the nice aspects of the production.
Some of your comments seem to be ahead of where i am watching so I will leave them until later.
Have you watched much Scandinavian drama?
I love the way Scandi dramas have that same rather flat, naturalistic presentation of the story. It makes the story breathe – the lack of clutter just like a simply decorated home intensifies the emotional resonance.
@Kate
Pared down is a good way to describe this drama. There’s actually so little about it that’s melodramatic.
As one of @pkml3’s taglines says… ‘all of the drama and none of the drivel/bullshit’ applies to this show too….or all of the story without the melodrama.
That goes for both TM’s and TA’s attitude towards their so-called romance. When I think about them, I feel that I’m already looking at an old married couple. They’ve gotten used to each other and just accept events that happen. They may be upset with the rocking of the boat, but they deal with it undramatically, as if it’s simply the stuff of life, and one just has to get over it and move on. They have none of the selfish, grasping, entitled attitudes that we often expect in a drama, hence perhaps, we sense the incongruous.
I believe we have been primed to expect more melo in our romance dramas with love triangles, but perhaps in real life, love triangles are really more low key. The other thing that TA’s and TM’s attitude calls into question, is the kind of care they have for each other, (not the hot passionate type) and the degree of wanting to be together, plus the reason for it. Did they just slide into it comfortably and decide to go on without bothering to examine it further? Are they, as you say, going with the flow according to societal expectations, but without any burning desire for the expected end result?
I was thinking of looking for more clues about TM’s attitude. I will attempt to write my thoughts on him later with your comments on him in mind.
= = =
I have not actually tried Scandinavian dramas. Your comment on them has me interested, since I do like a lack of clutter, although my full shelves and messy table belie that fact!!!
Have you watched past Episode 4?
Hi @GB,
I’ve finished Ep 5 and will watch the remaining episodes at the weekend.
It may be that I am experiencing it as unrealistic in the context of melodrama… that’s a good point… but I also think that the under-drama of M’s throwing in the towel speaks to his under the surface drama of quiet desperation and anxiety within the relationship as it has evolved.
He takes action in advance of TA expressing her own the desire to be with SS. He works around her to keep things happy and avoid direct rejection.
When she gives him her post-break up assessment of him being ‘not interesting’ but giving her ‘a glow’ and reassures him that she did love him … that felt a bit -unintentionally – clinical (shallow) on her part. I know that is not how it was written or what was intended. She was evaluating the – three year – relationship in the immediate aftermath of splitting up – not wanting to fight to have it back.
Had I been him I would have felt damned with faint praise… but he clearly resonated with her assessment and I am projecting onto this situation.
*in the context of the expectations thrown up by melodramas*
In the light of this …what a poignant memory/recap scene (is it TM remembering this?) in Ep 5 – at 36′ 20”…
They are lying in bed shyly waking up talking about waking up to see one another and talking about getting used to using the familiar versions of their respective names!
Something here too about a naive and incomplete understanding of the stages in relationship? They are in bed committing to working on being close enough to use their pet names!
There is something child-like about their relationship in this sense.
Also loved the final scene in Ep 5 with SS communicating in a literal page turner of a conversation!
@GB … Love this closing credits song! Great taster trailer too…
https://youtu.be/7c8FpxViJQU
Togawa Minato ( TM )
@Kate Because TM has been unlike any 2nd ML in a love triangle that I’ve come across, I’ve been transcribing (such a lengthy process) the thoughts/conversations/scenes to figure him out.
I do agree with you over what you said:
We find out later that this desire to please stemmed more from realising he had nothing in common with TA. They did not like the same things. He just wanted to be kind to go along with what she liked, but it caused him stress, of course, and he was bored.
Instead of the idea of ‘unworthiness’ or ‘not being enough’, I’d peg it to his desire to continue to be kind towards TA and to remove the source of stress in his life.
TA described TM as being practically the epitome of kindness to all others except perhaps towards himself. I can picture him somewhat as the type of ‘husband’ who’d go along with everything and make for a placid married life, however there’s no telling when he might be actually a ticking time bomb and go off, because he’s put himself on the back burner for too long.
His is a difficult personality of not ever being able to put himself first, but at the same time wanting to always be kind. I feel that when he decided to break up and insisted on it, he was actually relieved. He had finally put his own needs first.
The first break-up conversation:
TM : “Even when we started dating, now that I think about it, I felt I was taking advantage of your weakness. You, too, probably thought that any guy would be fine as long as he is kind to you.”
TA : “Minato, I really don’t want to break up.”
TM : “These three years, I’ve always been thinking about it. ‘What if Tsumugi and Sou see each other again right now?’ I’ve always been thinking about it and I think you probably thought about it too. Honestly I have been uneasy all this while.”
She does not want to break up.
TM : “I don’t want to do this anymore. If we continue to be together at this rate, it’s going to be impossible. I won’t be able to be kind to you. To you and to Sou.”
(To be continued…
(TM continued…)
So his big consideration is that he does not want to stop being kind to TA and SS. A strange reason, but a reason, nevertheless. TM is nothing if not kind. It seems like forcing himself to continue when always feeling like the interloper, the one who was not first chosen, who should give up his spot, etc but especially as the one who could no longer be kind towards his friends, was an existential crisis for TM. Under these circumstances there really was no way the relationship would have worked.
I found that from Ep 1 even, TM had been fearful of what would happen if SS returned and TA met him. I was of the simplistic opinion that he was just afraid TA would leave him for SS, but I’m thinking now I was wrong. His fear was more complicated than that as he himself explained above.
I felt that TM’s greater ‘love’ was actually for SS. SS and TM must have spent a lot of time together. TM went to SS’s home so that even Moe, (SS’s sister) could recognise him. TM was so much closer to SS than TA was, which was why SS could speak to him using his voice but couldn’t do so with TA.
When TM confronted SS, his main grouse was that SS had not told him about his illness, because they were close friends, and not because SS had broken TM’s heart or his heart by running away.
TM had been the one in school to help TA get to know SS. It was bitter-sweet for him, but his desire for happiness for his friends seemed to exceed that of wanting it for himself. In fact, it was because he always believed that the greater happiness for TA would be with SS, that he himself could not be happy with her.
Instead of being fully himself with TA, and revealing what he really wanted, he held himself back, and went along with her decisions. In that phone conversation, TA says that she never really knew TM.
TA : “You think that you’re a boring guy, right?… It’s true that you’re not interesting. The music I like, and the movies I like you say nothing about them except, ‘they’re good’. It’s like there’s no purpose in telling me. I don’t know what exactly are the things you like.”
(To be continued…)
(TM continued…)
Instead of taking the opportunity in SS’s absence to let TA get to know him, TM seems to have taken the spot beside TA as a place holder for SS. He was waiting for SS to return, if he would return, in order for things to go back to the way they were.
Hence his great shock and despair when he heard from Moe that SS was deaf. He could not accept it. He remained in denial even after speaking with him using the voice to text translator. We see his denial still when he spoke a second time to Haruo about wanting to call SS by name and to see him turn around.
When he determines that SS is in effect the same person he always was, sans hearing, TM pushes forward his plan to bring about a reunion of SS and TA. (Note he never asks SS if he still loved TA. He seemed to know.)
TM to TA after the first chat with SS : “I’m glad he hasn’t changed. If Sou is the same as always, we need not be so careful around him.”
(In the sameness of SS lies the fact that SS who had liked TA, liked her still. TM understood SS’s sameness to mean this as well.)
TM : “I mean, I’ll always put your needs before everything else.”
TM had indeed done this with a self-sacrificing kindness. He first determined that the girl (Nana) with SS was not his girlfriend. He insisted that TA should go for the Futsal game as interpreter. He got her to wait outside for SS so that they would definitely be together at first.
Then at the game, the moment he saw that TA cared a great deal for SS’s comfort, that she’d been proactive in looking for a Deaf Futsal Club, that she understood SS’s pain and this coupled with how she had learned sign language so earnestly, he decided (a male chauvinistic thing in that culture?) that she would be happier with SS, and immediately put into action the break-up.
