THE STORY – A girl who can see colors in people’s hearts joins a band with two other people.
THE CAST – Akari Takaishi, Sayu Suzukawa, Taisei Kido, Yui Aragaki, Yasuko, Aoi Yūki, Minako Kotobuki & Keiko Toda
THE TEAM – Naoko Yamada (Director) & Reiko Yoshida (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 100 Minutes
I’ve seen anime heroes with a number of superpowers, but never one quite like Totsuko, the devout Catholic girl at the center of Naoko Yamada’s latest film, “The Colors Within.” To be honest, her powers aren’t exactly super — Totsuko has synesthesia, a condition that gives her the ability to perceive people or hear music and register them as colors. But it’s how Totsuko uses it on her journey and how Yamada depicts it visually that makes “The Colors Within” something special.
Though she has made only three feature films to date, Yamada offers a fresh (and rare) female voice in the male-dominated Japanese animation industry. Beginning with her debut feature, the acclaimed “A Silent Voice” in 2016, Yamada’s films have consistently focused on the concerns of young people, with an emphasis on the importance of friendship in their lives, a theme that once again is front and center in “The Colors Within.”
Friendship has been missing from Totsuko’s experience at her parochial school, where she feels that she never quite fits in. Part of the reason is her synesthesia, which causes her to see people as colors rather than potential friends with whom she can engage. Still, she is drawn to her classmate Kimi, whose rich blue color entrances Totsuko, that she doesn’t see the dodgeball that Kimi has thrown at her head. Shortly after the accident, Kimi drops out of school, greatly upsetting Totsuko, who holds herself responsible for Kimi’s decision.
A frantic Totsuko tries to track Kimi down, eventually finding her working at a local bookstore. Totsuko apologizes and, noticing Kimi’s guitar, concocts a lie that she’s also proficient in playing music, specifically the keyboards. When she is overheard by fellow customer Rui, who is skilled at playing the theremin, Totsuko impulsively suggests that they start a band together. To her shock, they readily agreed, forcing Totsuko to quickly learn how to play.
Music brings the trio closer together, and as she begins to master the keyboard, Totsuko starts to feel comfortable for the first time in having real friends. As she continues to see Kimi as a soothing blue and recognizes Rui as a bright green, Totsuko realizes that, when she looks in the mirror, there’s no color around her image. She becomes concerned that she may not have a color of her own, and her insecurities return in force.
But as Totsuko tries to keep the secret that she can view someone’s heart as having a color, so does she learn that she is not alone in deception. Kimi has never told her grandmother that she has dropped out of school, and Rui has never told his mother of his decision not to go into the family business. Even Sister Hiyoko, the young nun who is Totsuko’s closest confidant at the school, confesses that even as a young girl, she was in a band.
Among the more unusual themes of “The Colors Within” is Totsuko’s relationship with her faith. Usually, in teen films, the Church is often seen as the oppressive enemy of unconventional thinking, against which movie heroes regularly rebel. But Totsuko’s faith is strong, and recognizing that, Sister Hiyoko encourages her in her music, saying that any song, if deeply felt, could be considered a hymn and suggests that both religion and music are compatible paths for living a fulfilling life. As Totsuko regularly recites The Serenity Prayer, asking for the strength to accept the things she cannot change, Sister Hiyoko suggests that she finish the rest of the prayer: asking for “the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference,” which becomes a prime motivator for Totsuko to develop more friendships.
Yamada seems to suggest that among the things that Totsuko “cannot change” are her feelings for Kimi, which may go beyond mere friendship. Those feelings are never acted on, nor are they in any way explicitly stated, but Yamada lays in a few clues here and there. When Totsuko learns, for example, that Kimi has dropped out of school, the color around Totsuko appears to dim. In addition, when Totsuko realizes that there’s a chance that she will never see Kimi again, she sets out to search high and low throughout the town in hopes of just capturing at least a glimpse of her. (I think we’ve all been there.) Still, there’s never a judgment made on her feelings, either by Sister Hiyoko or by Yamada herself.
The film’s color motif gives the filmmaker a wide range of visual styles to work with, and she takes full advantage of it. Real life is represented by Yamada’s lovely 2D color palette, whose tones immerse you in the world she has created. When the point of view changes to how Totsuko sees her classmates’ colors, the visuals take on a different tone with slightly hazy backgrounds not unlike those of watercolors, with a sudden burst of color to represent that person’s aura. It’s a palette unlike any I’ve seen in anime in recent years, and when paired with Kensuke Ushio’s lovely score, the effect is magical.
If the film’s visuals are strong, its narrative, however, can feel slight at times. Once the band gets together, they spend any number of scenes talking and rehearsing, several of which offer revealing moments of character, while others do little. Admittedly, the stakes of the story are comparatively low. When your climax is either “Will Totsuko find her own color?” or “Will the band be able to come clean with their secrets before the big concert?” the outcome is rarely in doubt. Still, it’s the detail that Yamada provides for her characters that keep us engaged, even if the story can sometimes falter.
Ultimately, the care Yamada takes in developing her characters makes them so identifiable, so much so that they may trigger memories in the viewer of the first time we made our first steps into adulthood. To see Totsuko finally gather the courage to change the things she can is an inspiration to us all, and in “The Colors Within,” Yamada has captured such a key moment in a young person’s life with enormous style and grace.
