Shōko Nishimiya

*This article is about the **Shōko Nishimiya** character. For articles that share the same name, see Shoko.*

## Shōko Nishimiya

### Alias

Sho-chan
Shōko-chan
Nishimiya-san

## Professional Status

### Occupation

Student
Hairdresser

### Affiliation

Unknown Vocational School
Salon Stray Cat
Suimon Elementary (Formerly)
2nd Elementary (Formerly)

## Relationships

### Parents

Unnamed Father
Yaeko Nishimiya (Mother)

### Other relatives

Paternal grandparents
Ito Nishimiya (Grandmother) †

## Voice Actors

### English

Lexi Marman-Cowden
Mélanie Lemaistre (Young)

**Shōko Nishimiya** (西宮 硝子, *Nishimiya Shōko*) is a major character in the series.

Born mostly deaf, Shōko often faces difficulties in communicating and connecting with others, causing her issues during her childhood. Particularly with Shōya Ishida, who became her bully during sixth grade. When Shōya comes back into her life five years later, Shōko accepts his friendship and begins experiencing the connection with others she’s wanted for so long. However, the trauma from her past causes her self-loathing and tendency to blame herself to reveal themselves. Despite this, Shōko begins to learn the value of her life with the help of Shōya, as well as helping him realize the value of his.

## Description

### Appearance

Shōko is a cute and beautiful girl with straight, dusty rose colored hair that she wears in various styles and lengths throughout the series. Her eyes are round, with large brown irises that give her a welcoming look. Noticeably, Shōko’s hair tends to obscure her ears from view when not tied into a ponytail or bun, possibly a visual choice to indicate how open she feels to the world compared to others.

At twelve years old, Shōko wore her hair in a bob style while keeping her natural bangs. She is of average height and weight for her age, being almost as tall as Shōya Ishida during this time. Her head also appears slightly more round than her future self.

Shōko’s most common outfit was a light pink t-shirt, plaid yellow skirt, and sneakers. However, she would also wear various styled dresses with coats instead.

### Personality

In her youth, Shōko had a strong desire to connect with people around her. However, due to difficulties in communication, she was often met with misunderstanding, disinterest, or bullying. Her hope of making friends was symbolized to her by the communication notebook she brought to Takeuchi's class, and she temporarily gave up this wish after Shōya Ishida tossed this book into the school’s pond.

After facing isolation of both external and self-imposed varieties for many years of her life, Shōko has become a melancholic and self-loathing person in her late teens. She is plagued by guilt over what she sees as her own role in the dysfunctional situations of her past, including both her school and family life, and she has developed a tendency to blame herself when things go wrong even when she alone is negatively affected. Due to her lack of confidence in her own perceptions and desire not to be a burden, she struggles with avoidant behaviors, which ultimately exacerbate her feelings of guilt and inadequacy. However, these negative feelings are usually hidden beneath the more obvious positive parts of her personality.

At her core, Shōko is a kind and compassionate person who is rather easygoing and she is shown to be very patient and forgiving, even to her former bully Shōya, whose friendship she earnestly accepts when years later he expresses regret at mistreating and failing to understand her. She also expresses a caring and nurturing side, as seen when she tells Shōya that it makes her happy to give others what they need. Although her disability makes certain parts of her life difficult, Shōko never feels the need to be pitied or treated specially.

Being a visually focused person by necessity, Shōko has a fondness for visual metaphor and symbolism, as exemplified by her feelings toward her sixth grade notebook, her affection for Madagascar periwinkles in the language of flowers, and various other actions over the course of the story. Contrary to most people's expectations, she is rather analytical and perceptive, and she is usually quick to discern the content and subtext of conversations even when they are not signed to her. However, she tends to lack confidence in her own judgments of social situations, which causes her to highly value others' honesty, even when that honesty is harsh. This quality explains her sixth grade desire to be friends with the tactless but honest Shōya, and it is part of her reason for associating with Naoka Ueno in adulthood.

It is through her growing friendship with Shōya that Shōko embraces more of herself and starts to express her emotions more openly, revealing moments of anger, sadness, and genuine happiness. After being saved from her lowest point, Shōko chooses to confront her negative feelings and starts accepting the value in her own life even with its imperfections. After assuming this more realistic and proactive mindset, she finds greater success enriching the lives of the people around her, finally achieving her desire to be a source of strength for others. The culmination of her growth is shown in her choice to move to Tokyo after graduating, finally looking forward to her own dream of becoming a hairdresser, which was partly inspired by her childhood encounter with Miyako Ishida (Shōya's mother) at her salon.

## Etymology

* The name **Shōko** means "nitre" (硝) (**shou**) and "child" (子) (**ko**).
	+ The name **Shōko** (硝子) is another way of reading *Garasu* (硝子), meaning "glass, pane".
* Shōko's surname **Nishimiya** means "west" (西) (**nishi**) and "temple, shrine, palace" (宮) (**miya**).

## Trivia

* Shōko and Shōya Ishida share the same nickname of **Shō-chan**.
	+ Their birthdays are also one day apart, Shōko's being the 7th of June while Shōya's is the 6th.
* The user ID of Shōko's mail address nichinichisou0607@mokomo.ne.jp is a pun of the initial sounds of her name and a flower plant Madagascar periwinkle (日々草, nichinichisou in Japanese) plus her birth date.
* Lexi Marman-Cowden (Shōko's English voice actress) is also deaf.