(To be continued…)
(TM continued…)
In actual fact, I felt whiplash at this. Just a couple of scenes earlier in Episode 4, TM had spoken with SS.
TM : “Tsumugi is fine. These three years, I’ve been by her side all this while, and she’s totally fine. She’s doing well, as always. You need not worry, Sou.”
(The fact that he stayed away from TA for 5 years and only been with her for 3 years seems to say that his feelings for her were not all that profound. At least not as strong as his attachment to SS, because he had sought out SS in the university but he had not tried to get together with TA.)
TM : “When we first got together, everyone in the soccer team said, ‘Why is it you, of all people?’ ‘You don’t look like a couple.’ But you know, no matter what other people think, Tsumugi and I are together because we love each other. ‘Leave it to me.’ I won’t go so far as to say that. But Tsumugi, right now, is also properly enjoying her life. So don’t worry.”
SS looks a bit sad but smiles and nods at this.
Even closer in time before the break-up, TM was still house-hunting with TA.
TA to TM : “Shall we get an apartment that allows pets?”
TM is not in favour since pets would die after a while. TA tells him that he’d said something similar when they started dating.
TA : “It was about how things come to an end once they’ve started.” (Defeatist way of thinking? He’d begun expecting it to end.)
TA continues : “You said thinking about how things will end in breakup someday, it give you the courage to date a girl. And I thought, ‘Don’t say that to a girl you’ve just started dating’.”
TM : “Well, we didn’t exactly start dating from the get-go, though.”
TA : “That’s true.”
TM : “Even if we break up … assuming we’ve broken up … until that time comes, if there were many moments we enjoyed together, that would be great too, right?” (He’s preparing her to mentally see that they had good times.)
TA is not smiling at this. TM seems to have embarked on dating with its end in mind.
TA : “Yeah. Not breaking up would be the best, right?”
TM : “You’re right.” (Again he’s just agreeing with her… but he may not mean it!! He just wants to create good times with her in preparation for the break-up.)
(To be continued…)
(TM continued…)
However TM was keeping back his true thoughts from TA… I feel he was lying when he looked like he was all for house-hunting and that there was a future for them. There were several instances when he spoke as if the break-up was likely or almost certain when he spoke with others, but he did not want to spoil the good times with TA.
TM meets again, by chance, Haruo, the sign language teacher. Haruo discovers that TM is TA’s boyfriend but he mistakes him to be her younger brother. (This a sign that TM does not look like boyfriend material. Later we will see that even TA says it felt that she had another younger brother in TM.)
Haruo : “TA is working very hard. Apparently she wants to talk to her friend in sign language.” Haruo then realises that the friend that TM had spoken of was probably the mutual friend of TM and TA.
TM : “Yes. He’s the one Tsumugi wants to talk to in sign language.”
Haruo : “And Aoba-san’s boyfriend is …”
TM : “Me. At the moment.” (I note that TM holds the thought that TA would rightly be with SS, if SS came back into their lives.)
Another time … when SS and TM meet up at a café. They stare at each other in silence a while and laugh in embarrassment. TM invites SS to go play futsal at the court of their old school coach.
TM explains that he wondered if things could go back to the way they were.
TM : “If we can go back, ‘I’ll be happy’. This is how I feel.” This again was his wanting to return to their places of the past.
TM over the phone tells TA’s brother, Hikaru that he’d be borrowing TA during the futsal game.
Hikaru: “What do you mean by ‘borrow’?” (This is a hint that TM does not consider that TA belongs to him.)
TM : “I only asked her to be the interpreter. Why don’t you learn to sign too? Tsumugi can teach you.”
Hikaru : “Why are you telling me that?” (Hikaru is particularly sensitive and alert to emotional and social cues.)
TM :”Huh?”
Hikaru : “Why are you asking me to learn sign language?” TM does not answer, but after the fact we can guess it’s because he expected that SS would be Hikaru’s brother-in-law and so Hikaru should prepare by learning sign language.
(To be continued…)
(TM continued…)
The vibe I get from TM is more fatherly-brotherly love, or the kind of love for a pet that needed care. The guys (TM, SS and Hikaru) were of the opinion that TA should be with the one who would meet her needs/make her happy. Isn’t that what even her real brother, Hikaru mistakenly said? He said that TA and TM suited each other and he wanted them to be married already.
What stands out with these 3 men in TA’s life who try to palm her off to someone else for her own good, is that TA herself never is pushed around. She makes her own choices. The great example of this is how being told that SS likes ponytails, TA intentionally decides that she does not need to tie a ponytail before meeting him.
When the Futsal Coach asked TM what SS had said to him when he did locate him in the university.
TM : “Sou said he didn’t need Tsumugi. He said ‘I don’t need Aoba anymore.’ ‘You can take her. I’ll give her to you.’ I was frustrated, so I didn’t go after her at first. But I got my wish.”
TM thinks of something and laughs : “When Tsumugi heard about it, she said, ‘I’m not an object!’ and got angry.” She had protested that she was not an object, but unfortunately the way the men speak of her, still sounds like they treat her as such or some kind of pet or child.
TM told SS at the Futsal game : “Is everyone okay with Tsumugi? Is it awkward seeing her because of me? Look after Tsumugi so that she at least eats and sleeps enough, ok? I don’t think I’ve truly enjoyed the last 3 years. …
…Tsumugi is the cutest by your side.You never knew that, did you? That’s the Tsumugi I always came to see. (It sounds like he visited her like we come to the zoo to see a particular animal. LOL. It also sounds like he thinks she is not as cute when with him. I’d have preferred if he’d said ‘happy’ rather than ‘cute’.)
SS speaks aloud to TM : “I can’t hear.” It’s to protest that he should not be dating TA because he is disabled.
TM : “That’s the only thing, isn’t it? Nothing else is different. Your personality isn’t twisted or anything. But I kind of wish it was. (If SS had a twisted personality, then TM would indeed be doing the kinder deed by staying with TA and it would no longer be stressful because he would no longer want her to be happier with SS.)
TM : “This isn’t really for your sake. If anything, this is for Tsumugi. To be honest, this is for me. I’m just tired. When I see you two, I know what you two are thinking I know what’s in your minds. (presumptuous of him?) I told you, didn’t I? We could all go back. If we could go back, I’d be happy.”
SS says aloud : “Minato.”
TM : “And call her by her name. You call Tsumugi, ‘Tsumugi’ too. It will make her happy.” (He’s all for making TA happy.)
Plagued from the beginning by thoughts that he should never have taken the space vacated by SS, TM has been living under a cloud, stressed out by the thought that when SS returned, things would or should go back to the way they had been. He was also stressed by feeling that he had to go along with what TA wanted, in order to make her happy/be kind.
Getting TA to leave him was a move to give himself stress relief LOL. I have come to the conclusion that with SS back in the picture, still the same and not with a twisted personality (heh!) TM had finally felt able to hand TA to SS as an act of kindness to himself.
The Closure
TM uses the hair clip she’d left behind as an excuse to talk to TA. She told him – as he knew she would – to throw the clip away.
She’s making burger patties but decides to talk to him, remembering that Haruo had said TM did not know she loved him.
TA : “You think that you’re a boring guy, right?… It’s true that you’re not interesting. The music I like, and the movies I like you say nothing about them except, ‘they’re good’. It’s like there’s no purpose in telling me. I don’t know what exactly are the things you like.”
He had never truly revealed himself to her. He gives her no surprises.
“Instead of being my boyfriend, you were my brother… I have a second little brother.” (So the impression he had given Haruo was the same that TA had.)
She tells him that he was like family, that she had really loved him the most in the last 3 years, and bets he didn’t know. He admits that he didn’t. However her love is in the past tense. She was no longer one-sidedly, nor mutually in love. This strange conversation helps TM make closure with himself.
@Kate before going into that strange flashback or memory scene. I noticed how TM is curled in bed with the panda that TA had left behind. In the clothes he wears, he looks like part of the bedsheet pattern… he has hidden his true self so well (from TA) that it’s hard to distinguish him from the bedsheet LOL. He might as well be one with a doormat?
