Shoya Ishida
1
0During grade school, Ishida loved to go on self-imposed adventures and played a lot, in what he described as a battle against "boredom". He always played pranks with living things or other kids. After Nishimiya transferred to their class, Ishida became more devious as he always mocked Nishimiya, in which resulted in him receiving scoldings from his teachers or mother very often. He was also afraid when learning that his mother would have to pay for Shoko’s replacement hearing aids. After he became the scapegoat for the bullying of Nishimiya, Ishida was isolated from everyone and became a very introverted individual, and developed anxiety, not wanting to look at anyone and blocked out their faces with Xs in his mind, despite saying that he hated her when she transferred to a different school. Sometime later on he was shocked when his former friends told him to stop doing the same old things. As he got older he sold all his stuff and was deeply filled with regret for all the things he did to Nishimiya, and started to contempt others. He also slowly grew to hate everyone and see them as "pretenders", such as Mashiba (who he thinks that having brown hair doesn't suit him), or Miki Kawai (calling her a hypocrite though initially, it was not a complete lie). Above all, Ishida hated himself for having bad thoughts about everyone else.
After reuniting with Nishimiya in high school, Ishida starts to gain friends, hang out and laugh more. Throughout this time, he has the objective to give Nishimiya back the former happiness that he once took away and helps her find the old friends she once had. Even with these acts of atonement, Ishida still struggles in moving on when he remembers his past mistakes and the isolation that followed.
Despite getting mad at someone, later on, Ishida usually is the first one to apologize for his actions and thinks he doesn't have the right to do so. He admitted to Tomohiro Nagatsuka that he became the way he is now because of Nishimiya. He also imagines how life would have been like if he befriended Nishimiya, if Nishimiya had remained friends with Sahara and if he never bullied her.
This self-hatred is shown at the very beginning in a scene where he imagines jumping from a tall bridge and planning to do so, only prevented by his mother taking note of his actions leading towards it such as selling all his things and ripping off the rest of his calendar, along with his eerily cleaned room. Others see him being dense and awkward around others, though his close friends know he means no harm and wants to get along, but tries too hard at times- and accidentally comes off as fake. 5 years later, he realizes that him
And Shoko go to the same high but in different classes and he tries looking for her to deeply apologize for what he did back in sixth grade m, he even took the time to learn sign language in a nearby school.* Your Shoko.
Follow