When we first meet Sou and Tsumugi they share the same homeroom in high school and yet they have never really spoken. Considering that students who share a homeroom spend the entire day together, from morning to the final bell, that requires some effort. It was Tsumugi who would break the ice, and Tsumugi who will be the more forward of the two. As soon as she approaches Sou, their give and take feels remarkably natural. It is as if they have known each other all along. Neither is out to try and impress the other. Neither has any reason to feel nervous. We come to the conclusion that they have already known enough about each other, observing, being observed, while at high school.
The beauty of the way they interact begs the question of why did it take so long for them to finally speak? They are both about to graduate high school and probably will never see each other again. Maybe knowing this was what got them to finally speak. Neither Sou nor Tsumugi is socially awkward. Neither is a freak or an oddball. Neither is a snob. Neither is a brain or a fool. They were raised right; they love their families. They are good-hearted people. But, for such unusually well-balanced students (as a former teacher I can say that if only all homerooms consisted of nothing but Sous and Tsumugis all would be well in the world), each is strangely aloof. It is these sets of factors that make the 2022 SILENT one of the best dramas I have seen over the past several years, for depicting realistically an intimate relationship that is genuine and true. The only love stories ever worth following for me are the ones that do not come with a hidden "happily ever after" agenda forced upon them.
Sou and Tsumugi have their futures in front of them. Maybe too proud, maybe too aloof, they have guarded their emotions under the false assumption that they are self-reliant people. Life is about to present them many challenges as they begin university life and look to prospects for establishing a lifelong career. One of the underrated aspects of this drama, as we follow Sou and Tsumugi through their university years and into their twenties, is that though they are not rebellious by nature, they have already begun to drop out emotionally from the strictly regulated mentality that drives the national work force. They have been educated and trained for the professions, but the professions haven't turned up roses for them. If it had, they might not have needed each other again. As they reflect back on their youthful romance, feelings of nostalgia isn't what stir them. They realize the love they felt for one another represents a kind of ideal for life they haven't found anywhere else since.
A love for music bonds them. Though it does appear more important to Sou's life than Tsumugi's. Later on in her twenties Tsumugi will work at Tower Records, to be closer to the music she loves, but we don't get the sense that her life depends on the music the way it does for Sou. With her intelligence, class, and work ethic, she ought to be fully employed in one of the middle class professions. Power harassment at the hands of a colleague caused her to bow out, but we get the sense that this was only the final straw.
The following scene details how, during high school, Sou and Tsumugi were able to establish such strong ties of affection. We have already seen the way they banter, and it is very attractive. Lightly competitive, free of noise, able to discuss anything large or small, largely devoid of insecurities, they only need the slightest pretext to talk, and once they do, it will fully engage them, often with smiles. They respect one another; they have already spotted the other's vulnerabilities. They know instinctively what it takes to show their support. The reserve each person possesses, however, prevents either from ever making an outward declaration of love.
How long can the good will and warm feelings last? Sou has come to the realization that he is losing his hearing. He needs to let Tsumugi know this so that she can better plan for her future with the knowledge that the Sou she knows today is not the Sou she will know in the future. But as a young man who still understands little about the world, though who sometimes likes to show Tsumugi that he is the more sophisticated of the two, he considers the choice of not letting Tsumugi know anything, so long as this happiness he feels, maybe for the first time in his life, lasts.
One of the aspects of this drama I loved is that it never insults the viewer's intelligence by having to explain everything so that we might understand what's going on. Most notably in the following scene, we see that Sou is clearly undergoing a transformation in his life that is traumatic. Nothing in life prepares you for moments like these. And for a boy full of pride, it is not easy for him to make clear-cut choices.
Every minute of this five minute clip packs in enough emotional content that other dramas, wishing to make everything clear, will need several episodes to sort out. In fact, the opening five or so episodes of SILENT were so psychologically complex, with each character's soul laid out in full detail, that the second half of the drama had nowhere else to go but to sort out what it had established in the first half. Everything that is being said between these two characters in this scene is spoken beneath the surface. It might have been easier for Sou to speak the truth had he not observed firsthand the purity of Tsumugi's heart. Tsumugi, noticing the purity of Sou's heart, wishes to help him ease his mind, but she cannot if he cannot speak openly.
We see right from the beginning, as they meet in the park, that Sou isn't responding to Tsumugi like he usually does. Tsumugi notices this too, and brilliantly, wishes to establish trust between them in a way that isn't demanding (everyone ought to study Tsumugi for how she does this). For such a young woman, her understanding of the heart is unusually mature. She wants to know why he has asked to meet her today. We can see that he needs to tell her about the onset of his loss of hearing, and that it is not easy for him. When he says he wants to ask her something,
ああ、うん。青羽に聞いてほしいことあって。
we see that he cannot manage to do it. We wonder why not, and will soon realize that Sou's pride is a major issue of the drama.