Picture:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19IcGjARhrEN-5KLvPW0TexuLgTMLlrIp/view?usp=drive_link
(Closure continued…)
This seems to be a memory that both TM and TA had after the telephone conversation above.
TM had fallen asleep. In his dream or memory, he woke up and saw that TA had woken next to him.
TM seemed surprised to see her, calling her Aoba instead of Tsumugi : “I always thought I wasn’t the one here.” (IE he was just a stand in for SS. He was not all that close to her and so she was ‘Aoba’ in his mind. However he did what she wanted, he called her ‘Tsumugi’.).
They’d spoken of what they would call each other. She settled on his family name, ‘Minato’ instead of ‘Togawa’. A sign too that she was not quite that intimate with him.
When told her bangs were messy she had put on the fuzzy hair clip. He had commented that it was a cute clip.
The next morning when TM really woke up, we see that he had thrown the clip away, ie the conversation with TA in reality and in the dream had given him resolution during the night.
On her part, TA had told her brother that because their father had praised their mother’s burger patties as cute, she’d always made them in animal shapes.
TA to Hikaru : “The word, ‘cute’ from someone you like is a force to be reckoned with. A mere hair clip from middle school, becomes something you can’t toss out.”
Later that day she’s able to meet SS face-to-face. @Kate, you mentioned the page turner message from SS which includes his joy that she could speak to him in sign and that he could meet old friends and play futsal. It ends with SS saying : “From now on I’ll put all my thoughts from the last 8 years and everything I want to tell you, into proper words. If you’re going to face me earnestly, then I want to be open.” TA tells him she understands and will do the same.
TA who is an enthusiastic but small eater, tells him she’s hungry. At first she has no preference about what to eat but then changes her mind and says they can go eat anything but not hamburgers. Hamburgers would always be associated with TM. So TA after being able to say all that she had to say to TM the previous night, reading what SS had to say and seeing that SS was happy that she was able to communicate with him, also found closure, and moved on with a different sort of meal.
@GB – a wealth of commentary! Thank you. You always go the next mile!
I really like the way you add to the picture of TM’s motivations … he is an unusual character for sure!
I love the way you have re-framed my picture of him to include his highest value being kindness to the other and, at the same time, a peaceful life. If the two are in conflict -kindness and the avoidance of stress, then he chooses to move away from the source of stress.
The parallel with the ‘ticking bomb’ husband is great.
Of course, TM and TA only edged towards the possibility of a stalemate relationship in their three year dating journey.
Again what you said about his desire to please leading him to activities that bore him indicates that he is not easy to please, has preferences and is made of sterner stuff on the inside.
So the picture swivels round if we allow him to be an unusual, if unrealised character who is realising himself as a result of not being fully happy in a relationship with his long-term crush (who was part of the envied, beautiful couple at school and someone to aspire to). He always feels one-down with TA and is waiting for her to be claimed back by SS.
Oh yes … on your point re TM being more concerned with and connected to SS!
Good point.
We see far more emotion and energy and inner travail in TM towards SS. SS is the more alluring character. TA is warmth and presence. SS has more of a mystique and charm about him.
Argh… lost a post…
I agree re your comment re TM being more concerned about SS.
Good point!
SS is the more alluring, charismatic, elusive character. TM is entranced by him.
We can see TM in inner turmoil about SS when he is rediscovered as deaf.
We don’t see that same inner turmoil in TM towards TA who is warmth and presence and more of a salt of the earth character.
A really good observation re TM and SS. Good point.
SS is the more alluring, charismatic, elusive character. TM is entranced by him.
We can see TM in inner turmoil about SS when he is rediscovered as deaf.
We don’t see that same inner turmoil in TM towards TA who is warmth and presence and more of a salt of the earth character.
Am having trouble posting… hope this gets on.
A really good observation re TM and SS.
SS is the more alluring, charismatic, elusive character. TM is entranced by him.
We can see TM in inner turmoil about SS when he is rediscovered as deaf.
We don’t see that same inner turmoil in TM towards TA who is warmth and presence and more of a salt of the earth character.
A really good observation re TM and SS.
SS is the more alluring, charismatic, elusive character. TM is entranced by him.
We can see TM in inner turmoil about SS when he is rediscovered as deaf.
We don’t see that same inner turmoil in TM towards TA who is warmth and presence and more of a salt of the earth character.
@GB – what a good observation re TM and SS.
SS is the more alluring, charismatic, elusive character. TM is entranced by him.
We can see TM in inner turmoil about SS when he is rediscovered as deaf.
We don’t see that same inner turmoil in TM towards TA who is warmth and presence and more of a salt of the earth character.
@GB!
A really good observation re TM and SS.
SS is the more alluring, charismatic, elusive character. TM is entranced by him.
We can see TM in inner turmoil about SS when he is rediscovered as deaf.
We don’t see that same inner turmoil in TM towards TA who is warmth and presence and more of a salt of the earth character.
@GB!
A really good observation re TM and SS.
SS is the more alluring, charismatic, elusive character. TM is entranced by him. SS is after all following the beat of his own drum.
We can see TM in inner turmoil about SS when he is rediscovered as deaf.
We don’t see that same inner turmoil in TM towards TA who is warmth and presence and more of a salt of the earth character.
Argh! These posts kept not posting. I had to write them slightly differently each time for it to allow me to post.
LOL
@Kate
Thanks for your responses. I believe I received all of them. What I do when I get the timeout or message that my comment did not get through is to wait. Last night, I too had difficulty accessing BOD. It is likely that you were trying to post at the same time.
Yes, that’s the way TM appears… if there was conflict between what he wanted and what others wanted, he was predisposed to give in from the start. He preferred to remain ‘kind’, to avoid stress. We note how shocked both TA and her brother were when TM got upset just that 1 time… and it was over SS, not over TA. His greater emotional reactions were tied to SS.
This is an interesting thought. Yes, he’s probably hard to please, or at least his taste is quite different from TA’s. He’s definitely hard to please (see below) when it comes to ‘getting what he supposedly wants’. Instead of being happy, he’s frustrated.
You’ve a point there. What TA (or even SS) wanted had the prerogative where TM was concerned. We know that in the 2nd year of high-school, TM already noticed that TA was quite taken with SS’s essay on ‘Words’. He says in his voiceover that he saw what falling in love was when he looked at TA who was staring at SS.
It was TM who introduced SS to TA since he was a mutual friend, knowing that TA was already interested in SS.
The time in school when TA approached TM to talk, he had preempted her. He guessed that she’d come to find out if SS had a girlfriend or not. He also wanted to find out for SS, (and for himself), if TA had a boyfriend. Since both parties were unattached, they were free to get together. TM had taken a step back while he encouraged her to talk to SS.
It was clear to TM that if TA had to choose between TM and SS, she would have chosen SS. This thought became a certainty that was deeply ingrained, quite impossible to uproot, despite all TA’s assurances that she loved him. So the one-down attitude when it came to TA always held sway.
(To be continued…)
(Continuing…)
It seems that SS knew that TM liked TA although TM had never pursued her. As I noted above, the Futsal Coach had asked TM what SS had said to him when he managed to find him in the university.
TM : “Sou said he didn’t need Tsumugi. He said ‘I don’t need Aoba anymore.’ ‘You can take her. I’ll give her to you.’ I was frustrated, so I didn’t go after her at first. But I got my wish.”
His reaction to SS telling him ‘you can take’ TA was annoyance or the subs say ‘frustration’.
– To sound like a ‘bad guy’ SS had used very callous words, like he ‘didn’t need Tsumugi anymore’. That was very unlike the gentle SS that TM knew. Perhaps TM was frustrated that SS was acting unlike himself. He probably guessed that SS was putting on a show of indifference to discourage TM from bothering him about TA.
– SS presumed to give TA to TM, as if he was then obliged to take her in or that he would be happy to take her, or that it was okay to pass on his cast off girlfriend to TM (like taking in an unwanted pet?).
