Both in the beginning and towards the end of Koe no Katachi there’s a fundamental scene where Ishida walks in the school hallway in anxiety while avoiding eye contact with his fellow students. The key difference between the two scenes is that the first one was done in a subjective point-of-view while the last one in an objective point-of-view. The difference in POV was to visually accentuate the contrast in narrative between the beginning and the end.



Subjective POVs are usually shot in first person perspective and this is exactly how a large portion of the first “hallway scene” was shot. In this POV the audience sees the world from the character’s eyes, a far more visually and emotionally engaging experience. The viewer is in Ishida’s shoes as he walks through hallway, nervously looking down at the ground and avoiding the faces of other students. The camera shakes and moves unevenly. This motion of the camera not only emulates Ishida’s movement but also highlights his discomfort and…