Tsumugi senses he is scared, about what she does not know, but it is a first for her to see him like this, and, after all, it was he who had invited her out to the park to speak. He wants to speak with her, but for some reason, he has nothing to say. Rather than press him, she offers her her love, and while doing so, guesses at what is bothering him. From previous talks she understands that, though he is an exceptional football (soccer) player, the players on the team don't like him. They are probably just jealous of his abilities, she reiterates. (One exceptional detail about this scene is that we haven't seen the talk she is referring to—it was the writers' choice to show that we have enough knowledge about Sou and Tsumugi as a couple that we can well imagine how that discussion went.) Never mind those other people, she says. Only care about the opinions of people that matter... like me. It is a lovely declaration of support, all the more lovely when we realize that the two haven't yet formalized their status as a couple. But we—Tsumugi—can see that Sou does not know how to deal with the crisis he must now face.
Then she says it's okay for boys to cry. She's not one to judge him for anything. Once again, Tsumugi's words are lovely, so are her gestures of support, and maybe for that reason Sou's emotions become ever more complex. And so he says nothing. I cannot begin to stress how refreshing it is to see characters in a drama not "work out" their feelings through open discussion.
Call me if you ever need me, she says, and leaves him be. She says she's available for him 24 hours a day. We should all be so lucky to have a Tsugumi in our lives. Everything she has just said, remarkably, has little to nothing to do with herself.
Unlike Tsumugi, Sou understands that he can no longer afford to be so selfless. He cannot help but think only of himself, because if the hearing loss continues, he will become a burden on everyone he loves, especially his family. When she tells him, ever so innocently, that she likes to talk on the phone because she likes to hear the sound of his voice, it strikes him that he will no longer be able to hear her voice. And what are her lovely gestures going to be if he can no longer understand what she says?
The following moment is what makes Japanese dramas great. Everything we've seen in the previous few minutes suggest that Sou is fully aware of the ethical implications of maintaining his silence. The logical thing to do, if he truly does love this girl, is to be up front and let her know what is happening to him. But he does not because he cannot. The rest of the drama—and we've only reached the beginning of Episode 2 by this point—deals with the question of why Sou cannot.
For now, what does he decide to do instead of be truthful? Rather than maintain his silence he decides to formalize their relationship by asking Tsumugi if he can call her by her first name (prior to this moment they had been referring to each other formally by their family names). It might be placing a burden on her but he needs to declare his love. It takes her a few seconds to realize he has just done so. Initially, she had assumed they had come to the park to talk about him; here, she realizes they have come to the park to talk about "us". And so Tsumugi calls Sou by his first name, too.
They are now officially a couple. Or are they?
I have thought long and hard about this scene. I feel it is one of the better ones from one of the great, Japanese television dramas. I use the adjective "Japanese" here because I feel this scene is distinct to its culture. Throughout the drama, I don't feel we ever fully learn why Sou makes the decisions he does. As for this scene, my first impression was that Sou, needing to feel good about himself without being honest to the girl he loves, was being unfair to her. But after he declares his love for Tsumugi, he apologizes, which I had found strange. Why is he apologizing, I asked myself? Is it that he understands he is being deceptive? My feeling now is that Sou fully understood what he was doing. He wished to declare his love for Tsumugi before the worst happened, so that he can hear her declare her love for him in her own voice, and before the sound of her voice will only become a memory. What he is doing is definitely selfish, because he is giving Tsumugi false expectations. He needed to do this so he could experience something important: to feel that Tsumugi does indeed love him. But now that he understands this, the knowledge only ends up serving to make the trauma of losing his hearing that much more difficult to take. We see this as he walks away.
I think my little theory holds. Tsumugi's narration tells us that she never heard from "Sakura-kun" again (note that she has reverted to referring to him formally by his family name). Eventually the two meet up again, but many years later. The rest of the drama works out the complexity of their relationship as it is shown in this scene. In later years we see that in some ways their relationship has changed, in others it has not, telling us that the bond they have is much stronger than any youthful romance. Circumstances (Sou's loss of hearing) isn't what makes their relationship complex. It's that their feelings for each other are real, of a bond that cannot be broken.