This was definitely annoying. I’d understand that if I’m expected to be grateful about taking over an unwanted bf, I’d be questioning the attitude of my friend towards me.
– Unlike many dramas, we notice that as 2nd Male Lead, he didn’t see this as his long-awaited opportunity to get the girl without feeling guilty. If anything, SS’s pushing TA away to TM made him rebelliously refuse to contact her for 5 years!
All the above makes TM look ‘hard to please’ but seems understandable.
My take on this is that TM had a crush on TA, but it had not developed to anything more than that. He tells the Coach that he ‘got his wish’, but that wish was possibly that SS would not like TA. SS. knowing this might be able to fulfill that part of the wish, but not the part where TA would like TM back.
The wonder of it all was that TA did appreciate TM’s care and reciprocate enough that she made him a point of reference in her life. Her friend Mako tells TM that TA had considered what TM would like when she went shopping. And yet, this was not enough to get TM to commit to TA.
We see that TM only made contact with her after the class reunion, when he noticed that she did not look happy and that she’d gone off on her own. He must have stalked her to the café where she settled to do the work her colleague had palmed off on her. His reason for making contact was because she seemed to need help and not because he wanted to take the opportunity to get close to her.
I felt that TM and TA just went along with the ‘since we meet each other every week and visit each other so often, we might as well become a couple’ sort of mentality. They were comfortable, like family together. I cannot imagine them in a grand passion. They went along with what was expected, staying over at each other’s places, deciding to move in together/get married… I assume the house-hunting would have been for this. But the sentiment of really wanting to be together no matter what, was possibly missing, at least on TM’s side. I believe this was the ‘missing step’ that you mentioned in one of your previous posts. Hence what you say about them heading for a stalemate was likely.
Afterthought: The first time we see TM with TA is when they shared a bed and the rain woke TA up. TM woke and asked for the time and said they should just go back to sleep. TA noted how noisy the rain was. But we note how silent it was for this couple. No taking the opportunity for some cuddles. They literally went back to sleep.
This is the first love story I’ve watched where there was not a single kiss LOL… and yet it was a pretty sweet romance.
@GB – what you said re how remarkable it is that TA accepts TM as a boyfriend at this point in her life struck me.
That acceptance entails a missing step. As you are teasing out she is not and has never been fully and passionately attracted to him. He has performed a function for her.
You could say that his inability to be and give to her all of himself is grounded on that knowledge of the ‘thinness’ of her attraction to him.
Because her attraction has not fully flowered and is instead a link to a place of mutual support and caring minus erotic drive, she unhooks from him relatively easily after what is a 3 year relationship.
The ‘missing step’ is the development of passion in their relationship.
Hence the slightly clinical quality of her assessment of their love shortly after the break up. Yes she was tearful but not devastated.
They both have a dawning realization and get out of the metaphorical rowing boat on the lake at the local park. Now she looks at SS as the person she can travel into the future with, set out to sea with, so to speak, and engage with deeply and with a quality of unconditionality in her choices from the outset. Her instant efforts to learn sign language and to adapt to SS are not the signs of a useful and mild attraction. She wants it to work with him. Even minus some of the comfort provided by TM.
What do you think of Nana?
Some viewers were irritated by her, apparently. Presumably by her possessiveness of SS when TA came back on the scene.
I am puzzled by the way they styled her. I thought initially she was a lot older than SS. Is that over-sized, long styling something in vogue for Japanese students? I couldn’t quite locate her socially in the world we were entering partly because of her clothing.
But then I saw that TA also wears a lot of long and baggy items and this may simply be fashion for Japanese students.
At one point, Nana wants to buy the beautiful blue bag to find herself in a more normal world of dating, being butterfly like and attracting SS, in particular.
I am on episode 9/10 and we are seeing her behind the scenes story and that helps enormously with locating her in the narrative too. We had very little to go on when she was first seen walking along with SS in a buddy-like way.
She gets to be friend-zoned big time in this show doesn’t she? And she also manages to re-frame that and move forward.
I am sad for her that SS needed her so much that he probably didn’t draw some lines when the signs were there of her crush on him.
Hi @Kate, thanks for developing further the course of TA and TM’s relationship. It sounds about right to me. They had warm attachment but not a passionate one. RE that metaphorical rowing boat… it was therefore fortunate that SS turned up when he did, and was seen by TA, or they might have ended up too long on a sinking ship LOL.
Yes, it was quite striking that TA immediately decided on taking up sign language classes. I’m still putting some thoughts together, but what was foremost in the interactions between SS and TA were words… or the spoken word to be more precise. Yes, his essay entitled ‘Words’ was the entry way that got her to notice him, and fall in love. She loved his voice. They spent time on the phone for hours. However they talked just for talking sake, to be together, without saying anything of great import.
As the next best thing, they enjoyed the same kind of music. They liked to listen to music, to silence and to each other. If SS had not lost his hearing, it would probably have been very possible to have a long distance relationship over the phone.
It’s no wonder that SS ended the relationship when his hearing was failing. I wonder if the impact would have been as great or the decision might have been different if he’d lost his sight instead of his hearing, and to an extent, his voice.
He himself admitted in sign, when TA could not yet understand him, that the reason for the break-up was because he wouldn’t be able to call her and have conversations with her. It was too painful. However my contention always is that she should have been told and given a chance to accept or reject the relationship.
Perhaps at 18 as they were apart, it would have been difficult. But definitely at 26, she was unwavering in wanting to just at least get back to talking to SS again. She says so to SS as well.
Thinking about the decision of TM to break up, I’ve come to the conclusion that he was wise. Not only did he not love TA in the way one would love one’s spouse, but the fact that TA would keep meeting and talking with SS who still loved her, would definitely spell trouble. We see that once given the opportunity to meet with TA without barriers, SS finds that he does not want to let her go. He immediately wants to clear the air over this with Nana.
(To be continued…)
I haven’t rewatched Silent so just going off of my impressions of it when I watched it when it was airing. At first I thought TM’s decision to break up was rash and had a bit of noble idiocy too – but it actually made sense. SS and TA relationship was notable to everyone who knew them – even the teacher commented on their likeability as a couple. I think TM saw the inevitability of their pairing or at the very least the limitations of his relationship with TA in comparison. TM also loved SS. He missed his friend and welcomed him back in his life. When he found out that SS had exited all of their lives because of his hearing loss – I think TM ended his relationship with TA in an attempt to restore the status quo ante.
Looking forward to the discussion on Nana – she was my favorite character.
(Continuation…)
Hi @Good Twin and @Kate (I actually was going to continue with Nana already, but reading @Good Twin got me on another thought.)
Doing TM a Favour
Yes, @Good Twin, I was fed up with TM at first over the break-up too, but on rewatch and transcribing what he did and said (first 5 episodes mainly), I felt that he had made the right decision. Although in small matters like what to eat or what movie to watch, he just went along with TA’s decisions, we see in the relationship that if he had not initiated the break-up, TA who would have just gone along with the easier path of continuing with TM. She would not have confronted the need to rethink.
I believe that what TM did for TA when she remained in the first job where she was being taken advantage of and sexually harrassed, he wanted to do for her in their relationship. He had to reframe her way of thinking of that job not as a place where people had high expectations of her, but as a place where she was unhappily pushing/forcing herself to work as she was being bullied.
His break-up speech begins with asking her a favour.
TM : “Tsumugi. I’ve a favour to ask. I want you to leave me.” (At first I thought this is the weirdest favour! He won’t leave her, he makes her be the bad person to leave him. But on second thoughts, perhaps he wanted her to rethink.)
TA is understandably stunned.
TM : “I want you to leave me.”
TA : “What?”
TM : “Let’s split up.”
TA : “Why?”
TM : “Because there’s someone else you love.” (This is a thought that she had not confronted on her own. However it was evident to TM fromthe way she spoke of her concerns about SS. This was similar to how she’d spoken of SS to TM in the past.)
Later as they continued this conversation he admitted that he had a crush on her long before Sou was in the picture, but although TA was friends with TM, all her conversation with him was about SS.
