I thought those were the most obvious faces just to illustrate that it wasn't just expressions that were creepy, but there are some more stark faces in that chapter that also convey a similar idea. I think the last one just gives a good sense of the mother's menacing figure over the playing children. It's the go-to for, say, showing the power of an enemy relative to the protagonists in a shounen manga, but it's a little more subtle here and gives more a sense of unease and foreboding over portraying an imbalanced relationship.
Koe no Katachi 1-END
That was good. I didn't think there needed to be romantic closure for any of the characters when the story felt less about that and more about Ishida reconciling his past and learning how to deal with others in the face of it. It was interesting to see how few thoughts and dialogue we actually get directly from Nishimiya, so we're left to almost entirely understand her character through the interpretations of other characters.
Most of the supporting cast felt very exaggerated in character, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing here. Most of them come across as kind of unlikable, but the most unlikable traits they have are also the most relatable, and I think that's what made them work. I certainly didn't feel like they came across as particularly unrealistic, just sort of distilled.
