When creating a character, creators tend to be able to create captivating ones by allowing them to speak. But that’s easy mode. Creating a lovable and interesting character when that character can’t or doesn’t speak? Now there is a challenge. If you are looking for mute anime characters, we’ve rounded them up.
Best Silent Anime Characters
Nanako Yukishiro From Senryuu Girl
It is Nanako’s non-verbal quirk that led to the amazing experience that is Senryuu Girl. Nanako has some social anxiety, and thus doesn’t really speak. Instead, she can only communicate through haikus, which seems harder, but… Well, regardless, having a character only speak through these poems is an interesting if not reading-heavy experience.
Bojji From Ranking of Kings
Bojji may be deaf from birth and thus cannot speak, but he does posses the unfortunate understanding that people are mocking him as he goes about doing his best. That’s part of what makes him so lovable. In a series whose world ranks kings based on power and other criteria, this prince has a long road of struggle to walk if he wants to been seen as a strong king.
Eucliwood Hellscythe From Is This a Zombie?
Eucliwood is a necromancer and possesses an incredible power to make her every spoken word become reality. However, that’s not as convenient as it might sound. As such, she mostly doesn’t speak at all. This muteness makes her seem pretty cold, but she shows warmth through her actions.
Toge Inumaki From Jujustu Kaisen
Toge, like Eucliwood above, also possesses an ability to make his words powerful. In fact, it is how he fights, and he does it well. Unfortunately, when your words can maim and kill, you have to be careful with using them. As such, he has the unique quirk of saying a select few foods based on his feelings in the situation.
Celty From Durarara
You know, it’s actually kind of funny because I, like probably a lot of watchers of Durarara, remember Celty talking. She’s a Dullahan who is looking for her stolen head, thus she can’t talk. However, the part that causes confusion is that while she communicates with a PDA device, she begins to use the text-to-voice feature of it. So it seems like she is talking, but is not.
Shouko Komi From Komi Can’t Communicate
She’s the silent little cutie that has taken the weeb world by storm. She is beautiful and strangely popular, but Komi’s mouth is glued shut by the relatable prison that is social anxiety. Sure, Komi is cute, but you know the most impressive thing? How they created a legitimately funny and entertaining slice of life comedy when one of the major characters doesn’t talk at all. It’s been done before, yes, but not does as well as this.
Nezuko From Demon Slayer
As Nezuko was changed into a demon, she communicates mostly through grunts, growls, and trying to kill you. However, she has been minorly tamed by her brother and that keeps her from being exterminated, mostly. In order to keep her from attacking, her mouth has also been bound.
Rinnosuke Mitobe From Kuroko’s Basketball
While basketball isn’t the most communication-heavy sport, rarely do sports anime feature mute characters. Mitobe can talk, but doesn’t. Maybe it is because he has such a big family that he became the strong silent leader from behind the scenes that you see on the court. Perhaps the most impressive thing about both his character and the show is how they communicate his passion without him using his words.
Akira Oono From High Score Girl
High Score Girl is another series that features a cute and silent girl being accompanied by a boy that she learns to enjoy. However, this series is all about comedy through video games. As such, her male companion is actually pretty competitive with her, but loses constantly. That’s where the comedy comes from.
Nicholas Brown From Gangsta
A series about street toughs is kind of the last place you expect to find a deaf character, but maybe that’s part of what made Gangsta shine a bit. Nicholas is tough, but also deaf and communicates mostly through sign language. He can talk, but he speaks with that same affectation you would find in a deaf person, and thus does so very minimally.
Toshinari Seki From Tonari no Seki-kun
Imagine, if you will, a series in which the characters say very little and yet the comedy still flows. While technically Seki is not the main character, he never says a word, and the actual main character says little herself. The entire series is about just him doing weird stuff that gets his desk neighbor in trouble or otherwise distracts her.
Yu Narukami From Persona 4
You see, the protagonist in Persona 4, the video game, is a silent one. You pick things they can say, but even then, they don’t say a lot. So, it was kind of interesting to see Persona 4 become an anime since, even then, it’s not a series carried by the main character. Persona 4 is a series carried by the characters around that main character.
Takashi Morinozuka From Ouran High School Host Club
Every man in the Ouran High School Host Club fits some handsome man cliché. For the strong silent type, they have Mori-senpai. He can talk, and sometimes does, but he is a man of extremely limited words. Instead, he often shows his feelings through stoic nods or simply through his actions.
Yamada Tae From Zombieland Saga
Well, you see, Zombieland Saga is an idol anime where the idols are the reanimated corpses of girls that were or wanted to be idols in the past. Most of the girls “awakened” from being a brainless, groaning, flesh-eating zombie and have more human cognitive function. (The legendary) Yamada Tae, however, remains the sole member who has not awakened. Thus, mostly she grunts and groans her way through performances.
Brandon Heat From Gungrave
It’s not that Brandon is mute, per-say. He just doesn’t really talk. This is actually another Persona 4 situation where the main character in the game it is based on speaks minimally, so they say little in the anime. He is yet another shining example of the strong, silent type.
Mayu Morita From Miss Morita is Taciturn
In perhaps the most relatable bout of mutism, Mayu can speak, but rarely does. She was told by her mother to think before she speaks, but ends up overthinking everything. Thus most conversations end awkward and one-sidedly before she even has a chance to say anything, and that’s it! That’s the anime.
Do you know more good silent anime characters that don’t speak, or do so sparingly? Let fans know in the comments section below.
Minakami Mai from Nichijou deserve to be on the list too.