TM : “Even when we started dating, now that I think about it, I felt I was taking advantage of your weakness. You, too, probably thought that any guy would be fine as long as he is kind to you.” (I’m guessing that he’s saying that he’d helped her at the time when her previous job was getting her down. She’d quit because of how he’d helped her see that she was being made use of. She’d stuck with him since then because he’d been kind. Since SS was not around, she just remained with him by default.)
…
TM : “These three years, I’ve always been thinking about it. ‘What if Tsumugi and Sou see each other again right now?’ I’ve always been thinking about it and I think you probably thought about it too. Honestly I have been uneasy all this while.”
…
TM : “I don’t want to do this anymore. If we continue to be together at this rate, it’s going to be impossible. I won’t be able to be kind to you. To you and to Sou.”
…
TM : “I don’t want to be hated, by you or by Sou.”
He has reframed their relationship not as something to continue out of habit but as a situation in which he has been under stress. Now he’s the one who’s unhappy. Just as she had been unhappy in her past job and left it, so too he wanted to leave the relationship.
So it really was a favour that he was asking TA for. He knew that if he broke up with her on his own, it would have been no better than when SS had done it. He needed her to agree to do it, knowing that it was helping him, so that he could still remain kind in the break-up and have peace of mind. He really wanted to break up and if he ultimately had been forced to break up with her, it would have been ugly and painful, so this way was the nicest way possible.
We continue to see TM in the aftermath of the break-up, looking peaceful and happy. He remains friends with TA’s brother and bff Mako. He is able to meet up with SS without any qualms. Later he even sees TA and they become comfortable again. So his decision was actually right although it looked like noble idiocy to begin with.
Did the calculation at the beginning of episode 2 for a 0.0021 m thick letter size paper and a paper folded 42 times will be as tall as 24 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon 😀
Sorry, couldn’t help it 😉
Hi @FGB, like I said in the WAWW thread… I wanted to know the logic behind that ‘frivolous’ conversation. Don’t apologise for teasing out what a show ‘says’. That’s what we do here as Bitches! LOL.
Let’s assume there is a Chekhov’s Gun in the room (scary!!!).
The original story with a similar mechanic involved that I know of was about the invention of chess. The original creator offered the game as a consolation for an Indian Maharajah that has lost his son in war and they played a game. At some point the inventor captured the Maharajah’s queen and said that due to the sacrifice of the queen the king has been spared so victory was still possible. The Maharajah cried understanding the value of what his son has achieved which gave him if not relief, at least understanding and closure.
As a sign of gratitude he wanted to reward the creator yet he refused. Given the Maharajah’s insistence he set up a trap: he asked the Maharaja to give him two wheat grains for the first square, four for the second, eight for the third, sixteen for the fourth and so on until the sixty four squares. The result could be expressed as
R=Sumatory(from n=1 to n=64)[2^n]
Well, since this is no math exam lets just say that if a grain of wheat weights 0.03 g and that there are 1000 g in 1 kg, ONLY the 64th square should yield a monstrous mass. Also I don’t my PC to stall!!!.
R64=[(0.03grams/grain)/(1000grams/1kg)]*2^64=5.534*10^14kg. Given that an estimate of the mass of Mount Everest is 810 Trillions (in the Anglo-Saxon way: 1 Trillion = 1*10^12) we get that the yield of JUST the 64th square is 68% of Mount Everest mass of wheat… the Maharajah was speechless as he never backed down on his word but fulfilling his promise was wildly beyond his capabilities, to which the inventor sagely warned him to be careful of seemingly humble requests.
——
One way to interpret it is an ominous conversation about simple, mundane things twisted (folded?) until becoming impossibilities. Like enjoying hearing and speaking to a loved one.
Other way is that there are two people that are so in tune that they can find any topic fascinating.
Maybe both. I don’t know. My brain is cooked XD .
[2^64grains]
@GB When doing math, physics or chemistry units are important as they can give you a hint if the problem has been solved correctly. For me in Caracas is Monday 11:45 PM, for you in Singapore it is Tuesday 11:45 AM. Will read you later!!! 😀
@FGB, I’ve read this and the time now is 4.22pm where I am and 4.22am in Caracas. As I do not want my brain to be fried or cooked in any way, I take your point about making a light, small, frivolous request or offer and keep carefully ask or offer nothing!
I will however say that if I number your points about the frivolous conversation on paper folding:
1)”Like enjoying hearing and speaking to a loved one.”
2)”Other way is that there are two people that are so in tune that they can find any topic fascinating.”
Then I tend more towards 1). However you are not wrong to say that 2) is also a possibility.
I am now about to embark on making my way out of the city to head home with my brain still raw LOL. 🙂
Point taken, dear @GB. I am afraid I have cooked my sevens XD XD XD XD . My brain will recover later.
Yes, listening to a loved one whose voice they love is really spelled out in the dialogues, so you are 100% right 😀
That doesn’t mean we can’t search for other possibilities 😉
That episode 3 ending fell like a ton of bricks. Minato is having a really hard time accepting the reality that his friend as he remembers him is gone and replaced by this almost new person with special needs.
I guess that the trope at the end of Episode 4 is the one that says that if someone is really for you then set that person free and she will eventually come back. Please let me digress.
Hi @FGB, I’ve been reading you… just that I’ve been silent LOL. I’m not feeling inspired and so have not added on more thoughts here, although I’ve got some disorganised notes. I fancy that with this thread no longer on the recent threads list, very few will think of coming back. Anyway, keep writing … you were about to digress further?
Will be back soon!
My digression is about the Noble Idiocy Trope in “Silent” by Minato. I get that he thinks that now that the misunderstanding about why Sakura dissapeared has been dispelled his girlfriend will go automatically back to him. But by dumping her he robbed her agency much like Sakura did with her back when he unilaterally decided to end their relationship because he was becoming deaf.
It speaks volumes how little both Minato and Sakura trusts the people they have grown up with. Tsumigi has been hanging in the wind all along. Such decisions should be talked about… if they are capable of breaking up over Sakura not wanting her to learn that he has a discapacity and the other one not wanting to suffer heartbreak over a hypothetical return of Tsumugi and Sakura as a couple… where will be the much needed resiliency when life trows curveballs afeter curveball in their couple lives?.
That is not noble on his part, it is just idiotic. Still have to start episode 5 to know where will they go.
My dear @FGB, I had the same sentiments at first and wrote at length on Minato. Watch first and form your own impressions before you read. I found that in the end, I changed my mind somewhat and felt that although he robbed TA of her agency, it was not a wrong or idiotic move.
Fair enough 😉
Dear @GB, finally ended episode 5. Those young actors know their craft, especially the female lead with those expressive eyes. For some reason the conversation between Sakura’s mother and who I assume is the eldest daughter kind of flew over my head.
Loved Tsurugi deciding to become more assertive. As much as Minato is a lovely person, being so accomodating kind of screwed him up. Tsurugi by deciding to speak-up her preferences started to move away from Minato.
Episode 6 was beautiful and heartwrenching. All of Momono Nana’s fears and frustrations came out. She had to admit to herself that hearing was a dimension she yearned for. The end scene with her doing a mock call to Sakura was her knowing that there was a dimension Sakura has been expelled from but that she never got to experience.
Hi @FGB, I’m glad to see that you’re still engaged with the lovely, complicated characters of Silent. Yes, love the FL’s expressive eyes and direct way of looking at people.
TM to TA : “I don’t want to do this anymore. If we continue to be together at this rate, it’s going to be impossible. I won’t be able to be kind to you. To you and to Sou.”
TA keeps shaking her head when he says to break up.
TM : “I don’t want to be hated, by you or by Sou.”
I look at the Ep 5 conversation of Minato and Tsumugi and realised that he put greater priority on being kind, nice, and be liked by his friends. What seemed to have happened was that although he had a crush on TA when younger, it was really just a crush. They slipped into a relationship just because he’d been kind and around her, when there was no one else about. They never confessed that they liked or loved each other. All they seem to have done was to get into the habit of meeting each week and it sort of was taken as dating. People who saw them just expected them to get married some day.
