Silent Voice, A (2016) review

In the 6th grade, school bully Shoya (voiced by Miyu Irino) targets new deaf female student Shoko (Saori Hayami) - even going so far as to rip out her hearing aids (!?) - but years later when he sees her again, he does everything he can to make it up to her and try to be her friend.  There are some keen observations in this about feeling isolated and insecure in school - those Xs on the other students' faces! - but it's also two very long hours of a hearing-impaired girl being harassed and mocked which is unforgivably cheap from a dramatic perspective (it almost takes pleasure in knocking around a cripple) ... and later on it feels the need to ramp up the despair even more with Shoko being slapped around, attempting suicide, and then Shoya tries saving her and he almost dies.  Someone needed to step in and tinker with the script so it was 3/4 less hysterical and delete many of the redundant scenes: we get it.  Two nagging follow-up questions: (1.) Where are all the Dads? and (b.) Why didn't anyone tuck Shoya's shirt tag in?