Kawaguchi Haruna and Meguro Ren, as Tsumugi and Sou, are outstanding throughout the drama. My jaw dropped about halfway through watching SILENT when I looked up Meguro and discovered this was one of his first acting credits. Maybe Kawaguchi brought out the best of him, maybe he is just unusually talented. We'll find out soon enough. I have so much to say about this drama, as I rank it among the best I have seen. Though they are different kinds of dramas, I rank it along with QUARTET for not only being greatly acted and produced, but for being made with an aesthetic that is unique to Drama World, so much so that the styles of these two dramas make me want to live in their worlds. For now, though, I would like to reserve a special word for Sou's younger sister Moe, played by Sakurada Hiyori. Immature, still rough around the edges, I loved the way she portrayed being fully devoted to her older brother, fully sympathizing with him, never losing hope. For those who watch and love this drama, and are looking for more in depth coverage, I highly recommend reading Chiaki at Dorama World's writing on it. Ranking the drama as highly as I do, she gives thoughtful, episode by episode commentary that caused me to rethink some of the opinions I had formed about the various characters.
As great as the actors were, though, I don't think this drama would have been half as good had they had different writers and producers. What else makes this scene so exceptional? Let us note the following:
- No music was used throughout the entirety of the scene. We have been spared the manipulation of our emotions by overbearing music. All we really hear outside of Tsumugi and Sou's voices are the wind and the city din. The music returns at the end of the scene, but by that point the emotions have been earned.
- When Sou departs from Tsumugi, we can see and hear the wind rustling the trees. A very classical, and poetic, Japanese touch, one that goes back to the origins of the culture.
- There are two moments in the scene where it feels like we're not watching a drama but observing an actual young couple, as if we were in the park ourselves and watching them as a neutral observer. The first, when Tsumugi touches Sou on the back while lending her support. The second, when the couple departs and we see Tsumugi in profile. That moment could have been handled any number of ways. A second-rate drama would have focused on Tsumugi's face so that it could tell us exactly how she feels. Instead, it shows her from a distance, and with the camera offering her some space. Even when she turns to us and walks our way, reentering the drama, Kawaguchi's acting is such that we have a pretty good idea how Tsumugi feels, but not entirely, because she herself doesn't know. She registers both the happiness Tsumugi feels now that she and Sou have declared their love, but also a touch of anxiety knowing that Sou was holding something back. We see Tsumugi at the height of her happiness and yet while the narration is telling us how short-lived that happiness was. Why do these choices matter? Because style is everything, especially when it understands that subtlety goes much further in showing us the heart than hearing someone being articulate about it or when stating the obvious just for the sake of pride.
[Photograph: 川口春奈 Kawaguchi Haruna, from Episode 2 of the 2022 silent]
Script
From Episode 2, script courtesy of the blog 碧のサカナ.
Tsumugi: 今日、なんで？
Sou: ああ、うん。青羽に聞いてほしいことあって。
Tsumugi: 何？
Sou: [ ~ ]
Tsumugi: 大学、大変？部活で嫌なことあった？佐倉くんに向けられる悪意ってね、全部嫉妬だから聞き流して大丈夫だよ。みんな佐倉くんのこと嫌いなんじゃないの。好きすぎるの。人の悪口ってね、悪口言っていい人には言っていいんだよ。私、言っていい人だから。寝たら忘れる人だから。はい、どうぞ。
Sou: (笑う、 ちょっと)
Tsumugi: 泣きたい時。優しくされると泣きたくなるよね。わかる。いいよ、泣いとこ泣いとこ。男の子だって泣いていいんだよ。私、寝たら忘れる人だから。
Sou: 大丈夫。泣くの大丈夫
Tsumugi: うん。じゃあなんかあったら電話して？
Sou: うん、わかった
Tsumugi: なんもなくても電話して。
Sou: わかった
Tsumugi: 佐倉くんの電話したい時に電話して。私、したくない時ないから。24時間体制だから。
Sou: 青羽、電話好きだよね。
Tsumugi: うん好き。声聞けるからね。
Sou: 声はね 聞きたいよね
Tsumugi: 佐倉くんの声聞くたびに思うんだよね、
好きな声だなあって
Sou: 青羽ごめん、時間が
Tsumugi: あ、時間 大丈夫？
Sou: うん、ごめんね。
Tsumugi: また電話する
Sou: あのさ、名前言ってもらっていい？
Tsumugi: 紬？
Sou: ふ、うん。してる。えっとね
Tsumugi: 佐倉くんってこと？
Sou: うん
Tsumugi: えっ？ あ、そういうことか
想くん 初めて呼んだ。緊張した。
Sou: ごめん、なんか急に
Tsumugi: ううん、緊張した
Sou: 本当ごめんね
Tsumugi: 大丈夫 そんな謝んで
Sou: じゃ。
Tsumugi: うん、またね 想くん。
Narration (Tsumugi): それから佐倉くんは
一度も電話に出てくれなかった。