However, Minato knew that if Sakura had been near, the situation would probably have been different. Instead of wanting to be with Minato, TA would have only sought him out to talk about Sakura, just as she’d done in school.
TA seems to be able to attach herself to someone who’s nice to her, to be faithful to them and to want to continue for the long term. Her love is a sweet, committed kind of love, but with Minato, it lacked passion. They just never fought, but they were not passionate lovers either. We see how they hang out with each other even when they stay over in each other’s homes. They are more like buddies.
TA : “Instead of being my boyfriend, you were my brother… I have a second little brother.”…”You were like family. I never felt nervous, just secure.”
= = =
Which conversation between Sakura’s mum and sister? The one where the mum and younger sister were in the car? Sister said that Hikaru (TA’s brother) felt it was Sakura’s fault that Minato had broken up with TA. Sister says it was no one’s fault. Mother says “The most troublesome kind is when it’s the fault of no one.” – I guess this could mean that it’s painful for TA to know that Minato broke up because he actually did not like her. It would be easier to blame SS.
Personally the reason to me is that Minato really didn’t want to be married to TA. TA was right when she said that her love became a one-sided love. TM actually preferred to renew his friendship with SS over hanging out with TA. His priority was that he wanted to always be kind and to be liked by his friends.
However SS did feel responsible too.
= = =
Conversation with Sakura’s mother in the kitchen with SS’s older sister. She seemed to be telling her mother that mum was being nosy about wanting to know how SS was/how his relationship with people was. Moe was concerned about revealing that he was deaf to SS’s friends. Mum criticised Moe but the older sister felt that they should not be gossiping about SS and Moe and that it was not Moe’s fault that SS had no friends. The implication might have been that the mum’s being too concerned with SS’s getting hurt, may have contributed to him not making friends with hearing people. However later on, we find that it was not just mum… SS himself had chosen to be apart from his old friends.
@FGB, I might comment on Nana a little later since you’re still at Ep 6. Suffice it to say that she’s a good kid.
I am in Episode 10. The conversation in the traditional bar between Nana and the sign language teacher is, I think, the message of the series. Also my frustrations with Minato were conveyed by Nana beautifully. I also think he did let go a good thing for nothing.
EPISODE 10
Hi @FGB, I’m glad to know that you’re still watching this show til the end.
I feel that even if Minato had not broken up with TA, and had tried to continue dating her even after SS returned, he would always have been unhappy because he knew that TA had always chosen SS first. She knew Minato before meeting SS, but had never chosen him. Minato was always uneasy. He felt more like SS’ place-holder than truly the boyfriend TA would have chosen.
Ultimately, too, he’d have chosen SS over his relationship with TA. He valued his friendship with SS more.
SS believes that Minato loved TA so much that it hurt to be with TA, but what that seems to say is that loving her no matter what was not something Minato would choose to do. He’d prefer to separate from her rather than to suffer whatever pain it is that he suffered.
He wouldn’t have been able to remain nice and kind towards her in the long-term.
Even in SS’s case, his break-up with TA when he started to lose his hearing was on the one hand ill-advised. But, his great unhappiness over his hearing loss far out-weighed any love he had for TA. He explained that very first time they met by chance on the bridge, that he knew it would hurt too much, that he’d bring her down with his misery and that it would even affect their loved ones.
So on the other hand, I feel that the original break-up was necessary in order for SS to come to better terms with his condition and then to have the chance to choose again, and also to have TA given the chance to choose as well.
From all appearances, it seems that their mutual attraction continues. They fell in love again effortlessly. It’s only at this stage that we see SS questioning what he really wants and feeling upset over how he can no longer hear TA’s voice. He needs to grow out of his hang-up over what he lost and embrace what he does have.
Dear @GB, still have to watch Episode 11 and end the series.
Loved reading your last Post as there was something that couldn’t point my finger on… and you made me realize it!!!.
Minato is an unrealistic character, he did let go of Tsumugi rather easily. His actions would not be the ones an actual man would take and that made me suspect the writer was a woman.
Her name is Ubutaka Miko and was born in 1993. BTW this is a nitpick as her treatment of Sou’s deafness and the rest of her characters have been excellent.
We men have fought wars over women and have been killed protecting and rescuing them since the beginnings of civilization. In fact one of the foundational epics of the Western World, the Iliad, starts with the kidnapping of Helen by Paris of Troy and Agamemnon’s quest for revenge and to saciate his honor.
We don’t give up our women so easily.
Minato had a crush on Tsumugi from the beginning since… ¿middle school I think?. She fell hard for Sou in high school but he evaporated from her life and everyone elses, then eight years later he reappears.
Sou left Tsumugi. Therefore she was free and Minato picked her up and courted her properly. Sou dissapeared, he evaporated. Minato and Tsumugi might love Sou as a friend but they don’t owe him a thing.
At the beginning of the story Minato and Tsumugi are looking for an appartment for them both and it is implied through the series that she was contemplating marriage, I guess both of them were.
Personally if I had been going out with someone I have been liking since middle school I would at least put a fight. If Tsumugi finds herself falling for Sou so hard she has to make a decision it is another story. And of course I would try to tip the scales in my favour.
Unless Minato feels that he really can’t compete, but that would be about extreme insecurity and such a person would be probably a doormat in real life… not the wise, kind, competent and assertive Minato in the series.
It is a “Love Conquers All” trope of sorts. So I am with Nana on this one.
Nana and Sou are a better match. They get each other. Nana has a lot of frustrations much like Sou and that would worry me. But like in Real Life, sometimes perfect matches does not exist and it is wiser to learn to love the best sides of the people around us and learn to deal with their not-so-good sides.
BTW love the actress that plays Tsumugi. She has beautiful, expressive doe eyes that plays very well for the lovely dork that Tsumugi is.
@FGB, I actually agree and take your point about how men will not just give up/let go of a woman they really care for. At least their ego should not let them do it so easily. I, too, was confounded when Minato rejected TA’s willingness to continue the long-term relationship even into marriage with him.
It’s possible that the lady writer has got the male psyche wrong here. It certainly turns the trope of the love triangle on its head, when the 2 men refuse to fight over the lady, and the lady chooses the 2nd male lead instead of the first LOL. That point has suddenly struck me. This writer wanted to totally twist the love triangle trope. It feels unrealistic.
Hence my conclusion,… Minato only ever had a crush on TA. He wanted to be kind towards her and they ended up slipping into a familiar relationship. For want of other persons of interest, they ended up being together and everyone expected them to get married. However, once SS returned, instead of ensuring that TA remains securely his, Minato takes the opportunity to offload her LOL. I questioned if he ever really went beyond the crush or if that also had ended and he was just hanging around because otherwise he’d appear like the bad guy who just used the girl and then dumped her.
I wondered if SS’s return gave Minato the excuse he’d been looking for to get out of the relationship with TA, without any ‘loss’ to his image of being the good guy. If not for SS’s return, would Minato have remained SILENT. In the silence, would the relationship with TA have lasted?
My conclusion was that Minato loved something else more than he loved TA. Either it was his friendship with SS, his freedom from having to stick by TA or his image as the good/kind guy….or maybe all 3 or 2-out-of-3.
I feel sorry for TA. She had not done anything to deserve the abandonment she got from both guys, as far as I can tell. The issues had been with the men, but she suffered. This laughably, does indeed sound like a woman’s perspective!!! I like that this writer ensures that TA is not the one who is silent. She does speak her mind, when given a chance. She is allowed to express her wants.
SS leaving her without warning, breaking up with a lie, and going SILENT was a terrible thing. We can empathise with his predicament and pain but at the same time, condemn his selfishness and foolishness. He had said that he wanted to be thought the bad guy so that TA could let him go (this part is the noble idiocy bit), but the shock of thinking that one’s beloved is a meanie also involves a lot of pain (poor TA).
And here is the irony. Minato wants to have the ‘good guy’ image while leaving TA, but it does not make him a good guy.
SS wanted to put on the fake ‘bad guy’ image to push TA away, and but it also did not make him a good guy… in the process he was actually being a real bad guy.
Final Episode!.
This Drama was never about deafness but about communication, the hindrances of communication and being able to express what you want to convey. Beautifully done!!!.
At the end of the day Sou and Tsumugi just needed to get on the same page and express what was in their hearts.
Yes, indeed @FGB. SILENCE is about communication. Even silence itself is a form of communication, but one that admits of lots of doubt since the other party(ies) do not know for sure what the silence may mean.
Exactly dear @GB 😀 . Silence is kind of like a white sheet of paper. All the ideas in the world are still a possibility yet none of them have been expressed.
One of them most beautiful books I have ever read (and did not finish) was the Tale of Genji by Murakami Shikibu. It was written in Heian Japan at the beginning of the 11th century.
The life of Genji ends about two thirds of the book in a chapter called “Lost in Clouds”. It shows this:
-*-*-*-*-*-
-*-*-*-*-*-
A white sheet of paper. His story is over so everything he was to say had been said. He had become SILENT.
Please keep recommending me more Dramas. This one and also “One Day Off” have been excellent choices! 😀
Recommendations?
Well @FGB,
… a worthwhile romance without the comedy, full of feeling, try kdrama ‘Call it Love’.
…for a tale spun from a song with beautiful metaphors, winning relationships and a satisfying epilogue that you have to wait for, try another jdorama, ‘First Love’.
… if you can take the slow pace of the first 8 or so episodes and don’t mind the science this is a real REAL sci-fi drama… cdrama Three Body.
…something of a psychological study of relationships with crime solving thrown in…cdrama ‘Echo (2023)’. https://mydramalist.com/715615-hui-xiang
…an interesting looping in time cdrama ‘Reset’.
Does any one of these tickle your fancy?
Hatsukoi (2022) by Netflix inspired in Hikaru Utada’s hit?. I have started that and stopped a couple of times. The grief is real. Sometimes in a series there is a roadblock that once you get past it then you can finish everything in one go.
Maybe your recommendation is the much needed push to commit to it.
The Three Body Problem seems intriguing.
@FGB4877 – you might like the Japanese drama On A Starry Night. I found it an interesting contrast with Silent because the ML was also deaf but the complete opposite of the Sou character – Bold, brash and confident. The characters were Eccentric (underline and bold) to the point of being a distraction – but I really appreciated the story of loss, grief and found families.
Thank you dear @GoodTwin!!!, will check it out.
“Hoshi Furu Yoru ni (2023)” seems to have a lot of episodes on DramaCool and the last ones on Viki.
Pingback: Silent: Ep 1 My Silent Impressions – Bitches Over Dramas
I love Nana, her problem is that she takes almost everything the wrong way. That made her lose precious time with the sign language teacher and made their relationship sour over a misinterpretation of his kindness.
I think she and Sakura are wayyy more compatible than him and the female lead. In fact TradeMark got the female lead figured out down to the details. A much better suitor than Sakura. Also I don’t think that TradeMark and the FL didn’t have some passionate moments, even if he is so bland that makes distilled water seem flavorful in comparison.
The conversation that @FGB mentioned in the First Impressions thread was, I believe, this one between Haruo and Nana. They communicated better in sign than hearing people did with words.
Haruo : “Signing was only a means of communication. It’s one thing to understand the words. It’s another to understand how other people feel.”
Nana : “That’s true.”
Haruo : “Every deaf person is different, just like those of hearing. Though I’ve come to know many, you are the only person like yourself. Ultimately it comes down to whether you want to communicate or to understand.”
Nana laughs : “You’ve become mature.”
Haruo : “I agree.”
I suppose that not communicating how one feels was always the issue.
– TM seems to have spoken to many people, but he seldom revealed his feelings. His friends thought he would be upset that he had broken off with TA, when SS came back, but they were wrong. His main emotional tie was to SS. He was instrumental in engineering SS’s return to their friends.
– TA liked to talk about inanities with SS. While this communicated that she liked being with him, it also communicated that being with her required him to be able to converse a great deal.
– TA was however clear about communicating what she wanted or did not want.
– SS did not communicate when he had the voice and the hearing.
– When SS realised that he would not be able to hear and converse with TA the way they had done, instead of preparing to use other means of communication, he gave up trying from the beginning. He pretended that he had found a girlfriend and dropped TA.
– He disappeared and ghosted his friends but his silence towards them communicated only that he didn’t want their friendship. They could not tell how he felt or why.
– Nana saw without words, that SS was lonely and in need of a friend (ironically in need of her listening ear… when she could not hear!), hence she befriended SS and taught him sign language.
– Nana had a strange proprietary attitude towards sign language. I find it hard to understand why she should think her teaching someone sign language was meant only for them to converse with her, however on meeting TA, her views began to change. She saw that TA had learned sign with the sincere wish to communicate with SS, for SS’s sake, and not for her own. This was opposite from what Nana had done.
Continued…
Continued…
It’s great that Nana, TM and even other side characters like Moe, Moe’s mum and Hikaru display growth in this series. Nana’s arc is the most obvious as she’s given more screen time.
– Without speaking, Nana conveys her feelings. She’s excited to be with SS, angry with Haruo for sharing their sign language with others, broken hearted over SS’s preference for TA, afraid that TA would be mean to her and then tentatively happy to bond with TA as a friends. Possibly TA is her first hearing friend who’s a girl like herself.
Where in the past Nana had seen the sharing of sign language as a betrayal of sharing her gift with a 3rd party, by the end we see that it’s Nana who shares the gift of the stalks of flowers with 3rd parties… and these pass from hand-to-hand to the very people whose experiences helped her to grow.
Nana bought flowers for Haruo as a Christmas gift, because the flower seller had said: ‘Flowers make no sound, yet they contain words that can convey many feelings.’ She meets TM by chance and tells him to take a stalk, saying that it’s his share. She also passes a stalk of Baby’s Breath flowers to SS, telling him the same thing. They are encouraged to re-gift the flowers instead of keeping them for themselves.
This is poignant coming from Nana, who had not wanted to share her sign language or her friendship with SS. She gives the bouquet to Haruo and asks for a gift in return for Christmas. In the past he had formed the sign language club, thinking it would please her, but she had rejected it. She gives him a chance to give her what she really wants. The blue handbag!! LOL.
More Reversals and Parallels>/i>
In the sharing of the flowers, we find both TM and SS give the stalks they have to TA. A reverse of how both of them had abandoned her before.
Once again at Christmas, TA and SS exchange gifts and once again, as in the case of exchanging ear buds when they were kids, they find themselves exchanging the same kind of gift ie the stalks of Baby’s Breath flowers.
When she first received the flowers, TA significantly had noted that the Baby’s Breath flowers “is cute and sort of look like snowflakes”. A callback to Episode 1 when TA had been with SS and enthusiastic about the falling snow. At the end, it’s a more sedate TA who’s once again with SS sharing the snow of Baby’s Breath.
One more point … the sharing of the flowers had an added significance because TM had said how seeing someone with a bouquet of flowers made him happy. The gifting of the flowers was a spreading of the joy of friendship, of communication, of Christmas.
@FGB this is interesting… I can see your post in Email but I don’t see it here!!! I’ll repost it… @FGB said:
Yes, Nana was able to communicate from her end but not to understand from the other person’s point of view.
TM was able to understand everyone, but no matter how good he was as boyfriend material, he wasn’t interested!!!
TA really wanted to communicate well and to listen well. I love TA. She took the trouble to learn sign, to get Haruo to teach her specially so that she could communicate with Nana, to write everything down line by line for SS… first on paper and then on the school blackboard. I always felt she was badly used although she had done her best.
SS whom everyone seemed to revolve around was merely the writer of the Words poem but ironically the one who used words or silence to distance himself from his family and friends.
I felt that TA’s brother, Hikaru and SS’s sister, Moe did more and better communication than SS. They were on the edge of the main relationships but they made things happen or paved the way for the main leads. Unlike TM Moe took the initiative to learn sign early and Hikaru took the initiative to borrow sign books from Moe to learn as well.
On the whole I enjoyed all the characters of this little series.
TA on Communicating Well (Episode 11)
On top of bothering to communicate well already, TA affirms SS’s efforts to sign slowly so that she can understand.
She’s aware that SS might not be conveying what he really wanted to say, and assures him that she would wait until he has finished signing before trying to say anything.
She would work harder at memorising sign language, and do her best to make SS understand her. She did not want SS to give up telling her what he feels.
She reminds him that even hearing people can miscommunicate and disagree. But to be in relationship there must be words and silences and even non-verbal communication in gestures.
BOOKENDING
In the true way of this series, where there’s give and take, and a coming full circle, we see the final episode begin with high school TA and SS writing their names on the school blackboard, and noting how unique their given names are.
TA wanted to know what SS found unique about her. He’s put on the spot and says lamely that it’s her name that is unique. He guesses that she’s disappointed to hear this. It is later that we find out he called her to come over only to whisper something in her ear to make her laugh. She reciprocated. And that’s how they started their relationship speaking inanities to each other.
In the past, they had walked across the bridge near their school side-by-side many times. As adults, after finally communicating more fully that they did want to be together despite the challenges ahead, SS finally takes TA’s hand as they cross the bridge together. A most appropriate image of their restarting their relationship.
SS gets TA to test the ear phones and the MP3 player for him from their high school days. It’s a promising sign that these articles still work well. We note that when SS broke up with TA before, the ear phones he had given her had gotten spoiled. (Yes the ear phone imagery is strong in this show.)
As part of the bookending for this show, Sou video calls TA for a change. He finally wants to fulfill her wish list of what she’d wanted to do and try with him. It’s about time, after all that the girl put up with for him.
She arrives to meet him but interestingly comes up to where he sits reading outside the station and calls him from a distance. First she calls him Sakura-kun then finally she calls him by his given name. She never seemed to have called him Sou before. I wonder why she’s so formal.
Sou, of course does not hear her, but he looks up and sees her. They have their unplanned gift exchange. He’s surprised to get Baby’s Breath from her when he has exactly the same thing to give her. It’s a reprise of their past.
Their simple date involves walking about town to look at the Christmas light up and a return to their inane talk. They speak of the number of time paper had to be folded in order to reach the moon.
The background music (OST: Subtitle?) is silenced as we watch…
They note that they came to see the Christmas lights but cannot focus on them while talking, however neither of them mind. (There is so much that we take for granted because we can see, hear and speak. Just being together was enough for TA and SS, even if they only talked of frivolous, boring things.)
Sou : “I can’t recall your voice, nor hear it anymore. But I’m truly glad I can see your words now.”
TA : “Me too.” …
The OST restarts.
TA : “Is there something you want to tell me?”
SS shakes his head and seeing that TA’s a bit disappointed, as she had been in school when she’d first asked what he thought was unique about her, he realises that she wanted something more. He takes her hand with a smile as they walk. They don’t have to speak in order to communicate.
He gestures to her to come closer and whispers in her ear but we don’t get to hear what he says. Just that it makes her smile. She finally gets to hear his voice again after so many years. I’d like to imagine that he finally calls her ‘Tsumugi’ and says it’s a unique name LOL.
Thus ends a lovely love story without a single kiss!!! But it was a great romance and an amazing showcase on communication.
I don’t mind couples NOT kissing at the end of a series. A kiss is a show of intimacy, but knowing that characters have really bonded and that all they have gone through made their relationship and understanding of each other deepen is even better. You could say that it show their growth in a more understated way than just showing physical intimacy.
A Drama that I enjoyed back in the day was “Prime Minister and I” with Im Yoon-Ah. The main couple had some “accidental” specks that seems to have outraged the Korean public given that Im Yoon-Ah was Korea’s sweetheart at the moment. Even if the smooches entirely disappeared from the series at the end we get characters that understand and appreciate each other. That is a win in my books, if you ask me 😉 .
A thing that made me think is the agency both Nana and Tsumugi had. Both ladies expressed what they wanted and did what had to be done (even if I think that Nana was mistaken). You could say that Sou was a recipient of those ladies’ activities, contrary to usual Dramas where the male lead is the active one and the ladies receive the results of his actions.
My mind still does not wrap around TM’s actions. Spanish word “desabrido” (insipid) comes to mind. If me as an adult could have gotten together with my middle school crush I wouldn’t let her go unless extreme circumstances or horrible behaviour on her part.
That said, I am still very happy with this Drama, its core messages and its characters. They were lovely and the writer knew what she was doing.
Oh no! Another show IJUST HAVE TO REWATCH! Actually a good thing but where do I fit it in?
@Monmor, there may be geo restrictions for you, but I get the drama from Dramanice.
https://ww1.dramanice.video/silent-2022/
I just watched this drama. I loved reading the comments and @GB’s summaries.
I found the prejudices regarding handicapped people were both expected and novel. The drama explored the usual prejudices from the hearing majority, but also the prejudices felt within the hearing impaired community towards each other depending on the type, severity and duration of the hearing loss.
I also like the symbolism: barriers shown between people, whether it was lines, bridges or train tracks and the crossing rails going down (with red flashing lights). Also, in the 3rd episode, when we see TM kindly rescue a ladybug, only to have it fly off before he could capture it in a photo.
I too was a bit amazed that TM was such a doormat and initially would make assumptions that TA should be with SS, and did many things to bring it about: passing the flyer for the sign language course to her and having her come along to the futsal pitch. It was when Hikaru said that TA spoke in her sleep that I realised she probably had said SS’s name and that it was a clue to TM that their relationship was flawed. It reinforced TM’s ‘imposter syndrome’.
I think that TA and TM may have had a good life together. He saved her from her long self-imposed isolation and made her ‘glow’. It was love, but a different kind of love. Most people don’t end up with their first love and often a marriage between friends lasts better and longer than a wild romantic liaison. But as others said, their relationship was like marriage between an older couple and heading towards a stalemate when SS came back into the picture. It was gradually revealed that TM seemed to hide his opinions and thoughts from TA. Once he said that he thought he might become hateful if he kept thinking about TA and SS, it was clear that he was afraid of what he would do out of jealousy. I agree with @GB that a time bomb was ticking.
While I realise that SS was still grieving his loss, I did get frustrated by his reluctance to move forward with his relationship with TA. Especially when she broke up with TM and they were spending most of their free time together. I felt that he was catastrophizing – worrying like his mother – about their future rather than seeing the positives. Fortunately, by the end of the show SS is joking in sign language and TA is understanding, they are conversing about trivial matters and who knows, her sign language might reach his level after a few years.
Compared with some K-dramas where the families interfere or outright manipulate the adult children’s romantic lives, I felt that the families stayed a bit removed and allowed the situation to develop as it would. TA asked her mother for advice, rather than her mother giving it unsolicited for example.
I liked all of the secondary characters. Poor Nana with her unfortunate haircut that makes her look either older or too young and not as attractive as she could have… She actually had a rather abrasive personality when aroused. As did the teacher. We see that they influenced each other. I liked Hikaru and Moe – Hikaru especially because he could read between the lines. Moe because she spoke her thoughts.
Thanks again for the comments above.
Hi @Fern! It’s a lovely drama, isn’t it. I’m glad our comments added to your viewing pleasure.
Thanks for your thoughts. Yes, you are right about how Show portrays that we draw lines and categorise ourselves and others. We separate instead of unite ourselves with others. We and we divide them in groups, in our minds, making finer and finer distinctions until we might end up alone! We want to treat groups of people differently. I like that TA chose always to bridge the gap.
I liked all the supporting characters too. They had personality and were likable.
If the hallmark of being in a happy, comfortable, and open relationship is the mutual exchange of pointless chatter, then our couple certainly come full circle back to their halcyon school days. Whispering sweet nothings is taken to a new level with these two!!!